Apr 1, 2013
What started with 64 teams in now left with just 16, this is March Madness! The NCAA Tourney was a complete amazement this time around. It was one of the most brilliant displays of basketball ever! These 16 have given their all to reach this stage and try and go through to the Elite Eight.
Here I give you the spills and thrills, we saw in the Sweet (and for some Sour) 16.
The No. 1 seed Louisville Cardinals beat the No. 12 seed Oregon Ducks and advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament in the Midwest Region Friday evening, 77-69. Russ Smith led the Cardinals with 31 points and three assists. He was 9-16 shooting from the floor and hit 12-14 at the free throw line.
Trey Burke never doubted he could lead Michigan to it a deep NCAA run. Not after a scoreless first half. Not when the Wolverines trailed top-seeded Kansas by 14 with less than 7 minutes left — or by 5 with 21 seconds left. Burke scored all 23 of his points in the second half and overtime, including a long, tying 3-pointer in the final moments of regulation as Michigan rallied to beat Kansas 87-85 in the South Regional semifinals Friday night.
In a game with several lead changes and momentum swings, No. 6 Duke prevailed over No. 9 Michigan State 71-61 on Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in the Sweet Sixteen. There were 10 lead changes in the game. Seth Curry sparked Duke, as he scored 29 points, pulled down four rebounds, and drilled 6-of-9 three-pointers in the victory.
FGCU came out dunking, hitting 3-pointers and basically doing whatever it wanted early, jumping to a 15-4 lead to set off the upset alarm early with an 11-0 run. The Gators needed a boost and Prather provided one with a rim-rattling dunk when Yeguete rebounded a miss by FGCU’s Sherwood Brown, found Prather in transition and watched as Prather did the rest. The Gators’ bench helped slam the door in Cinderella’s face in Florida’s 62-50 win over the Eagles.
Marshall’s team simply ran past the undersized and largely overwhelmed Explorers, jumping to a 16-point halftime lead and extending it to 22 early in the second half en route to an easy 72-58 victory. The ninth-seeded Shockers did not need a barrage of threes to advance.
Syracuse, the fourth seed in the East Region, handled the top seed with amazing ease, in ways that weren’t reflected in the 61-50 final score at Verizon Center. Syracuse dominated Indiana physically and had athletes that Indiana couldn’t match up with. The Hoosiers’ best players, almost to a man, withered away more as the game wore on. Nobody could keep up with Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams, who looked like the best player on the floor by far all night, finishing with 24 points
Arizona Wild Cats lost to the Ohio State Buckeyes, 70-73 in the closest encounter of this season’s Sweet 16. The game changed hands and so did the leads enough times to make you go wow. But in the end, the Buckeyes won with amazing strength but with quite a lot of difficulty.
The No. 3 seed Marquette Golden Eagles dominated the No. 2 seed Miami (FL) Hurricanes and advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament in the East Region Thursday evening, 71-61. Jamil Wilson led the Golden Eagles with 16 points.
This proved to be the perfect set up for the Elite Eight. Now the stakes are getting higher and the games getting hotter!
-Heisenberg
