Sweet 16 takeaways: The Pac-12 is soaring, the Big Ten was a flop, and the favorites remain
What those teams have in common is this: The basketball committee under-seeded each so badly that it isn’t unfair to wonder whether anyone among the Puffed-Up 10 bothered to watch either team play.
Of course, the committee didn’t exactly cover itself in glory in general: Only seven of the 16 teams it seeded to reach the second weekend are still playing. One No. 1 seed — Illinois — is gone, victimized by Loyola Chicago in the second round. The game was never in doubt.
And one conference, the Big Ten, should be embarrassed. Hyped all year as one of the great leagues ever, it got nine bids. One of those nine teams survived the first weekend — No. 1 seed Michigan. Ohio State, a No. 2 seed, lost in overtime to Oral Roberts. Iowa, also a No. 2 seed, was soundly beaten in the second round by Oregon.
The Ducks are one of four Pac-12 teams that reached the round of 16. If there was ever a case to be made of clear-cut East Coast bias, it was made over those five days by the kids from out west, who went a combined 9-1. For the record, I’m looking in the mirror as I write that sentence. I had no clue.
The highest-seeded Pac-12 team was Colorado, a No. 5 seed, which annihilated Georgetown in the first round Saturday and then became the only conference team to lose when it dropped a 71-53 decision to Florida State in the second round.
In addition to Oregon (a No. 7 seed), sixth-seeded Southern California, 11th-seeded UCLA and 12th-seeded Oregon State will be hanging around Indianapolis for a second week. The Trojans’ victory over Kansas on Monday night might have been the most shocking result — or at least the most shocking score — in an NCAA men’s tournament game since Maryland Baltimore County beat Virginia by 20 points three years ago. Final: USC 85, Kansas 51. That’s not a typo.
Their defeat put an emphatic end to arguably the worst season the sport’s so-called blue bloods have ever suffered through. Kentucky finished 9-16; Duke was 13-11 — the latter’s season ended by the coronavirus while it was trying to squeeze into the tournament.
Michigan State did squeeze in but blew an 11-point halftime lead to UCLA in a play-in game and lost in overtime. North Carolina qualified as a No. 8 seed and then got blown out in the first round by Wisconsin, 85-62.
In all, the five powerhouses finished with a combined record of 76-60. In a normal year, each would usually be at least 20 games over .500 or close to it.
Speaking of powerhouses, Gonzaga continues to cruise along virtually unnoticed because it makes things look so easy. Oklahoma hung around for a while Monday before losing, 87-71. Losing by less than 20 to Gonzaga this season has been something of a moral victory. It’s worth noting that the Sooners beat four top-10 teams in January and are coached by a guy — Lon Kruger — who has won 674 games and coached five schools into the tournament.
Creighton was lucky to escape UC Santa Barbara in the first round but easily beat Ohio, which was clearly still celebrating its victory over Virginia, the tournament’s most recent champion.
Anyone who criticizes the Cavaliers for losing should be forced to sit in a room with the Puffed-Up 10 for 24 straight hours and listen to them make excuses for their mistakes. Like Kansas, Virginia had to drop out of its conference tournament because of coronavirus issues, and it didn’t get to fly to Indianapolis or practice until Friday after dealing with the required pause and quarantine. That’s not to take anything away from the Bobcats, who earned their victory.
The most pleasant surprise of the weekend was Oral Roberts. The committee’s bevy of excuse-makers will point out that the Golden Eagles finished fourth in the Summit League as justification for their low seed. What they won’t point out is Oral Roberts played nonconference games against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Wichita State — all tournament teams. They didn’t win any of the four but lost two of them by five points apiece. And, while they were fourth in the standings, they finished one game out of first place.
Details, details.
That experience against top teams clearly helped against Ohio State and Florida. At no point did the Golden Eagles look tight or overmatched. In overtime against the Buckeyes, they jumped in front and never looked back. Frequently when an underdog has a chance to win and gets forced into OT, it runs out of emotional gas.
Irrelevant note No. 1: School founder Oral Roberts’s first name was Granville. Clearly, he understood that Granville Roberts University wouldn’t have the same ring to it. Irrelevant note No. 2: Roberts was a big basketball fan. I was supposed to interview him during research for my book, “A Season Inside,” but our meeting was canceled on the morning-of because, I was told, Roberts had gone into the on-campus tower to pray and fast as part of a fundraising appeal. If he didn’t raise millions, Roberts told his supporters, God would “call him home.”
I’ve been given a lot of reasons for having interviews called off. That one is, if nothing else, unique.
The ACC got seven bids in a down year, and only Florida State and Syracuse are still alive. The Orange beat West Virginia in the second round in a game in which Old Man River (Bob Huggins) lost to Older Man River (Jim Boeheim). But the ACC’s best chance for a Final Four team may be Florida State. Even on a ruptured Achilles’, Leonard Hamilton keeps rolling along.
Gonzaga and Baylor have to still be considered the favorites to play in the national championship game on April 5. But there are two things about this tournament that are certain: The TV timeouts and 20-minute halftimes will take forever and, more importantly, nothing is guaranteed.
