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NCAA Basketball Tournament Sweet 16 2022: Dates, Times, Bracket for Friday’s action
By Keith Farner
Published:
NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 action rolls on Friday night with 4 more games following an entertaining lineup on Thursday, especially given Arkansas’ upset of Gonzaga.
The darling of the tournament, Saint Peter’s, will look to continue its run with a Big Ten heavyweight in Purdue. The Peacocks are led by tenacious point guard Doug Edert, who is recognized for his mustache, which happens to have its own Twitter account. Saint Peter’s will have to contend with plenty of talent from Purdue, including Jaden Ivey, 6-10 Trevion Williams, 3-point shooter Sasha Stefanovic and 7-foot-4 Zach Edey.
In the third game of the night, UCLA and North Carolina feature programs that have combined been to 39 Final Fours and won 17 national titles. The winners will meet Sunday in Philadelphia.
Providence and Kansas, and Iowa State and Miami, with both games in Chicago, all feature great defenses. The winners will play Sunday.
The Hurricanes recorded 22 steals in their first two NCAA games — second only to the Cyclones — as they allowed their opponents to shoot 37.8 percent from the field. The Jayhawks are allowing 34.2 percent shooting in the NCAA tourney. Providence is giving up 54 points per game, and the No. 4 seed limited Richmond to 1-for-22 shooting from 3-point range during the second round victory.
In the nightcap, Iowa State leads the Sweet 16 in scoring defense (51.5 points per game), field-goal percentage defense (33.3%), steals (24) and turnovers forced (36), according to Sportradar, per the Associated Press. It’s quite a turnaround under first-year coach T.J. Otzelberger after the program won just 2 games last season.
Here is the schedule (all times ET):
7:09 p.m., CBS: No. 15 Saint Peter’s vs. No. 3 Purdue
7:29 p.m., TBS: No. 4 Providence vs. No. 1 Kansas
9:39 p.m., CBS: No. 8 North Carolina vs. No. 4 UCLA
9:59 p.m., TBS: No. 11 Iowa State vs. No. 10 Miami
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
