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NCAA Tournament Notebook: 3 Shining Moments (And 1) From Day 1 of the Sweet 16
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The first day of the Sweet 16 delivered the best game of the NCAA Tournament to date, stars living up to their billing, and a head coach of a Sweet 16 team getting booed by his own fans on the way to the arena. By the end of the evening, err… early Friday morning, one half of the Elite Eight was set, with all the higher seeded teams (Alabama, Texas Tech, Florida and Duke) moving on to regional finals on Saturday night.
Here are 3 thoughts — and the bonus — on Thursday’s Sweet 16 action.
Mark Sears is Back — and so is Alabama
The first 3 Alabama All-American Mark Sears took on Thursday night rattled off the iron, but in the end, Nate Oats was right. Mark Sears was too good to keep missing shots. Sears made the next 3 triples he tried and knocked down a stunning 10 on the evening on his way to a 34-point explosion that put Alabama in the Elite Eight for the second-consecutive season.
“I told Sears there’s a thing called regression to the mean. His last 6 games he was shooting 14%, 5 of 35. He’s not a 14% shooter, obviously,” Oats told the media after Alabama routed 6-seed BYU 113-88 in Newark. “They had been going under ball screens just about every game we watched. I told both those guys, Holloway and Sears, ‘Man, I hope they go under us because we’re going to rain ’em.”
BYU’s decision to go under ball screens was intended to keep the Crimson Tide, one of the nation’s best teams at getting high quality 2s at the rim, out of the paint. That worked. Unfortunately for the Cougars, Alabama, a 34.2% 3-point shooting team in NCAA Tournament play entering the game, connected on an NCAA-record 25 3-pointers on 51 — yes, 51 — attempts to bury BYU in an avalanche of offense. Alabama’s perimeter performance was so prolific that the Crimson Tide would have scored enough points to win the game (93) even if they had not converted a single 2-pointer all evening.
The story begins and ends with Sears, the first 2-time All-American selection in Alabama basketball history.
Sears scored over 20 points for the second time in the NCAA Tournament and made more than 2 triples for the first time since hitting 4 in a March 1 loss at Tennessee. Sears dished out 8 assists and grabbed 3 steals, for good measure, proving yet again that when he’s on a heater, he’s as difficult to guard as any player in the sport. Alabama’s 1.43 points per possession were the Crimson Tide’s best output since February 25, when they averaged 1.44 in a rout of Mississippi State.
Sears and Alabama firing on all cylinders ahead of a titanic showdown with a dominant ACC 1-seed? Where have we seen this movie before? If you are asking for RJ Davis and Armando Bacot, tell them to tune in Saturday night when Alabama squares off with Cooper Flagg and Duke. Appointment TV.
Florida’s depth devours Crab 5
Florida vs. Maryland was billed as a battle between 2 of the nation’s most-efficient starting 5s. Florida’s 5-man starting group ranks 4th in America in efficiency and Maryland’s “Crab 5” ranked 7th entering the game — the only Sweet 16 matchup with 2 of the best 10 starting rotations.
For a half on Thursday night at Chase Arena in San Francisco, it looked like Maryland’s Crab 5 was bothering Florida.
The Gators committed 13 turnovers in the opening half — 2 more than they averaged per game this season — and struggled to handle Maryland’s interior duo of Julian Reese and Derik Queen. Somehow, the Gators led by 2 at the break anyway, a product of great perimeter defense and the timely shooting of All-American guard Walter Clayton Jr., who kept the Gators in the game with a barrage of early 3s and silky drives like this one.
At halftime, Florida head coach Todd Golden emphasized ball security. Golden felt, rightly, that Florida was getting what it wanted offensively, as long as they didn’t give away possessions.
The veteran Gators listened, playing their most complete half of the NCAA Tournament to pull away and defeat Maryland by 16 and advance to the Elite Eight for the 10th time in program history.
Florida’s depth made the difference. While only 5 Maryland players made a field goal, marking the first time since 2022 in college basketball that a team had only 5 players make a field goal, per EvanMiya, the Gators received dynamic play from multiple pieces of their bench. Thomas Haugh, snubbed for SEC Sixth Man of the Year despite overwhelming efficiency metrics, scored 13 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, and dished out 4 assists. Guard Denzel Aberdeen was even better, scoring 12 on 5-of-7 shooting and suffocating Maryland’s guards on the perimeter with his length and physicality on defense. Florida’s bench outscored Maryland’s 29-3, and left the Terrapins with little in the tank to chase the Gators once Florida seized control of the game when Ja’Kobi Gillespie picked up his fourth foul with 12 minutes remaining and Maryland down 9.
“I think their bench just overwhelmed us and wore us down,” Maryland head coach Kevin Willard, who, during Maryland’s hotel send-off, was roundly booed by his own fan base for his dogged pursuit of the Villanova job, said following the game.
But that’s what the Gators have done all season. They come at you in waves. They guard. They rebound. They have the best backcourt in America. And now they are 1 win from Florida’s sixth Final Four.
Farewell, Cinderella Cal. It was fun while it lasted.
The nightcap in San Francisco was the best game of the NCAA Tournament to date.
Wearing the glass slipper for the first time in his coaching career, John Calipari had Arkansas ready to play against a tough Texas Tech team featuring All-American JT Toppin. The Razorbacks made 7 first half 3s to lead by 7 at the break and ballooned the lead to 16 in the second half behind the brilliant play of freshman Karter Knox and veteran Johnell Davis, who scored 20 and 30, respectively, for the Hogs. Arkansas led by 13 with just under 5 minutes to go when Texas Tech, frustrated all night by Arkansas’s length and quickness, woke up.
After a 10-0 run cut the Arkansas lead to 3 with 2:06 remaining, the teams traded buckets before Darrion Williams tied the game with 9 seconds left in regulation. For whatever reason, Arkansas did not get the ball to Johnell Davis, who gives the Hogs the best chance of either scoring off the bounce, shooting, or getting fouled trying, and the game went to overtime. That’s where Williams delivered again, scoring the game-winning basket with 7 seconds to play.
Williams’ heroics capped the second-largest comeback in Sweet 16 history and marked the first time in Calipari’s Hall of Fame career that a Calipari team lost a NCAA Tournament game they led by double digits.
It’s a shame, really, because Calipari had the Hogs finally playing to their prodigious talent level. With as many as 4 likely NBA players and several more players who will play basketball professionally for years after they leave Fayetteville, Arkansas made the Sweet 16 by finally playing like a team that was more than a collection of nice parts. The way that Arkansas can drive and guard, a Final Four wasn’t out of the question. Instead, Calipari should be left pondering why he didn’t foul up 3 with 10 seconds to play all offseason (but he probably won’t think about it at all, as he has made a couple of head-scratching decisions this postseason).
Arkansas will simply reload, because that’s what Calipari does. But Cal knows better than anyone that Sweet 16s are tough to come by in this era of the sport. That’s why it hurts to not take advantage of those chances, even the unexpected ones.
Your Daily Moment of Cooper Flagg
There was a fleeting moment on Thursday night, with the game tied at 42 and Arizona’s Caleb Love playing absolutely out of his mind against Duke yet again, when you wondered if the Blue Devils might be in trouble. And then Cooper Flagg made this logo 3 at the halftime buzzer, sparking a 20-5 Duke run across two halves that put any drama to bed.
Look, I’m not saying Duke is winning this tournament. Not yet. But when you have an 18-year-old who can drop 30 points, grab 7 rebounds, dish out 6 assists, and block 3 shots in the Sweet 16, and he’s surrounded by 4 pros… well, a Duke run to the final Monday night of the season is starting to feel inevitable.
Then again, there’s Mark Sears. If Flagg vs. Sears doesn’t get the juices flowing, what are you even doing here?
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
