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| Kentucky head coach John Calipari shouts instructions to his team during the second half of an NCAA tournament college basketball game in Louisville, Ky., Saturday, March 21, 2015. Kentucky won 64-51. |
It's the Sweet 16 - the second week of the NCAA Tournament - and that means bragging rights for college basketball programs.
Check
the cover of media guides or banners adorning arenas. They always start
with Sweet 16 appearances. No bragging about the first weekend. Playing
this week means you had two good wins and you are just two wins from
the Final Four.
The story of the tournament
has been Kentucky's pursuit of a perfect season. Everyone's playing in
that shadow. The Wildcats improved to 36-0 - the best start to a season
for any team - and they're trying for 40-0. That would be the first
undefeated season by a national champion since Indiana in 1976.
The
East Region changed dramatically entering the Sweet 16 with top seeds
Villanova and Virginia ousted. It's only the eighth time that the top
two teams from one region failed to advance to the second week. The last
time that happened was in 2004.
The Atlantic
Coast Conference and Pac-12 entered the round of 32 as the only leagues
with three or more teams not to lose a game. Virginia's loss to Michigan
State was the ACC's first after a 9-0 start, and Oregon faced Wisconsin
with a chance to make the Pac-12 8-0.
Here are some storylines to watch as the Sweet 16 approaches:
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UCLA'S
RUN: The Bruins were the at-large team complained about the most on
Selection Sunday. Wins over SMU and UAB have the 11th-seeded Bruins in
the Sweet 16 for the second straight year, the first time they have done
that since reaching the Final Four in three straight seasons between
2006 and 2008.
"The selection committee
thought we were good enough to play in this tournament, and I think we
proved it," forward Tony Parker said.
They will face the winner of the Gonzaga-Iowa game in the Sweet 16.
"There's no better time to do that than March," UCLA coach Steve Alford said.
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OLD
TEAMS: Arizona coach Sean Miller will face his former school, Xavier,
in the Sweet 16. Miller has taken the second-seeded Wildcats to the
regional semifinals for the third straight year.
Now,
he will face the sixth-seeded Musketeers, whom he coached from
2004-2009. Xavier reached the Elite Eight in 2008 under Miller and the
Musketeers were in the Sweet 16 the next year.
Chris Mack succeeded Miller at Xavier when he left for Arizona.
"As
far as playing Sean, it's really tough," Mack said. "I recruited all
these guys that play for me. But Sean gave me a heck of an opportunity
to come back to my alma mater. He put a lot of responsibility and trust
in me. He ultimately really pushed for me to become the head coach, and
for that I'm eternally grateful. It's hard to play against one of your
best friends in the business. But it really won't matter to our guys,
nor will it matter to Arizona, because they don't know me from a bucket
of paint."
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SPARTY'S
PARTY: Michigan State under Tom Izzo has become as familiar in the
Sweet 16 as the guys in a school band wearing enough face paint to cover
a garage.
The Spartans have reached the
regional semifinals for the seventh time in the last eight years. They
will face the Oklahoma-Dayton winner in Syracuse, New York.
Izzo has a 13-1 record in games in the round of 32. He was surprised a bit that this team won its second game to move on.
"We've
been a team all year that has banged around, probably lost more games
than we should have just because of the free throw situation or dumb
coaching with 2, 3 seconds left to go in the game and people hitting 3s
and tying it," Izzo said. "But I think we've had to earn every single
thing we've gotten because every game's been like that. So I think they
felt comfortable in a game because that's the way not their whole
tournament has gone or the Big Ten Tournament, their whole season has
gone that way. I'm really proud of this team. I don't use that word
lightly when I speak and I am."
---
IRISH
ALIVE: For the first time in 12 years Notre Dame is in the Sweet 16 and
the Fighting Irish moved on with an overtime win over Butler. Steve
Vasturia had 20 points for the third-seeded Irish, who face the winner
of the Kansas-Wichita State game in the Midwest Regional in Cleveland.
"It's
a great feeling. We're playing really well right now," Vasturia said.
"We made big plays down the stretch, and we've been doing that all year,
getting big defensive stops, hitting shots. So it's a great feeling.
We're playing with a lot of confidence right now so we want to keep it
rolling."
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KENTUCKY'S CHASE: The top-ranked Wildcats showed in the round of 32 why they are the even-money favorite to win the whole thing.
In
their win over Cincinnati, the Wildcats shot just 37 percent and were
outrebounded 45-38. There really wasn't a point in the game when
Kentucky felt threatened about its winning streak and the 64-51 win was
the Wildcats' 29th of 36 by at least 10 points.
"I
always like it when my team shoots 37, 36, 35 percent and wins in
double digits," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "It shows them they
don't have to make shots to win. You can miss them all. No, you can't
miss them all. You can miss most of them, and you can still win games if
you defend, you rebound and you play that way, make your free throws,
and they did."
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