After some competitive sweet 16 games, the elite 8 brought high seed-dominant matchups.
Florida Makes History in Comeback vs. Texas Tech
Every No. 1 seed that was selected into the NCAA Tournament played in an elite 8 game this past weekend. All No. 1 seeds ended up winning their Elite 8 game and now have a spot in the Final 4 in San Antonio, Texas. Florida completed a crazy comeback against Texas Tech, trailing between 7 and 12 points the entire second half and made a historic 18-4 scoring run to close out the game. With under three minutes left, Florida found themselves trailing 75-66 before forward Thomas Haugh hit back to back threes to pull the Gators within 3. Following those threes, Walter Clayton Jr. hit back to back threes of his own to put Florida up 78-77 with a minute left to go. Florida ultimately went on to beat the Red Raiders 84-79 to advance onto the Final 4.
Duke Stays True
The game that followed was the Duke Blue Devils and the Alabama Crimson Tide. This was a highly anticipated matchup because of both teams’ abilities to score the basketball. Alabama came into the game averaging 91.4 points per game, while Duke came into the game averaging 83.7 points per game. Alabama had just come off of shooting the lights out against the Brigham Young (BYU) Cougars, shooting 49% from three (25-51). Duke flipped the script this time, holding the Crimson Tide to only making 25% of their threes (8-32), and holding leading scorer and three-point shooter Mark Sears to 1 three point field goal. Sears had previously hit 10 threes in their Sweet 16 game against BYU. Freshmen sensations Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel led the Blue Devils to a dominating win, combining for 37 points. Duke will make its 18th Final 4appearance which is tied for the second most appearances of all-time.
Houston Handles Tennessee
Sunday kicked off with the Houston Cougars and the Tennessee Volunteers. Although Houston was the higher seed, Tennessee was the more popular favorite to beat the Cougars. The Cougars have one of the best known defenses in the country. They run a “pack line” formation, which is a scheme that forces teams to take more jumpshots farther away from the hoop. Tennessee faced off against a pack line defense earlier in the regular season when they faced the Virginia Cavaliers. Even though the Volunteers pulled out the win, they struggled to score on what was considered to be one of the lesser talented Virginia teams. Once again, the Vols could not score on the pack line defense, playing a long and athletic Houston team who could also score the ball. The Cougars held Tennessee to 29% (15-52) shooting and 17% (5-29) from three and went on to defeat them 69-50 to advance and play Duke in the Final 4.
The Tigers Keep Rolling
The last matchup of the weekend consisted of the number overall seed, the Auburn Tigers, who took on the Spartans of Michigan State. Coming into the tournament, the Tigers had lost 3 of their last 4 games, but have been on a roll since being selected to the tournament. To begin the game, Auburn started off hot on a 23-8 run and didn’t look back. Michigan State showed some life at times, cutting the lead down to as little as five, but they could not make the comeback to beat the Tigers. With that win, Auburn moves on to face SEC foe Florida in the Final 4, which makes for a rubber match between the two teams to determine who will move on to the National Championship.
