The Big 12 Conference had three teams play on the second day of the second round of the men’s NCAA Tournament on Sunday, with the league going 1-2 for the day.
Sunday’s Second-Round Results
No. 1 Duke 89, No. 9 Baylor 66
No. 6 Ole Miss 91, No. 3 Iowa State 78
No. 4 Arizona 87, No. 5 Oregon 83
Arizona, BYU, Houston, and Texas Tech will all play in the Sweet Sixteen later this week.
Here are five takeaways from the latest day of men’s basketball action.
RISING ARIZONA
I felt that Caleb Love had to have a big game for Arizona to get to the Sweet 16. And he did. But it was a slow burn to the finish line.
Love had 29 points, including five 3-pointers. But, there was a stretch late in the second half where he scored 10 straight points, at one point draining a 3-pointer that, in my mind, should have ended the game.
But that’s not how things works when Arizona and Oregon play each other. The long-time Pac-12 rivals, now in different conferences, took this one down to the wire.
Let’s be honest — there was some dumb basketball in the final four minutes of this game. But, we can add Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd to the “foul up three” crowd.
There’s the school of thought that, if you’re up by 3 points late in the game, you should foul the other team before they shoot. The reason? You rob them of the chance to tie the game by making them shoot two free throws and determine if they want to make both or try and intentionally miss the second to tie.
I’ve covered the Big 12 for eight seasons, and frankly, this is a strategy I rarely see employed in tight games. Lloyd used it twice in the final seconds, and it worked twice. The first time, Oregon made both free throws to cut the lead one point. After Arizona pushed the lead back to three points, Arizona fouled them again. This time, the Ducks intentionally missed the second, and Arizona rebounded.
For the first five minutes of the game, Oregon looked like it was going to run away and hide. Then Arizona took control of the game.
The frontcourt rotation of Tobe Awaka and Henri Veesaar saw Awaka take center stage for the first time in a couple of weeks. He had 12 points and 14 rebounds. When he was on the floor the interior defense was completely different than when Veesaar was on the floor. But his foul trouble made rotations tough down the stretch.
After Arizona lost to five high-major teams in non-conference, I’m not sure that many felt the Wildcats would make the NCAA Tournament, much less the Sweet 16. Now, the Wildcats are heading to the Sweet 16 for the second straight year.
Masterful coaching job by Lloyd. Masterful year by Love. Masterful performance by the Wildcats.
CYCLONES GET CLOBBERED
We can break down the Iowa State-Ole Miss game a lot of different ways. But sometimes the simplest will do.
Ole Miss just played better than Iowa State. Period.
The Rebels shot better by 10% from the field and by 20% from the 3-point line. They forced nearly twice as many turnovers out of Iowa State than the Cyclones did out of the Rebels.
The Cyclones did some good things early. They established their bigs, especially Joshua Jefferson. But Ole Miss adjusted. The Rebel defense was just as physical as Iowa State was on defense. They made everything hard, especially on guard Curtis Jones, who with all of that extra attention still scored 26 points.
But not having Keshon Gilbert caught up with Iowa State. Milan Momcilovic had some great looks in the first half and couldn’t make them and that hurt. In many ways, Ole Miss played a Big 12 type of game — which one would expect with Chris Beard leading the Rebels — and, well, the Cyclones just couldn’t keep up.
Now what? I thought this Iowa State team was built for this. The defense is always there. Coach T.J. Otzelberger has never had this much scoring. Some of it will be back — we assume — including Jefferson, guard Tamin Lipsey and Momcilovic. That’s a good core to work from. But he’ll need to get to work.
BAYLOR GETS BURIED
For about 10 minutes this was a game. Baylor hung in there with Duke. The Bears shot well, frustrated some of the Blue Devils’ offensive action and made it look like it could go the distance.
Then, well, not so much.
Look Duke is a great team. The Blue Devils are a legitimate national championship contender and has been since November. How they played against an undermanned Baylor team only reinforced it.
Duke was up 47-30 at halftime. The Blue Devils imposed themselves on the Bears. I mean, Duke shot 64.4% from the floor, 54.5% from the 3-point line and 82.6% from the free-throw line. I thought going into the game that if forward Norchad Omier and three Baylor guards had great games, there was a chance.
Well, not if the Blue Devils are going to do that.
It was going to come to an end this weekend for the Bears. Their depth issues weren’t going to allow them to continue. This was about as far as they were going to get.
Now, I think coach Scott Drew has to assess how he’s building his roster moving forward. This is the third straight year of the five-star freshman, key transfers and player development and the Bears have failed to get out of the first weekend of the tournament. Maybe the strategy needs adjusting.
THE SEC’S RECORD
After Ole Miss defeated Iowa State, the SEC set a record for the most teams from a single conference to reach the Sweet 16. Seven teams, in all, will play next week.
That broke the record of six set by the ACC in 2016. There was a chance of the Big 12 matching that record going into Sunday, but that would have required all three Big 12 teams winning. Baylor dashed that dream early in the day.
As it relates to the narrative of the SEC and its 14 bids into the tournament, I went back and I looked at the seeding in the SEC Tournament, just to get an idea of where each of those seven teams were seeded in that tournament.
Seven of the top nine seeds in the SEC Tournament advanced to the Sweet 16. Which ones whiffed?
Former Big 12 members Texas A&M and Missouri.
Hilarious.
NO CINDERELLAS
We’re so used to seeing one or two incredible Cinderella stories each March Madness that this just seems wrong.
The Big 12 landed four teams in the Sweet 16. That’s a solid haul in any season for the conference. The Big Ten ended up with as many as the Big 12. The ACC only had one with Duke advancing.
Is this a sea change or just an anomaly? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
