Tag: Sweet 16

Where Does Arkansas fall into the Sweet 16 Reseeding by ESPN?

Now that the Sweet 16 field has been set, where does the SEC’s only remaining team rank among team’s still competing for a championship?

The dust has settled, and with Purdue’s defeat of Texas on Sunday night, the Sweet 16 field has been set. One name that is still alive in the hunt for a National Championship is the Arkansas Razorbacks.

On Monday, ESPN’s Myron Medcalf re-seeded the remaining 16 teams in the field. Where does Arkansas fit in the picture? In what has become the norm, the Razorbacks are not being highly thought of, as they check it at No. 13 of 16 teams.

Here is Medcalf’s synopsis of Arkansas’ round of 32 win over New Mexico State on Saturday:

Arkansas and New Mexico State played Saturday’s ugliest game. JD Notae (18 points) led a Razorbacks team that made just 28% of its field goal attempts. Its two advantages? A 12-0 edge in transition and a 22-for-25 mark from the free-throw line. Per ESPN Stats & Info data, Arkansas’ 53 points were the lowest tally ever for an SEC team that won an NCAA tournament game. Arkansas is now 17-3 in its past 20 games, though.

Ahead of Thursday’s matchup with No. 1 seed Gonzaga in San Francisco, Calif., Medcalf says that Arkansas should hope that the Bulldogs do not play up to their ceiling:

It is no small feat to hold the WAC’s top offensive team — or any Division I team, really — to 48 points. It is difficult, however, to go on a run in the NCAA tournament with limited 3-point shooting (30.5% this season). But most of Arkansas’ opponents have failed to play to their potential during the Razorbacks’ current rally. Maybe that’s their ticket: counting on being the superior team in a grind-it-out Sweet 16 matchup

Following No. 10 seed Miami’s defeat of No. 2 Auburn on Sunday, Arkansas remains the only team from the Southeastern Conference to still have a shot at a National Championship. That run will be put on the line Thursday vs. No. 1 seed Gonzaga.

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Notre Dame can’t close deal vs. Texas Tech, out of NCAA Tournament

That’s all she wrote for this season.

For 38 minutes, Notre Dame battled Texas Tech as well as it could have. In fact, the Irish had a three-point lead on the Red Raiders and just needed to hold on a little longer to earn a date with Duke in the Sweet 16. Instead, everything on both ends suddenly went south at the wrong time. The Red Raiders scored 10 unanswered points and eliminated the Irish in the second round of the NCAA Tournament with a 59-53 win in San Diego.

The Irish (24-11) had a 52-49 lead thanks to taking care of the ball, playing solid defense and making shots when they needed to. All of that changed in the game’s final two minutes, and the Red Raiders (27-9) were the beneficiaries.

Out of an Irish timeout with the lead cut to 52-51, Terrence Shannon Jr. stole the ball from Blake Wesley to set up the possession that ended in two free throws for Kevin Obanor, which he earned after being fouled on an offensive rebound. Wesley tried to answer, but his go-ahead layup attempt was blocked by Marcus Santos-Silva, who hit two free throws himself after he was fouled immediately.

The nightmare wasn’t over for Wesley. He turned it over again, leading to another foul that resulted in two successful Red Raiders free throws, this time from Kevin McCullar. Down five and desperate for points, the Irish came up empty on three straight shots. The last of those was blocked and thrown down the court so a completely-alone McCullar could dunk with authority to erase any doubt about this game’s outcome.

Obanor was the star for the Red Raiders as he achieved a double-double of 15 points and 15 rebounds. McCullar had 14 points, as did Bryson Williams. Adonis Arms grabbed seven boards and a game-high four assists.

Dane Goodwin led the Irish with 14 points. In what likely will be his final game for the program, Wesley scored 11 and also had eight rebounds. However, those three turnovers he had in the final two minutes are sure to weigh on him and Irish fans for a long time.

While it was a tough way to end the season, surely any Irish fan would have taken how this team got after such a rough start. Now, we wonder who will be back next year to join highly-touted commit J.J. Starling. Maybe he will get the Irish even deeper in the tournament next year. It sure will be exciting to find out the answer to that question.

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Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Texas takes down Utah 78-56, advances to Sweet 16

Texas is on to the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive season.

Texas women’s basketball was on a mission against Utah on Sunday. The Horns left no doubt in a dominant performance against the No. 7 seeded Utes.

The Longhorns hit shots from all over the court in the win, shooting 64% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc. Texas exploded for 25 points in the second quarter to take full control of the game.

Star point guard Rori Harmon was the engine that made the offense go. She finished with 11 points, eight assists and grabbed four rebounds. Harmon is playing as well as any player in the nation.

The 78-56 victory will send Texas to the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive season. The Longhorns will take on the winner of LSU and Ohio State. Last year, Texas upset Maryland in the Sweet 16 to advance to the programs first Elite Eight since 2016.

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Tale of the Tape: Individual Leaders – Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma

Objectively, do you have a preference in this matchup?

Very often, a team can get by with the same few players leading them in every major statistical category. That seems to be the case with both Notre Dame and Oklahoma, although the Irish have a little more variety to them.  That’s a sign that either a team is relying too much on these players, or they’re doing just fine with them. Either way, it feel remarkable that teams can get to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in this fashion:

It’s a little hard to pinpoint which team has the advantage based on what we’re seeing in this chart. Both have strengths that can overcome the strengths of the other. At the same time, do you want a team like the Sooners with players who can shoot well, or do you want one with a little stronger defense in the Irish? One of these sides will win out and carry over to the Sweet 16.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Tale of the Tape: Individual Leaders – Notre Dame vs. Texas Tech

Do you like the Irish’s chances more after looking at this?

Notre Dame will have to deal with a defensive-minded Texas Tech team in its quest to make the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. However, the Irish have the offensive firepower to pull off a win should that defensive attack break down. As far as individual leaders are concerned, they have the advantage in most offensive categories. The question is whether it will be enough to overcome that defense should it be on its game.

With the Red Raiders being at a disadvantage in most of the above categories, could that serve as a bad omen? To be fair, the Irish were behind the majority of the time when their leaders were compared to Rutgers and Alabama, and they turned out fine both times. If anything, that should be enough to make Irish fans nervous instead. Sometimes, things aren’t always as positive as they seem, and that’s enough to scare anyone during March Madness.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Tale of the Tape: Team Stats – Notre Dame vs. Texas Tech

Which team’s strength will give?

Notre Dame will face Texas Tech in the NCAA Tournament’s round of 32. In order to get to the Sweet 16, it surely would help to bring the 3-point shooting that seems to be getting better with each passing game. The Irish also continue to shoot well in general, so scoring from either the field or the free-throw line is coming easier for them all the time. As long as they play average defense, their game plan has a good chance of coming together.

The story of the Red Raiders is defense, defense and more defense. They are among the best in the country at it, and it’s at least a contributing factor for their high national rank in scoring margin. The question is whether it will be enough to counter the Irish’s hot shooting. Something will have to give, but from an outsider’s point of view, the Irish might be the team in more need of magic.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Notre Dame takes on Texas Tech in NCAA Tournament for spot in Sweet 16

Can the Irish make the second weekend of March Madness?

Typically, nobody expects much of a team that gets out of the First Four in the NCAA Tournament. UCLA made the Final Four last year, but that was an outlier. Notre Dame hopes to take one step closer to becoming another example of that when it plays Texas Tech in San Diego in hopes of advancing to the Sweet 16. It will be a battle of programs with very little history together as the Irish won, 88-63, in their only previous meeting in 1975.

The discussion surrounding the Irish right now begins and ends with Cormac Ryan. He has started the past 11 games and averaged 13.8 points a game during that time. His 29 points against Alabama are the most for an Irish player in an NCAA Tournament game since Mike Brey became coach. Between that game and the First Four win over Rutgers, he has 45 points in the tournament, which is the most a Notre Dame player has scored in the first two games of an NCAA Tournament since David Rivers scored 51 in 1987.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Watch: Notre Dame’s appearances in ‘One Shining Moment’

The Irish have made appearances in the annual NCAA Tournament montage.

When I was 14, I had the opportunity to visit the NCAA Hall of Champions during a family trip to Indianapolis. It was there when I was properly introduced to the annual video montage that has wrapped up TV coverage of every NCAA Tournament since 1987.

While I had seen “One Shining Moment” once before, I figured it was just a typical montage like any that played whenever the NBA Finals or World Series wrapped up. My discovery that this happened every year was my main takeaway from the museum that afternoon, and I’ve looked forward to it every year since.

Notre Dame has not appeared in “One Shining Moment” every year it has made the tournament since the montage began, but let’s not pretend it’s done something significant in every appearance. Case in point, the Irish were not featured prominently in any montage until the three straight years it qualified from 2015 to 2017, which included back-to-back Elite Eights. Take a look at all of them below:

When is Selection Sunday and other March Madness dates to know

So many games, so many locations, so many dates. We’ve got them all here for you.

The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer and buzzer-beaters are increasing in frequency.

All the typical signs that March Madness is here have arrived in earnest, and it’s time to prepare your loved ones for the fact you’ll be unable to leave your couch for large stretches of time over the next few weeks.

But just when will you need to block off your calendars? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with all the dates you need to know on both the men’s and women’s side from Selection Sunday to the Final Four.

All odds via Tipico

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Texas Volleyball: No. 2 Longhorns beat No. 15 Washington in five sets

No. 2 Texas is on to the Elite Eight after a reverse sweep of No. 15 Washington.

After losing in the national championship game a season ago, Texas volleyball has revenge on their minds. The Longhorns took down Sacred Heart and Rice in sweeps during the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

That set up a Sweet 16 match up against No. 15 Washington.

The Huskies came out of the gates on fire. They took a commanding lead in the first set with an 11-0 run to go up 16-7. Washington would not look back and closed the first set 25-19.

Texas looked to have regrouped in the second set, jumping out to a 5-1 lead but Washington stormed back into it. A 6-1 run in the middle of the set helped Washington take set two. Jerritt Elliot’s squad had no answer for what Washington was doing early.

Just one set from elimination, Texas and Gregory gym woke up.

Set number three went back and forth before Texas grabbed all the momentum late, winning 25-22. The crowd erupted as Texas broke a 19-19 tie. Washington would not have another lead for the rest of the night.

Logan Eggleston and Skylar Fields found their rhythm for the Longhorns as Texas dominated set four 25-9.

Entering set five, the crowd was rocking and Texas hit their stride. A few Washington service errors gave Texas the lead early. Up 14-9, a Skylar Fields kill completed the reverse sweep, sending Texas to the Elite Eight.

Texas will look to clinch their spot in the Final Four against No. 10 Nebraska on Saturday night. It is a rematch of last season’s Elite Eight matchup where the Longhorns beat the Huskers in four sets.