4 Takeaways From the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Sweet 16

Just like that, only eight remain. Two compelling days of Sweet 16 matchups that featured nothing but power-conference programs produced four nail-biting finishes and four lopsided blowouts. When the dust finally settled, the Elite Eight housed six teams seeded No. 3 or higher and two upstarts in No. 9 Iowa and No. 6 Tennessee. The Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, ACC and SEC all have at least one team remaining in what feels like a relatively accurate cross-section of the sport. Three 1-seeds are still alive in Arizona, Michigan and Duke, the tournament’s No. 1 overall team. And No. 2 UConn is now within three games of its third national title in the last four years. Here are my takeaways from the Sweet 16: 1. The Big Ten continues cruising toward the Final Four [MEN’S BRACKET: NCAA Tournament Bracket, Leaders & Stats] When the Big Ten sent six teams to the Sweet 16, the league established a new record for dominance in that round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. And when four Big Ten schools prevailed on Thursday and Friday to reach the Elite Eight — Michigan, Purdue, Iowa and Illinois — that set another high-water mark for the conference. Never has the Big Ten felt closer to snapping its 26-year drought without a national title than right now. “College basketball has been cyclical forever,” Michigan head coach Dusty May said after his team handled No. 4 Alabama, 90-77. “Hopefully this is a long cycle for us in the conference. I think now that the playing field has been leveled out as far as finances and things like that, the environments in the Big Ten are second to none, the brands, and now I think we’re developing a different type of basketball identity with the West Coast schools joining us. “I know our league is incredibly tough. The coaches are off the charts.” Given the head-to-head matchup between No. 9 Iowa and No. 4 Nebraska, there was always going to be at least one Big Ten school bowing out in the Sweet 16. Second-seeded Purdue started the party on Thursday night by outlasting No. 11 Texas, 79-77, on a last-second tip from forward Trey Kaufman-Renn. Michigan and No. 3 Illinois — which strong-armed No. 2 Houston — both eased into the Elite Eight. The Illini have climbed all the way to fourth in the KenPom rankings thanks to an improving defense that is now among the top 21 nationally. They’ll face the Hawkeyes in a regional final that is guaranteed to place one Big Ten team into the Final Four. If the presumption that Michigan is still the conference’s likeliest national champion holds true, then a potential matchup between the Wolverines and fellow No. 1 seed Arizona in the national semifinals looms as a potentially defining moment. The Wildcats, who racked up 109 points against No. 4 Arkansas on Thursday night, have the requisite front-line size to contend with Michigan’s leading trio of Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara, who combined for 38 points and 25 rebounds against Alabama. Any team that can oust Arizona is more than capable of winning it all. 2. UConn still carries the Big East in the NCAA Tournament When St. John’s flamed out in disappointing fashion against Arkansas during last year’s Round of 32, it was easy to point toward the Red Storm’s poor perimeter shooting as the primary reason. Head coach Rick Pitino’s team, which finished the campaign ranked 340th in 3-point field goal percentage, missed 20 of its 22 attempts from beyond the arc against the Razorbacks. Though St. John’s still struggled with perimeter shooting this season, checking in at No. 218 nationally ahead of its Sweet 16 matchup against top-seeded Duke, with the NCAA Tournament came a flamethrowing reprieve. The Red Storm buried 10 triples in the opening round against No. 12 Northen Iowa. Eleven in the Round of 32 against No. 4 Kansas. And 13 more in what ended as an 80-75 loss to the Blue Devils. Instead, what ultimately undid St. John’s is something that teams coached by Pitino almost never encounter: a significant rebounding disadvantage (minus-13), an inability to control the interior (minus-12 on points in the paint) and the concession of too many extra possessions (minus-9 in second-chance points). For a team that prides itself on being stronger, tougher and more tenacious than any opponent, this is the kind of loss that will sting. The elimination of St. John’s left second-seeded UConn as the Big East’s only remaining participant in this year’s tournament. Whether that distinction would last another few days or another few hours was firmly up in the air, especially after the Huskies squandered a 19-point lead to fall behind midway through the second half against Michigan State. When head coach Dan Hurley needed baskets, he turned to his most experienced players: fifth-year senior Alex Karaban and fellow senior Tarris Reed Jr. The duo combined to score the last 11 points for UConn over the final four minutes, fending off a Michigan State team that only shot 39.7% from the field and 25% from 3-point range. In doing so, the Huskies earned their 17th consecutive win in the Sweet 16 and beyond, a run that includes back-to-back championships in 2023 and 2024. UConn is still the Big East’s best program in March. 3. Arizona keeps bucking the 3-point trend by dominating the interior In this day and age, when a college basketball team scores 109 points in a regulation game, it’s generally safe to assume that perimeter shooting played a prominent role in the offensive explosion. Teams around the country are taking — and making — more 3-pointers than ever before in accordance with modern analytics that have infiltrated the sport. But a box score from Thursday night at SAP Center in San Jose, where No. 1 Arizona smashed No. 4 Arkansas, 109-88, was yet another example of how the Wildcats are thriving with an offensive system that goes against the grain. Head coach Tommy Lloyd’s team now ranks fourth in offensive efficiency despite maintaining the third-lowest 3-point attempt rate of any team in Division I, according to KenPom. Only 26.4% of Arizona’s points come from beyond the 3-point line, which ranks 360th out of 365 programs this season. The Wildcats only attempted eight 3-pointers against Arkansas, making five of them. Instead, they relied on overwhelming size and strength on the interior to generate one high-quality look after another around the rim. Sixty of Arizona’s points came in the paint. Another 30 came at the free-throw line after forcing Arkansas to commit 25 fouls, a byproduct of relentlessly attacking both the rim and the offensive glass. Not a single player on Lloyd’s team shot worse than 50% from the floor. “You think about this new era of basketball with spacing and shooting 3s,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer told me in February when discussing Arizona’s unique style, “[Tommy Lloyd] has flipped a lot of that on its head where, no, we’re just gonna beat the crap out of you at the rim and out-rebound you, beat you in the free throws, score in the paint and score at the rim, and we’re going to hit wide-open 3s. I give him a ton of credit for just having a true identity for how they want to play and sticking to that, and he’s had a lot of success.” 4. Unthinkable late-game blunder stains Nebraska’s fairy-tale campaign There were 58.8 seconds remaining in a one-possession game when the mistake that Nebraska fans will never forget swiftly capsized an incredible season. A referee handed the ball to Iowa guard Kael Combs along the baseline for an in-bounds pass with the Hawkeyes leading, 71-68. All the Cornhuskers needed was one defensive stop for a chance to then tie the game. But as Nebraska’s players began working through defensive assignments in the final seconds before Combs made his pass, it quickly became apparent that there weren’t enough Cornhuskers on the floor. They only had four players. And that blunder, which head coach Fred Hoiberg took responsibility for in his postgame news conference, allowed Iowa forward Alvaro Folgueiras to break free for a layup that resulted in a three-point play. The lead ballooned to an insurmountable six points. “I’m from the south of Spain, from a small neighborhood called El Palo,” Folgueiras told reporters in the locker room after the game, “and we are known by being, you know, a little more life smart than some other places. So I just noticed that they were all trying to figure out who they were guarding and there were just four players on the court. I made eye contact with Kael (Combs), the ref gave him the ball, and after like two or three seconds of me jumping and saying, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ we [still] had enough time to get the fast break because there were just four players and I was the only one open at the end of the court.” Said Hoiberg: “Put that one on me. It was a miscommunication, and I’m the head coach. Put that one on me.” This marked the second time in as many NCAA Tournament games that Folgueiras, a transfer from Robert Morris, worked his way into Iowa lore. A few days prior, in the Round of 32, he buried a 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining to upset No. 1 Florida and push the Hawkeyes into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999. On Thursday night, his heady play at a critical juncture propelled Iowa to just its fifth Elite Eight appearance in school history. Now, the only thing standing between Iowa and the Final Four — a place it hasn’t been since 1980, the year before head coach Ben McCollum was born — is Illinois. Joy and elation for the Hawkeyes were juxtaposed with stunned sadness on the opposite bench, where a Nebraska team that won the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament game had made an unfortunate mental error at the most inopportune moment. Social media platforms quickly flooded with ridicule for Hoiberg. “It stings,” Hoiberg said. “This one hurts about as bad as any [loss] I’ve been a part of, just because of what this group is all about. We don’t get to lace ’em up anymore together as a group. They have been all about the right things. These guys will be a part of history of Nebraska basketball forever, for winning the first NCAA Tournament game, getting to the Sweet 16, most wins in the history of the program, highest ranking. They just did so many things to elevate our program.” 4½. What’s next? Here are a few storylines to watch as we move into the Elite Eight: No. 9 Iowa vs. No. 3 Illinois (Saturday) — Game after game, the idea that Iowa made the best hire in last year’s coaching cycle gains more traction. Maybe this is what athletic directors everywhere should have expected given Ben McCollum’s incredible track record of winning. He won four Division II national championships with Northwest Missouri State in a six-year span from 2017-22. He made the Sweet 16 eight times in the span of 10 tournaments at that level. Then, when McCollum finally made the move to Division I ahead of the 2024-25 season, which he spent as the head coach at Drake, he won 31 games and reached the Round of 32 in the Big Dance. Everything he touches turns to winning. No. 2 Purdue vs. No. 1 Arizona (Saturday) — There were many things to like about Purdue’s victory over No. 11 Texas in the Sweet 16: the continued hot shooting from guard Fletcher Loyer, the incredible efficiency from forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, the impeccable ball control that only resulted in four turnovers. And yet, there’s an underlying idea that the Boilermakers still haven’t beaten an elite opponent in this tournament. They pummeled an overmatched Queens team in the first round, upended a Miami team whose ACC brethren have almost all imploded and outlasted Texas, the 10th-place finisher in the SEC. Arizona, which entered Friday as the only team in the country ranked among the top five nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency, is nothing like Purdue’s first three challengers. No. 2 UConn vs. No. 1 Duke (Sunday) — Five different Blue Devils logged more minutes than guard Caleb Foster in Duke’s victory over St. John’s, but an argument can be made that none were more impactful. Sure, Isaiah Evans (25 points) and Cameron Boozer (22 points) handled most of the scoring punch. And yes, the interior defense from forward Maliq Brown was exquisite. But adding Foster back into the mix after he missed the last three weeks with a fractured foot restores this team’s trajectory in short order. Foster contributed 11 points, three rebounds and two assists in just 18 minutes against St. John’s and afforded Scheyer the luxury of renewed lineup flexibility, plus another capable ball handler. With Foster on the mend, the Blue Devils are surefire national championship contenders. No. 6 Tennessee vs. No. 1 Michigan (Sunday) — Two things can be true simultaneously: On one hand, a 37-game sample size of eye tests and advanced metrics is more than enough to declare Michigan one of the sport’s elite teams. On the other hand, the Wolverines have largely breezed through the NCAA Tournament untested thanks to some good fortune. They beat a 9-seed in Saint Louis from outside the power conferences. They beat an Alabama team that was without its second-leading scorer, Aden Holloway, due to off-court issues. And come Sunday, they’ll face Tennessee instead of No. 2 Iowa State after the absence of All-American forward Joshua Jefferson caught up to the Cyclones.