Rick Pitino’s prepared Louisville Cardinals send tuckered out top-seeded Michigan State home

PHOENIX – Draymond Green was worried. All week, the energy that had suffused Michigan State’s basketball team throughout its surprising run to the Big Ten championship and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament went missing. Mediocre practices. Dead film sessions. A grim feeling that the Spartans’ Sweet 16 game against Louisville might be its last of the season.

“I think everybody just knew,” Green said. “We had a feeling.”

Fight though they did, Green’s prophesy – and the Spartans’ fatigue – proved true. Louisville overcame an ugly first half to run away from Michigan State in a 57-44 West Regional semifinal victory during which the Cardinal outrebounded, outfoxed and outclassed a team rarely beaten in any of those facets and almost never in all three.

“I definitely had a sense,” said Green, a likely first-team All-American who led a Spartans team expected to suffer through a down season. “Nobody’s crazy. We know the energy level this team has had, and … our energy level just wasn’t there.”

[ Related: Breaking down Friday’s Sweet 16 matchups ]

Green wasn’t blaming any one person. Not his teammates who shot 14-of-49. Not himself, with six of the Spartans’ 15 turnovers. Not coach Tom Izzo, who added to the misery by getting outcoached by Rick Pitino. Michigan State had no answer for Louisville’s 2-3 zone, helmed by Gorgui Dieng playing goalkeeper with seven blocks, nor did Izzo adjust accordingly when the Cardinals unleashed a press designed, in Pitino’s words, “to get to the legs.”

As with a boxer, once they went, Michigan State’s will followed.

If Green sounded like a beaten man, it’s because he was. More than perhaps any coach in college basketball, Izzo emphasizes mental fortitude over talent. Sure, because he has won a national championship and made six Final Fours at Michigan State, he can wrangle McDonald’s All-Americans. He just doesn’t need them.

To compensate, Izzo pushes his players, rides them, implores them that they have to be stronger, tougher, better. He is widely recognized as the godfather of the War Drill, a gruesome rebounding exercise that has bloodied many a face. Other coaches have stolen from him the use of a plastic bubble to cover the rim, force every shot to carom away and necessitate a rebound.

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Michigan State handles LIU 89-67

By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
6 hours, 49 minutes ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)—Draymond Green got on the phone earlier this week with a former Michigan State star.

Magic Johnson must have told Green to play just like him.

Green recorded his second career NCAA tournament triple-double—the first player to do it since Johnson—and Derrick Nix added 18 points as top-seeded Michigan State fought off the upset bug that took down two No. 2 seeds, advancing in the West Regional with an 89-67 win over LIU Brooklyn on Friday night.

On a freaky Friday of upsets, Michigan State wasn’t going down.

Green wouldn’t stand for it.

“The kid’s a great player,” LIU coach Jim Ferry said. “I thought he was a great player going in on tape. He’s a great player live. He’s going to have a very long career in front of him. He’s just a fantastic basketball player.”

The Spartans (28-7) finally put away the bothersome No. 16 Blackbirds (25-9) with a 14-4 run midway through the second half. Michigan State outscored LIU 47-30 after halftime to set up a third-round game with Saint Louis on Sunday.

Green had 24 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and no turnovers in 35 minutes. He joined Johnson and Oscar Robertson as the only players in history to have more than one triple-double in the tournament.

Afterward, Green showed typical humility in downplaying his accomplishment. His previous triple-double came in last year’s tournament loss to UCLA.

“At the end of the day I’d much rather have a win than a triple double, because when you look at those record books it’s going to say Draymond Green stats triple double and then it’s going to say the score of the game,” he said. “And the last one was a loss and this one was a win. So it don’t really matter.

“It’s just about getting wins this time of year, and I’m just happy we’re able to do that.”

Green didn’t get into any specifics about his conversation with Johnson. The Hall of Famer was talking with Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, who put Green on the phone.

“I don’t know what he said to him, but it might have been something good,” Izzo said. “I might have to call him back. I’m proud of Day Day (Green’s nickmane). I’m pleased for him. Happy for him. And yet he’s got a lot of basketball to go. “

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McCollum leads Lehigh to 75-70 upset win over Duke

By STEVE REED, AP Sports Writer
7 hours, 46 minutes ago

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP)—The Lehigh Mountain Hawks said they weren’t afraid of mighty Duke.

Maybe no one believed them at the time, but the Patriot League champions proved they were serious.

C.J. McCollum scored 30 points and Lehigh upset Duke 75-70 to become the second No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2 during a wild Friday in the NCAA tournament.

“It means a lot as a team, a family and as the Patriot League in general,” McCollum said. “We wanted to come out here and protect this team and this family, get the win and we did that tonight.”

Lehigh forward John Adams said it was a matter of believing in each other.

“We saw on the selection show we had Duke and we thought we could match up very well against them,” Adams said. “We all believed it and we showed it on the floor. Everybody bought into that idea that we could beat them. The rest is history.”

History indeed.

The Mountain Hawks are the sixth 15 seed overall to pull off the trick. Norfolk State edged Missouri 86-84 in the West Regional earlier in the day, and No. 13 seed Ohio knocked off Michigan to add to the madness.

Duke dropped its first tournament game for only the second time in the past 16 years, and this one occurred just 55 miles from its campus. The Blue Devils also lost their opener against 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth in 2007.

The Blue Devils had no answer for the speedy McCollum, the two-time Patriot League player of the year and the nation’s fifth-leading scorer.

“They had the best player on the court tonight in McCollum,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He’s been their player of the year, and he’s really one of the outstanding players in the country. You could see why tonight.”

It didn’t help that the Blue Devils hit just 6 of 26 shots from 3-point range.

Lehigh (27-7) led most of the game, drawing support from North Carolina fans who borrowed brown signs from Mountain Hawks supporters that read “Go Lehigh” to root against their rivals.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” forward Justin Maneri said with a deep laugh. “We came to the practice the other day and as soon as you walked in they were going crazy for us and we’re like, `What’s going on?’ They were like, `Go Lehigh, beat Duke!’ They were screaming. It was nice to have fans here that weren’t Duke. I’ve never seen two schools that hate each other so much.”

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WKU sets NCAA record with 59-58 win over MVSU

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) The team with the losing record pulled off the most fantastic 5-minute finish in NCAA tournament history.

The most surprising thing? Western Kentucky didn't even think it was all that extraordinary.

It was, in every way.

With a president and a prime minister sitting in the front row behind the basket, the Hilltoppers turned up their full-court press and overcame a 16-point deficit in the last 5 minutes on Tuesday night. Their 59-58 victory over Mississippi Valley State christened it as the tournament of comebacks.

Who better to do it than the longest of long shots?

``Wow,'' coach Ray Harper said, his face still flush with March emotion. ``I don't know where to begin.''

With the comeback, of course. There's never been one quite like it.

T.J. Price's three-point play with 33 seconds to go completed the Hilltoppers' unprecedented rally in front of President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who headed out at the buzzer.

The NCAA called it the biggest deficit overcome in the final 5 minutes of a tournament game. The previous best: Illinois overcame a 15-point deficit in the last 5 minutes to beat Arizona 90-89 in overtime in a regional final in 2005.

Madness indeed.

``It's a crazy feeling,'' said Derrick Gordon, who had 11 points. ``That's the president of the United States coming to watch our game. We wanted to put on a show. Things didn't work our way for the first 35 minutes, but we came away with the W.

``I'm sure he liked what he saw.''

He saw the only squad with a losing record in the 68-team field get out of its own way long enough to do something special. The Hilltoppers (16-18) shot only 30 percent from the field, turned the ball over an incredible 28 times and won.

The Hilltoppers have rallied from double-digit deficits in each of their last three games, including two in the Sun Belt Conference tournament. Their latest comeback was the biggest of them all.

``We're used to doing it,'' Gordon said. ``We did it all throughout the Sun Belt tournament. No matter how much we were losing by, we were just going to keep on fighting until the buzzer went off. That's something that teams don't know about us.''

Western Kentucky moves on to play Kentucky - the top seed in the South Regional - on Thursday in Louisville, an all-Bluegrass game for the second round.

MVSU (21-13) caught the president's eye while pulling ahead, but couldn't close it out. Kevin Burwell scored 20 points and locked eyes with the president after swishing a 3-pointer while the Delta Devils built their big lead. Obama smiled back.

``Like I said yesterday, we were just trying to put on a show for him,'' Burwell said. ``In the heat of the moment, I just pointed at him a couple of times. That was it.''

Obama - an avid basketball fan who fills out an NCAA bracket each year - spent a lot of time explaining the nuances of the game to Cameron. Obama has picked Kentucky as one of his Final Four teams.

A smaller school from a corner of the commonwealth became the star of the First Four.

The Hilltoppers were the losers' favorite in the bracket - the first team since Coppin State in 2009 to make it to the tournament with a losing record.

And that didn't even begin to tell their story.

A team featuring seven freshmen lost 11 of its first 16 games. The low point came on Jan. 5, when Louisiana-Lafayette somehow managed to get six players on the floor for the winning shot in overtime. And that wasn't the worst indignity that day. Only 2,137 fans took advantage of a $1 ticket promotion, showing that very few considered the Hilltoppers worth a buck.

The next day, coach Ken McDonald was fired, replaced by Harper, an assistant. The Hilltoppers responded by losing their next three games.

Slowly, they grew form a young, bad team into one that found its stride at tournament time. They won four games in four days for the Sun Belt's automatic berth.

And here they were on Tuesday, making an even bigger comeback in the NCAA tournament before an audience that seemed to add to both teams' jitters at the outset.

There was no avoiding the guest list. During the first timeout, photographers from the White House press corps went on the court to snap photos. The two referees on that side of the court shook the president's hand.

MVSU led most of the way and seemed to have everything in control until Western Kentucky went to a full-court press.

``I thought it was just our guys got rattled, got excited, and got a little bit beside themselves,'' coach Sean Woods said. ``Normally in a situation like that, maybe it's one guy or two. But when it's all five, it was like a snowball effect.''

Burwell had a chance to tie the game with a 3 in the closing seconds. Cor-J Cox had a putback at the buzzer that left the Delta Devils a point short.

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BYU's record comeback beats Iona, 78-72

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron saw a huge comeback.

Had they stuck around a little longer, they could have watched the biggest one in NCAA tournament history.

Noah Hartsock scored 16 of his 23 points in the second half and the Cougars came back from 25 points down to beat Iona 78-72 in the first round Tuesday night.

It marked the biggest comeback in an NCAA tournament game, the NCAA said. Previously, the largest deficit overcome was 22 points when Duke fought back to beat Maryland 95-84 in the 2001 national semifinals.

Hartsock was a little hurt that the president wasn't around to see the fireworks in the nightcap.

``I started looking around and didn't see him,'' Hartsock said with a grin. ``But I'm sure he had some important things to take care of.''

It was the second incredible turnaround of the night in Dayton. With the two heads of state watching from front-row seats on the baseline, Western Kentucky came back from a 16-point deficit in the final 5 minutes to beat Mississippi Valley State 59-58 in the first game.

That was the biggest margin overcome by a team in the final 5 minutes to win an NCAA tournament game, the NCAA said.

No matter how far they fell behind, BYU and coach Dave Rose had faith that the Cougars could somehow come back.

``Coming back from 25 points down is really satisfying now that we've won. At the time it wasn't that satisfying being down 25,'' he joked. ``But I don't think that any of us, especially the coaching staff or our players, doubted the fact that we could chip into that lead.''

Brandon Davies added 18 points and Damarcus Harrison 12 for the 14th-seeded Cougars (26-8), who advanced to play third-seeded Marquette on Thursday in Louisville, Ky.

There was no consolation for Iona.

``It's going to be one that we have to live with the rest of our lives,'' Gaels coach Tim Cluess said. ``It's a tough one we let get away. No excuses.''

Iona (25-8) seemed assured of its first official NCAA tournament victory after dominating the first half. But despite 15 points and 10 assists by Scott Machado, the Gaels dropped to 0-8 in NCAA play. Their lone win in 1980 was vacated due to NCAA violations.

Iona came in as the nation's top-scoring team at 83.2 points per game and didn't disappoint - at least in the opening 16 minutes. The Gaels scored 55 points in an eye-popping display of passing wizardry and outside shooting. Then they didn't score over the final 4:30 of the first half.

BYU then took control, slowly but surely. The Cougars held the Gaels without a point for 9:20 in a 17-0 run to narrow the deficit to 62-61 midway through the second half. BYU made up ground with a trapping half-court defense that forced the Gaels out of their hurry-up-and-shoot-3s attack. At the other end, the Cougars were getting buckets from Hartsock on fallaway jumpers.

``We just were more aggressive,'' Cougars guard Brock Zylstra said. ``We were doing to them what they were doing to us in the first half.''

Iona scored 55 points in the first 16 minutes, then managed just three field goals and seven points over the next 16 1/2 minutes.

Jermel Jenkins ended the lengthy drought with a 3 from the left corner with 8 minutes left.

From there on, the teams traded baskets as the pace slowed. Machado's three-point play pushed the lead to 70-64 with 5 minutes remaining before Hartsock hit an outside shot. After two missed foul shots by the Gaels, he hit another short turnaround jumper to cut the lead to two.

With 2:26 left, Hartsock popped out on the right wing to hit a go-ahead 3. It was the Cougars' first lead of the game.

``This is a team that's worked hard all year, that's never given up,'' Hartsock said.

Davies added two free throws in the final minute before Zylstra scored in transition and turned it into a three-point play, and the comeback was complete.

It was a shocking turn of events because of how well the Gaels - who also got 13 points from Jenkins, 12 from Mike Glover and 10 by Sean Armand - started out.

``You're looking for answers out there, looking for guys to make a play,'' Cluess said. ``Their good player is drilling it with guys in his face and guys draped all over him. Big-time players have to make big-time plays.''

Rose, a co-captain for the old Phi Slamma Jamma teams at Houston, has tasted disappointment before. But not this night.

During a timeout in the middle of the comeback, he saw something he'll never forget.

``The look in our players' eyes at that time was, `Game on. We've got a chance here,''' Rose said. ``And we were able to finish it off.''

Syracuse’s Melo ruled ineligible

The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH — Syracuse will have to chase a national championship without starting center Fab Melo, who has been declared ineligible for the NCAA tournament.

The university announced Tuesday that the 7-foot Brazilian, who did not travel with the team to Pittsburgh for the second and third-round games, won’t take part in the tournament due to an eligibility issue. The school did not elaborate.

Melo missed three games earlier this season — including one of the top-seeded Orange’s two losses — because of an academic issue.

NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said Syracuse, not the NCAA, declared Melo ineligible.

Coach Jim Boeheim said the Orange will be”ready to play.”

As he left the bus in front of the team hotel Tuesday, Boeheim at first said he had nothing to say. He then told The Associated Press that “all we can do is be ready to play with the guys we have.”

“That’s all we can do,” he said. “There are injuries, things happen during a season. We’ll be ready to play and we’ll go play.”

Boeheim has not decided who will start in place of Melo, the Big East Defensive Player of Year, on Thursday when Syracuse (31-2) opens the tournament against No. 16 seed North Carolina-Asheville.

Melo’s presence on the back line of the Orange’s 2-3 zone might not be a factor in that game but it could be if Syracuse advances to play to face the winner of the Kansas State-Southern Mississippi game or possible future opponents in the East Regional such as Ohio State, with sophomore center Jared Sullinger, Florida State or Wisconsin.

Sophomore Baye Keita or freshman Rakeem Christmas should get the start. The Orange are one of the deepest teams in the tournament with seven players, including Melo, averaging between 13.8 and 6.6 points per game.

Melo averaged 7.8 points and 5.8 rebounds and had 88 blocks this season for Syracuse, which was ranked No. 1 for six weeks this season and finished No. 2 behind Kentucky in the final poll.

The Orange opened the season with 20 consecutive wins before losing 67-58 at Notre Dame without Melo. Syracuse then won 11 in a row before losing 71-68 to Cincinnati last Friday in the Big East tournament semifinals.

The news is the latest development in a tumultuous season for Syracuse.

Last week, school officials said the university had more than a year ago self-reported possible violations of its internal drug policy by former members of the team and that the NCAA was investigating. None of the current members of the team was involved.

In a report, Yahoo Sports said a three-month investigation it conducted showed that the Syracuse men’s basketball program failed to adhere to the drug policy while playing ineligible players over the past decade.

The report, which citied anonymous sources, said at least 10 players since 2001 had tested positive for a banned recreational substance or substances. The report did not identify who tested positive. Syracuse won its lone national championship in 2003.

And the season began with the dismissal of associate head coach Bernie Fine after two former ballboys accused him of sexually molesting them in the 1980s. While charges have yet to be filed against Fine, he was fired in late November. Boeheim and the university are also facing a defamation suit filed by the ballboys — Bobby Davis and stepbrother Mike Lang.

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