Ohio St makes East final, beats Cincinnati 81-66

BOSTON (AP)—Jared Sullinger and the Ohio State Buckeyes had blown a 12-point lead and fallen behind Cincinnati in the second half of the East Regional semifinals.

It was time for the “cool guys” to take a seat, and let the blue-collar team take over.

Sullinger scored 23 points with 11 rebounds and Ohio State turned back Cincinnati’s last charge with a 17-1 run to beat the Bearcats 81-66 on Thursday night and advance to the NCAA regional finals for the first time since 2007.

“We’ve got two types of basketball teams: We’ve got the cool guys and then the blue-collar guys,” Sullinger explained. “I thought to start the second half we got into the cool-guy mode and we kind of let our guard down. … I mean, we just came out and decided to be cool guys, and they came out and they stung us, and then we got ourselves back into another basketball game.”

Deshaun Thomas scored 26 points for the second-seeded Buckeyes (30-7), who will play Syracuse at the TD Garden on Saturday. Aaron Craft added 11 points— all in the second half—with five assists and six steals, taking charge during the second-half run that turned a four-point deficit into a double-digit lead.

Cashmere Wright scored 18 and Sean Kilpatrick had 15 for the No. 6 seeded Bearcats, who were attempting to match Big East rival Syracuse by beating a Big Ten opponent to advance to the East Regional finals. The top-seeded Orange advanced earlier Thursday by beating fourth-seeded Wisconsin 64-63.

It’s the first trip to the regional finals for Ohio State since it lost in the 2007 championship game to Florida. The Buckeyes lost in the round of 16 in each of the past two years.

“Coach (Thad) Matta has been through two Sweet 16s where the train kind of stopped. And we wanted to make sure that this train was going to keep rolling,” Sullinger said. “It’s tremendous to be in a situation like this, and it’s a blessing. But at the same time we can’t lose focus.”

Wearing fluorescent orange shoelaces and piping on their jerseys, Cincinnati (26-11) fell behind by 12 at the half before going on a 19-4 run early in the second. The Bearcats led 52-48 with 11:34 to play when Matta called a timeout and ripped into his team.

The Buckeyes allowed just one free throw over the next 5 1/2 minutes.

“They had 20 points in nine minutes and were shooting 80 percent, and some of that goes to them,” Craft said. “But we didn’t play defense like we did in the first half. We did a great job of sticking together and getting stops.”

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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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Acy leads way as Baylor moves into Elite Eight

By Jay Busbee,

ATLANTA – It took exactly 55 seconds for Xavier coach Chris Mack to realize his team was in serious trouble.

Quincy Acy, the bearded heart and soul of Baylor and part of its much-maligned frontcourt, found daylight at the top of the key and buried a head-on jumper.

Quincy Acy's 20 points and 15 boards carried Baylor into the South Region final against Kentucky.
(Getty Images)
“He’s not supposed to do that!” Mack said on the sideline. “Seventeen feet? He’s not supposed to do that.”

But he did. Acy also threw down crowd-rousing jams, reeled in both offensive and defensive rebounds that kept Xavier at a (mostly) comfortable distance in the rear-view mirror, covered for yet another Perry Jones III vanishing act, and singlehandedly willed his third-seeded team into the Elite Eight with a 75-70 victory over the 10th-seeded Musketeers.

“He was a beast,” said Brady Heslip, Acy’s roommate and a starting guard. “He was telling me all week that he wanted to play better because he knew he hadn’t been carrying his weight. He sure did tonight.”

Acy finished with 20 points and 15 rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting. And even that doesn’t tell the entire story of how he dominated Xavier on both ends of the floor.

“He’s a cage-rattler,” Mack said. “I want to see his birth certificate. He’s that kid, when you’re coaching AAU and you look over and he just looks so much bigger and stronger than everybody. … I can take some of the offensive rebound putbacks, but when he starts facing up and hitting jump shots, it’s not what the doctor ordered. It’s not fair.”

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No. 2 seed Kansas rolls through Detroit 65-50

OMAHA, Neb. (AP)—Kansas coach Bill Self hardly broached the topic of fellow No. 2 seed Missouri’s upset loss to Norfolk State on Friday. He figured there was no need—his players already knew.

He made sure to mention another No. 2 seed, Duke, also went down.

“The Duke game was going on and there was 5 seconds left or 20 seconds left when I finished doing my pregame,” Self said. “I told them then, `Hey, Duke’s getting ready to get beat, too.”’

It served as a warning to the Jayhawks.

They most certainly heeded it.

Thomas Robinson bullied his way for 16 points and 13 rebounds, and the second-seeded Jayhawks rolled to a 65-50 victory over Detroit in the second round of the Midwest Regional.

“I didn’t make a point of it because sometimes you make a point, it could add pressure, saying it’s possible. But I did say, `Hey, the one thing is we have to make sure Detroit doesn’t play well,” Self said of the earlier upsets. “When teams get comfortable anything can happen.”

After the first 15 minutes, Detroit never looked comfortable.

Doug Anderson led the Horizon League-champion Titans with 15 points before fouling out with 11:06 left. Ray McCallum, the son of the Detroit coach, added eight points on 4-for-15 shooting.

“I’m really proud of my guys,” said Detroit coach Ray McCallum. “We played one of the truly great teams in the country tonight, and that really, pretty much tells the story.”

Elijah Johnson added 15 points and Tyshawn Taylor had 10 for the Jayhawks (28-6), despite spending much of the second half in the locker room with cramps. Self said that Taylor received IV fluids during the game and should be 100 percent for Sunday night’s game against Purdue.

Kansas toyed with the Titans (22-14) early on before ramping up the defense, eventually holding them to 32 percent shooting and 3 for 17 from beyond the arc.

“They do a good job of not letting you get in the paint. That’s one of the strengths of my game,” the younger McCallum said. “I felt like I got good looks. It was just one of those games.”

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Xavier edges Notre Dame 67-63 in NCAA

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) Tu Holloway kept attacking the paint and knocking down tough shots for Xavier throughout the second half. It's no surprise the senior guard came through with the basket to help the Musketeers advance in the NCAA tournament.

Holloway banked in the go-ahead shot over Jack Cooley with 21.3 seconds left, helping Xavier rally to beat Notre Dame 67-63 on Friday night in the second round of the South Regional.

Holloway finished with 25 points on 10-for-15 shooting, including a flurry that helped the 10th-seeded Musketeers (22-12) rally from 10 down in the second half against the seventh-seeded Fighting Irish (22-12).

``He's made such big plays through the course of his career,'' Xavier coach Chris Mack said. ``The moment's never too big for him.''

Holloway had 17 points in the second half, the last coming when he rounded a screen from Kenny Frease and sent a high-arcing shot over Cooley's outstretched arm for the 64-63 lead.

``Coach Mack called my number, and it's a shot I practiced over the summer,'' Holloway said. ``I work hard for moments like this, and fortunately through the graces of God the ball went in. I knew it was big.''

After a free throw from Dezmine Wells pushed the lead to two, Notre Dame's Eric Atkins drew a blocking foul to get to the line with 2.8 seconds left. He swished the first free throw, but official Michael Stuart ruled that Jerian Grant left his position behind the 3-point arc too early as he ran in for a rebound, giving the ball back to Xavier.

The same unusual call was made at a critical moment of top-seeded Syracuse's 72-65 victory over UNC Asheville during the second round of the East Regional on Thursday.

On the ensuing inbounds pass, Pat Connaughton was whistled for an intentional foul when he grabbed Wells' jersey trying to deny him the ball. Wells knocked down both free throws to push the lead to four with 2.8 seconds still on the clock to ensure the victory.

``It's too bad that happens, but there was a lot of plays,'' Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said of the lane-violation call. ``We missed some free throws. There were a lot of plays that culminated in not being able to escape with a win.''

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