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A look at what’s happening in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday:
The tourney gets rolling with 16 first-round games and one of the most intriguing pits the 13th-seeded Jackrabbits against the fourth-seeded Friars in a Midwest Region tilt in Buffalo, New York.
Providence is favored by just two points, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, and facing an opponent no one would want to take on right now.
South Dakota State ran through the Summit League regular season unbeaten, owns the nation’s longest win streak at 21 games and is in the tournament for the sixth time in 11 years. The Jackrabbits are shooting 45% on 3-pointers to lead the nation, and it’s not just one sharpshooter. It’s five.
Providence is not playing its best right now. The Friars are coming off a 27-point Big East Tournament loss to Creighton and struggled to beat lesser teams three times since mid-February.
Providence’s Jared Bynum (4) pictured
Brothers Arthur Kaluma (pictured) and Adam Seiko got a Selection Sunday surprise when Creighton and San Diego State were matched for a Midwest Region first-round game in Fort Worth, Texas.
Kaluma, a freshman forward and the highest-rated recruit in Greg McDermott’s 12 years at Creighton, has been a starter all season and averages 9.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.
Seiko, a senior guard, has mostly come off the bench and averaged 5.3 points and 2.0 rebounds in 23 minutes per game.
The two played together last summer on the Ugandan National Team.
“The family group chat is going crazy right now,” Kaluma told the Omaha World-Herald.
Michigan will be without starting point guard DeVante’ Jones when it plays Colorado State in a South Region game in Indianapolis. Wolverines freshman Frankie Collins (pictured) will draw his first start.
Jones entered concussion protocol after getting hit in the nose by an inadvertent elbow in practice this week. Jones, playing his final season after transferring from Coastal Carolina, is the Wolverines’ third-leading scorer. Michigan coach Juwan Howard didn’t rule out Jones coming back later in the tournament if the Wolverines advance.
Winning back-to-back national titles is harder than ever, according to Baylor coach Scott Drew (pictured).
Only two schools have done it — 2006-07 Florida and 1991-92 Duke — since John Wooden’s UCLA teams won seven in a row from 1967-73.
Baylor is trying to become the third as it opens the tournament as the No. 1 seed in the East against Norfolk State in Fort Worth.
“In this day, if you win it all, probably you have a lot of pros that leave,” Drew said. “And then with the transfer portal, people leave. And it’s hard to have enough talent or chemistry or experience to repeat.”
Drew has had to replace four starters from the team that beat Gonzaga in the national final.
“There’s normally more pressure and expectations when you’re the reigning champ,” Drew said. “But at the same time with us, it’s such a new team and we’ve lost so much, I think there’s plenty of excitement. And we haven’t approached it with pressure, but more opportunity.”
Chris Jans finally got his guy when Teddy Allen’s long and winding road reached New Mexico State this season. The Aggies, seeded 12th in the West, face Connecticut in Buffalo.
Allen (pictured) had made stops at West Virginia, Wichita State, Western Nebraska Community College and Nebraska before arriving in Las Cruces.
Allen averages 19 points per game and is the Western Athletic Conference player of the year. This will be his second experience in the NCAA Tournament, but it’s been a while. He played in two games for West Virginia in 2018.
“This is my third time recruiting him,” Jans said. “Took me a while, but we finally got it done.”
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In the one-and-done and one-time transfer era, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound shooting guard stayed at the same school for four years and went from a three-star prospect to a first-team All-America player. Agbaji averages nearly 20 points for the top-seeded Jayhawks.
In the NBA draft in June, he might be the first guard selected. Scouts love his explosive hops, blazing speed, scoring knack and defense. Even Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant is a fan. The 6-4, second-team All-America shooting guard averages 17 points for the third-seeded Boilermakers.
An ankle injury stunted his game recently, leading to a 3-of-19 performance in a loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament, and a week of rest might get him right. The third-seeded Badgers certainly need him at full strength because the first-team All-America player averages almost 20 points.
First-year coach Tommy Lloyd inherited quite a team from fired coach Sean Miller, and no player was more valuable than Mathurin. The 6-6 second-team All-America shooting guard averages 17.4 points and 5.6 rebounds for the top-seeded Wildcats.
College basketball seems to have better shooting guards than point guards, but Gillespie is a good 1. He directs an offense that has six players averaging at least nine points. The 6-3 fifth-year senior averages 15.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the second-seeded Wildcats.
Don’t miss your chance to see the nation’s leading scorer play for Bryant in a First Four game against fellow 16 seed Wright State on Wednesday night. The high-scoring, trash-talking guard scores 25.1 points a game on dunks, shots off the dribble and long jumpers from behind the 3-point arc.
The Bears lost their terrific trio of guards to the pros last year and reloaded with Akinjo, an Arizona transfer, who previously played at Georgetown. The new-look backcourt paired the third-team All-America guard with Flagler, who started his college career at Presbyterian College. Akinjo and Flagler each average 13.4 points and combine for 8.8 assists for the top-seeded defending national champions.
The reigning runner-up is led by a pair of second-team All-America players in Chet Holmgren, the likely No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and Drew Timme. A senior backcourt sets up the big men for success. Nembhard ranks among the nation’s leaders with 3.24 assists for every turnover. Bolton is one of five players averaging 11-plus points for the top-seeded Bulldogs.
Kofi Cockburn gets a lot of credit, rightfully so, but teams have a better chance of collapsing on the All-America center than they do trying to corral Plummer and Frazier. The dynamic duo combines to average 27 points, with more than half of that production coming from behind the 3-point line.
It’s no surprise that coach Dan Hurley has a strong backcourt, a pair of seniors who attended another college for two years. Cole, a former Howard star, leads the fifth-seeded Huskies with 15.7 points and 4.1 assists per game. Martin, who previously played at Rhode Island, averages 13.7 points and 7.6 assists.
Coach Eric Musselman loves free-flowing basketball and he has a backcourt to make it happen, led by Notae, a third-team All-America guard. Notae leads the team with 18.4 points while Umude and Toney combine for nearly 22 points and 10 rebounds a game.
If you’re not a Kentucky fan and looking for a lower-seeded team with good guards to make a surprise appearance in the Sweet 16, consider the seventh-seeded Racers. Murray State opens with 10th-seeded San Francisco, which also has a strong backcourt, before potentially playing the second-seeded Wildcats in a Bluegrass State matchup.
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“When it really got real, we pushed through and continued to grind and have fun. And now here we are,” Storm Murphy said.
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Moments after Virginia Tech finished off its most satisfying basketball victory in years, ESPN ran a graphic of Joe Lunardi’s NCAA Tournament …
A free throw by senior guard Owyn Dawyot sealed the win for the Roanoke County school.
Tech is a No. 11 seed in the East Region, with Texas a No. 6 seed.
“Just because we’re desperate doesn’t mean we’re not confident,” Keve Aluma said.
“We just couldn’t really defend well enough against a really gifted offensive team,” Mike Brey said.
“I value the concept of being able to learn and grow and expand my mind,” Mutts said.
“It’ll be cool to go back to … Wisconsin,” Murphy said.
Virginia Tech opens spring camp this week, get ready with our series of position previews, here’s a look at the quarterbacks…
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