Maryland’s Derik Queen and Arizona’s Caleb Love led their respective teams to dramatic wins in Seattle on Sunday, helping round out a Sweet 16 for the ages.
The second day of the second round provided some of the tournament’s top action so far, with exciting finishes to start and close the day and a few more littered throughout for good measure.
The tournament gets much chalkier from here, which is unfortunate depending on who you talk to, with only one double-digit seed remaining in the Sweet 16. (That team, as it happens, is an SEC squad coached by John Calipari in Arkansas, which feels decidedly more evil-stepsister than Cinderella.)
Regardless, Sunday began with an absolute cracker of a game between Florida and UConn that saw the Gators end the Huskies’ bid for a three-peat, followed by three convincing wins for the SEC to give that league an all-time run in the tournament. Sunday also saw Duke further cement itself as a national title favorite in a thorough drubbing of Baylor, and it saw Michigan State snuff out the final mid-major when it beat back New Mexico’s early upset bid and clawed out a 71-63 win.
But Sunday’s best was saved for Seattle, which had two of the tourney’s best games to date — including the first March Madness buzzer-beater and a high-scoring thriller between two familiar foes.
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Maryland’s Derik Queen breaks CSU hearts as Crab Five advances
Well, he may have sent the last Cinderella packing and ended Colorado State’s magical run, but at least Derik Queen provided some March magic of his own in the process. Queen hit the tournament’s first outright buzzer-beater, capping a 72-71 comeback win for the Terrapins — and perhaps giving America a new team to root for in the coming rounds.
One of the youngest and most highly-rated players in the country, the 6-10 freshman and projected lottery pick showed why he’s so well-regarded. Watch him go left with a tough finish over CSU’s Ethan Morton as the clock expired, just moments after Jalen Lake’s go-ahead 3-pointer for the Rams:
Queen leads a Maryland starting five that also includes seniors Julian Reese and Selton Miguel, junior Ja’Kobi Gillespie and sophomore Rodney Rice. This group, dubbed the Crab Five, has been on one of the hottest tears in the country. They have won 16 of their past 20 games, with all four of the losses decided on game-winning shots. Much to the chagrin of mid-major fans everywhere, one of those game-winners finally went Maryland’s way on Sunday evening.
“I asked everybody, I said, ‘Who wants the ball?’” Maryland head coach Kevin Willard recounted to Andy Katz in a postgame interview. Queen wasted no time stepping up.
“He said, ‘Give me the ‘MF’ ball,” Willard said. “‘Alright, you’re getting it.’ I said, ‘Don’t mess around. Go after it and do it.’ And I give him a lot of credit, the big dog came through.”
As for why the youngster felt so confident in the big moment, Queen pointed to his roots.
“I’m from Baltimore, that’s why,” he told Katz.
The Crab Five will move on to face Florida on Thursday in the Sweet 16.
Old rivals Arizona, Oregon provide another classic in Sunday nightcap
Former Pac-12 conference mates Arizona and Oregon met in the final game of the Sunday slate, and the old rivals delivered one for the ages. After the Ducks jumped out and led by 15 early, Arizona stormed back and established itself for most of the middle of the game. Oregon nearly came back at the end, though, providing a frantic finish to what would ultimately be an 87-83 Wildcat win.
Oregon led 19-4 and 24-10 in the early going, with sophomore Jackson Shelstad having 10 of his 25 points in the first seven-plus minutes. Arizona responded with a 22-7 run over the next eight minutes to take its first lead of the game. Over the next eight minutes, spanning halftime, the Wildcats built an 11-point lead with 16:48 to play. The Ducks slowly chipped away and came within two points at 4:34 and again with 49 seconds left, even getting to within a single point twice in the final seconds of the game.
But Arizona never fully broke, as Caleb Love sealed the game with two free throws to round out his game-high 29 points.
Arizona heads to Newark to face Duke, which cruised to an 89-66 win over Baylor behind 25 points from Tyrese Proctor, as well as 18 points, nine rebounds, six assists and a block from Cooper Flagg. It will be a tall task for Arizona to deal with all the Blue Devils’ weapons, but Love is confident his team can do it.
“We got to go back and watch film, get ready for [Duke],” Love told Andy Katz in a postgame interview when asked about Arizona’s Sweet 16 matchup. “We’re going to enjoy this win, but we’ll be ready for them when it’s time. We’ll be ready for them when it’s time.”
SEC goes 4-0 on Sunday to send record seven teams to Sweet 16
When the ball first tipped in Dayton, all 31 conferences were represented in the NCAA Tournament. By Thursday morning, that number was down to 29. Twenty more leagues fell by the wayside in the first round, leaving just nine alive for the first weekend.
After Sunday, that number now sits at just four. It’s pretty much exactly who you’d expect: the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the ACC.
The remaining mid-major leagues — West Coast, Mountain West, Missouri Valley, Southland — all died in service of their big-time counterparts. Perhaps the only surprise from the weekend is that the ACC outlasted the Big East, which saw all three of its teams eliminated. (Then again, the Big East didn’t have Cooper Flagg carrying its banner.)
The SEC is top dog, supplying an all-time record of seven Sweet 16 teams. After a 3-1 performance on Saturday including wins by Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas, the league did one better and delivered a perfect 4-0. Florida came back on UConn behind Walter Clayton Jr.’s heroics. Alabama and Kentucky each led for the majority of their respective wins over Saint Mary’s and Illinois. Ole Miss scored 91 points against Iowa State’s top-10 defense and blew away the Cyclones.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten and Big 12 each got four teams into the second weekend. Michigan State and Maryland joined Purdue and Michigan to fill out the Big Ten’s foursome. Meanwhile, Arizona was the Big 12’s sole winner on Sunday after Houston, Texas Tech and BYU had already advanced. The Sweet 16 field is rounded out by ACC champion and 1-seed Duke, led by Flagg.
It may be chalky, but the final rounds will be chock-full of extremely high-level matchups. Sometimes an action thriller is just as entertaining as a Cinderella story.