Mar 29, 2026
3 min read
The stage is set.See how a Sweet 16 upset sets the stage for the Elite Eight.
Here he is on the front porch of the Final Four, four regional finals of varying flavor and plenty of intrigue.
The Sweet 16 certainly did its job of setting up the weekend.
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Duke vs. Connecticut, two programs responsible for 11 of the last 34 national championships.
Illinois vs. Iowa, first all-Big Ten regional final in 26 years.The Elite Eight game no one saw coming.
Michigan vs. Tennessee. One program has gone to seven national championship games, the other has never made it to the Final Four. The only unseeded team of the eight is led by a 71-year-old coach who had success at another school but wants to return before time runs out.
Purdue vs. Arizona.The Boilermakers started the season as the No.1;The Wildcats are perhaps the most popular choice to finish it.Purdue is back in the Elite Eight, led by three former seniors who have been in West Lafayette forever;Saturday night will be the 445th game for Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn.Arizona has yet to finish second in this tournament with three freshman starters.
It took two exciting nights to make that match upAn encouraging message from the Sweet 16 is that the Big Ten Tsunami continuesMichigan, Purdue, Illinois and Iowa are better, meaning the Elite Eight is 50 percent of the Big Ten.As of last spring it was 50 percent SEC
But this was not the only extraordinary development.
Duke turned to a young man barely three weeks removed from surgery on a broken leg.
Connecticut led 25-6 against Michigan State, but needed to make all six free throws in the final 44 seconds to hang on after going 4-10 from the line in the first 39:16.
📺 WATCH: Tight ends UConn vs. Michigan State in Sweet 16
Sixth-seeded Tennessee, which had lost four of six coming into the tournament, needed to save the SEC from elimination.
Arizona's offense scored 14 points on six Wildcats, and Nebraska tried to play defense against Iowa with just four Cornhuskers.The tournament had never had a first in its history, and no one could remember the last time it had a second.Nebraska, because of the communication breakdown, looked like the hockey team was trying to stop the penalty play.
The Big Ten is already guaranteed to have one team in the Final Four, and it could be three.“College basketball has forever been cyclical,” Michigan coach Dusty May said after the Wolverines edged Alabama on Friday night.“Hopefully the conference will be a long cycle for us.”
Strange forces seem to be at work here.Houston's home court advantage has been discussed nationally for weeks as a loaded tool.Never be a problem.With two miles to go, the Cougars led Illinois by just 89 seconds.Loyer hit a 3-pointer against Purdue against Texas.The other team was 0-for-12.Michigan outscored Alabama 33-6.led by coach and guard - Ben McCollum and Bennett Strtz - who were at Northwest Missouri State two years ago, lost the Division II tournament 43-42 to Minnesota State.
"In 20 years, it's going to be a crazy story," McCollum said."There's a guy who goes from D-II with his coach and then goes to Drake and goes to the University of Iowa and goes further in Division-I competition than he did in Division II."
Duke St.John rallied from a 10-point deficit to escape.
It was Caleb Foster, who scored all 11 of his second-half points three weeks after breaking his leg."Ninety-nine percent of players don't get back in the game in the circumstances that happened to him," coach Jon Scheyer said afterward."It was amazing, the way he wanted us. There's no analytics. There's no statistic to measure how much heart this guy has for what he's done."
⏮️ DID YOU MISS IT?Duke vs.St.St.Watch John's Sweet 16 series battle finale
Tennessee will be the SEC's last chance.
The Volunteers shot 51 percent and outrebounded Iowa 43-22, 76-62.Or there will be no SEC after Friday.That puts Tennessee in its third straight Elite Eight and knocks again on a door that never opened.
The Sweet 16 won't be a country for seniors either.
70 coaches gone: Kelvin Sampson, Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino.But Rick Barnes is moving on, trying to do for Tennessee what he did for Texas 23 years ago."We have standards for a lot of things," he said Friday night."We're kind of a no-nonsense program. We talk about that in terms of recruiting. We tell people it's going to be tough. We want them to come in and help them."realize our dream, and as we move forward, we would love to have the opportunity to play for a national championship."
Connecticut would need the balance and presence that the years have given Alex Karaban.
Lute Olson's name pops up.Arizona is trying to make its first Final Four since 2001, Iowa's first since 1980. Olson coached those Final Four teams.
Arizona is the No. 1 seed in the West.Purdue is 0-9 all-time against the No. 1 seed.1.
Iowa won its third tournament game in seven days.The Hawkeyes have won four of the past 24 years. At No. 9, they are the lowest ranked team in the Big Ten ever.
"Maybe they should have seeded us more. No, just kidding. They planted us where we needed to be," McCollum said."Cinderella, whatever you want to call us, we belong to the Elite Eight."That's what they should call it.
was Looking back: 8 Cinderella tournaments - and what happened after that program?
Alabama, the nation's top-scoring team, scored 49 points against Michigan in the first half — and 28 in the second.
The leading rebounder in the Illinois-Houston wood game is the guard.Keaton Wagler had 12 for the Illini.
The other 15 teams that played the last two nights averaged 26 shots from the three-point line.Arizona made only eight and scored 109 points.
Tennessee scored 87 goals in the tournament, 61 of which came on assists.
Illinois ranks 361st in the nation in forcing turnovers.dead last.But when your offense is so strong, who you want to run is 17-0 Houston vs. Houston.
Until this year, Iowa had not beaten a power conference opponent in the Century Series.
Arizona's 63.6 percent shooting was its best in the Sweet 16 in 21 years.
The weekly lectures aren't just about survivors and progressives. But it's also about those left behind with all those legendary names."I'm never surprised by a season ending," Sampson said after leaving the Cougars.
As a coach aged 71, every defeat in March raises questions about his future plans.For example Izzo.
"We're all talking about retirement. Why?"he said Friday night."What am I going to do? The minute I don't feel good, the minute I give energy to the AD or the principal or the school every day, or the minute that energy runs out, I don't have to worry about it. I'm not stealing money, I'm not going to steal anyone's time. But I'm not sure I'm going to get anything."
Not only this weekend.
