March Madness indeed! Dayton departs, Cinderella keeps dancing
The 10th-seeded Aggies of Utah State scored their third straight upset to reach the Elite Eight and next face Maryland, which handed Dayton its first loss in 23 games.
Another No. 1 seed fell Friday in five hours of madness at Madison Square Garden.
The Dayton Flyers, winners of 22 straight, lost to fourth-seeded Maryland 81-72 in the second semifinal of the East Regional of our mythical college basketball tournament. In the first game of the day, 10th-seeded Utah State pulled off another upset, shocking third-seeded Villanova 103-92 to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 1970.
In the West Regional at Staples Center in Los Angeles, all was calm. Neither Gonzaga, the No. 1 seed, nor BYU trailed in a West Coast Conference sweep of the Pac-12’s last two hopes, Oregon and Arizona.
Imagine that. The WCC, a league that frequently has trouble getting two teams into the tournament, has two teams in the Elite 8. Only the Big Ten can match that, and it began the tournament with 10 teams in the field. (The WCC had three — Saint Mary’s fell to Baylor in the second round — and its record in the tournament is 7-1.)
Saturday, with Final Four berths on the line, Kansas and Duke face off in Indianapolis and Creighton meets Ohio State in Houston. Those games will be posted here Sunday morning.
EAST REGIONAL at Madison Square Garden, New York
No. 4 Maryland 81, No. 1 Dayton 72 >> The Terrapins finally got their first victory of the season over a Top-10 ranked team, and now are in the Elite Eight for the first time since Juan Dixon led them to the national championship in 2002.
Anthony Cowan scored 17 of his 26 points in the second half as Maryland (27-7) turned a one-point game into a blowout of the Flyers (31-3). Dayton’s only other losses came in overtime, 78-76 to Colorado in December and 90-84 to Kansas in November.
The Flyers have reached the Elite Eight only twice, most recently in 2014 when they made a magical run as an 11th-seed. In 1967, they rode All-American Don May (22.2 points, 16.7 rebounds) all the way to the championship game, which they lost to the UCLA Bruins of John Wooden and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Maryland contained Obi Toppin, the Flyers’ leading scorer and a projected top-5 pick in the NBA draft in June. The 6-9 sophomore got only eight shots, made just three and finished with nine points, 11 below his average.
The Terrapins got double-digit scoring and better than 50% shooting from all five starters. Sophomores Jalen Smith and Aaron Wiggins each had 15 points,
No. 10 Utah State 103, No. 3 Villanova 92 >> Senior guard Sam Merrill scored 32 points, 21 of them coming from behind the three-point line, including back-to-back daggers that put the game away.
The Aggies (29-8), who’d broken the 100-point barrier in their first-round upset of West Virginia, traded haymakers with the Big East co-champs almost from start to finish. The game featured 22 lead changes. With Utah State leading 90-86, Merrill buried his sixth three-pointer, then made another one after stealing the inbounds pass.
This team now has gone as far as any Utah State team in the 81-year history of the tournament. The Aggies reached the Elite Eight in 1939 and 1970.
WEST REGIONAL at Staples Center, Los Angeles
No. 1 Gonzaga 77, No. 4 Oregon 65 >> The Zags were challenged only once and then only briefly. Tied at 47 after Oregon opened the second half with a 15-6 run, Gonzaga guard Ryan Woolridge found Flip Petrusev for two easy baskets inside, then scored two of his own in an 11-0 run capped by Cory Kispert’s 3.
Petrusev had 16 points and nine rebounds. Joel Ayayi had 11 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Kisper and Woolridge both score 10 points and Ryan Timme came off the bench for nine points and seven rebounds in 14 minutes.
Oregon senior Payton Pritchard, the Pac-12 player of the year, had one of the worst games of his brilliant career. He missed all but three of his 10 shots, went 0 for 5 from behind the arc and finished with 10 points, half his season average.
No. 6 BYU 87, No. 7 Arizona 72 >> The Cougars scored the first nine points of the game and never looked back. Yoeli Childs had 26 points and 11 rebounds, and BYU’s senior guards were sensational. Jake Toolson filled the stat line — 21 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three blocks, two steals. TJ Haws had 14 points and 12 assists.
BYU (26-8) shot 50.8% percent and was even better from distance, making 13 of 25 three-point attempts (52%).
Arizona (22-11) got as close at 45-40 in second half, but in a span of 14 seconds, Alex Barcello, a transfer from Arizona, and Haws both hit from deep to make it 51-40. The margin got as big as 87-63 after a 3 by Haws with 4:42 left.
Freshman Nico Mannion, Arizona’s second-leading scorer with a 14-point average, managed just six points.