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NCAA Tourney Notes 3/14
Big Ten
Hoffarber’s improbable buzzer-beater sends Minnesota past No. 22 Indiana
With one catch, a quick spin move and a perfect 14-foot left-handed, buzzer-beating shot, Blake Hoffarber rekindled memories of Christian Laettner’s winning shot against Kentucky in the NCAA tournament and sent sixth-seeded Minnesota into the Big Ten tournament semifinals with a 59-58 upset of No. 22 Indiana.
Hoffarber, who finished with five points and made only one shot in the first 39:59, answered with play right out of Laettner’s book.
“I was fading to the corner,” he said. “It felt good, but I couldn’t really see if it was on target. I was in shock.”
It was a fitting end to a crazy night of twists, turns, lead changes and even dueling celebrations in the final 4 seconds and Minnesota’s mob scene was the final act.
“That was the first thing I thought about, that’s the new Christian Laettner play,” said Travis Busch, who heaved the 75-foot pass to Hoffarber. “It’s awesome. March is a great month, a lot of memories are made. It’s incredible.”
Maybe not so much for Hoffarber, who had already won an ESPY in 2005 for making a shot while sitting on the court to force a second overtime during a Minnesota high school tournament game.
Except in this case Hoffarber, the Golden Gophers’ 3-point specialist, wasn’t even supposed to be the shooter.
“I was actually supposed to be just a decoy,” he said. “I was running off two screens, being a decoy. I saw the ball going toward the middle, so I went up and grabbed it, turned and tried to get it off in time.”
It a masterful improvisation by Busch, who ran back-and-forth along the baseline to get a clear throwing lane. With the pass on line, Hoffarber did exactly what Busch expected: Catch, spin and shoot.
“I just chucked it to their general direction and he caught it,” Busch said. “I was thinking to myself, ‘Hey, he can make this.’ I started running and I was like ‘Oh my God, he did it.’ I went nuts. I was like Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug.”
Coach Tubby Smith said he wanted to get the ball toward the middle, hoping to draw a foul.
To DJ White and the Hoosiers (25-7), their second straight loss was the toughest in a bittersweet season. The victory total is their highest since 1992-93 but they’ve also dealt with three player suspensions, a midseason coaching change, failed to win a Big Ten title and now must deal with this ending.
“I just remember it sailing over my head,” said DJ White, who had 23 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks. “I was guarding (Dan) Coleman and he was kind of by the 3-point line. It went over my head, and I turned around and the shot was going in. Losses like this always hurt. You never forget it.”
White played like the Big Ten player of the year, an award he won Monday, although the stats were the least of his contributions. White’s amazing effort, unfortunately, got lost in the aftermath.
With Indiana trailing 57-55 with 3.4 seconds left, Eric Gordon intentionally missed a free throw. Somehow White beat two Minnesota defenders for the rebound, tipped it in and drew a foul. He missed the free throw with 3.1 seconds to go that would have Indiana ahead, but grabbed his own rebound, drew another foul and hit the second free throw with 1.5 seconds left.
That sent Indiana’s players hopping down the court.
Illinois surprised Purdue coach Matt Painter‘s team in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals.
“We lost this game because Demitri McCamey was special.”
McCamey made a 3-pointer over Chris Kramer with 18 seconds to play to make the score 63-all. Kramer took the shot personally.
“I’m the Big Ten defensive player of the year for a reason,” he said. “I can’t let that happen.”
Kramer’s mid-range jumper rimmed out as time expired, and the game went to overtime.
McCamey scored 26 points, and Illinois beat No. 17 Purdue 74-67 in overtime Friday. The freshman guard made 9 of 14 field goals and all six of his 3-point shots for the 10th-seeded Fighting Illini.
McCamey left Purdue’s collective stomachs and NCAA tournament seed sinking.
“Every time he made a big shot, you just get that bad feeling inside you like, ‘Dang, he made another one,”’ Purdue guard E’Twaun Moore said. “We just needed to stop it, and we didn’t.”
Shaun Pruitt added 14 points and nine rebounds for Illinois, which advanced to play Minnesota in a semifinal Saturday. The Golden Gophers beat No. 22 Indiana 59-58 on a last-second shot by Blake Hoffarber.
Only a tournament title will extend (15-18) Illinois’ season.
Illinois advanced to the semifinals for the 10th time in 11 Big Ten tournaments. Purdue (24-8), which had its highest seed ever, won 12 of 13 before the loss.
No. 8 Wisconsin’s Krabbenhoft, Flowers lead Wisconsin over Michigan, 51-34
It was Wisconsin’s eighth straight win, and its 21st in the last 23 games. The Badgers (27-4) will play No. 19 Michigan State in Saturday’s semifinals. The Spartans beat Ohio State 67-60 on Friday afternoon.
“We’re not worried about who goes out and is the leading scorer,” said Krabbenhoft, who thinks “high school” might have been the last time he led his team in scoring.
Michigan’s 34 points were the fewest ever for a single game in the 11-year history of the Big Ten tournament, and the final score “beat” the 89 scored by Michigan and Minnesota in the first round last year.
Drew Neitzel’s 28 points leads No. 19 Spartans past Buckeyes in Big Ten tourney
Less than a week after Neitzel was held to just six points in a loss to Ohio State in the final game of the regular season, Neitzel hit six 3-pointers.
“It was a tough game last weekend,” Neitzel said of Sunday’s loss to the Buckeyes. “It worked out funny how we played them in the last game and the first game of the tournament. As a player, you’ve got to forget about that (loss). I watched film and looked at myself in the mirror and said, `What can I do differently?”’
For one thing, the Spartans took care of the ball.
In the last game, they had 21 turnovers; this time, nine.
Kosta Koufos scored 19 points and David Lighty had 12 for fifth-seeded Ohio State (19-13), which won the conference tournament last year.
Fourth-seeded Michigan State (25-7), which lost to Wisconsin in the semifinals last year, will get a rematch with the top-seeded Badgers on Saturday. Wisconsin advanced with a 51-34 quarterfinal victory over Michigan in the lowest-scoring game in Big Ten tourney history.
PAC 10
Love rules in No. 3 UCLA’s 57-54 victory over USC
“That was a great win,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “We beat a really, really good team in USC. USC can make a huge, deep, long run in the NCAA tournament.”
The Trojans led 34-28 at halftime after contesting most of UCLA’s shots. That flustered Bruins into shooting 10-of-28 from the floor and 2-of-9 from 3-point range after hitting 14 3s in a quarterfinal win against California.
Freshman O.J. Mayo led the fourth-seeded Trojans (21-11) with 15 points. Freshman Davon Jefferson added 12 points.
Mayo rallied the Trojans over the final 4 minutes, scoring seven in a row to close to 54-52. He fouled Darren Collison, who made one of two free throws to keep UCLA ahead 55-52 with 1:26 remaining.
Daniel Hackett got fouled, made both and USC drew within a point with 31.6 seconds left. The Trojans were forced to foul Collison, who made both for a 57-54 lead. Collison got poked in the eye and “made those two shots bleary-eyed,” Howland said.
Freshman Kevin Love had 19 points and 10 rebounds for his 20th double-double in the first postseason meeting between crosstown rivals who’ve played 225 other times. They split in the regular season.
After Taj Gibson picked up his fourth foul knocking Love down on the offensive end, Howland pumped both arms in a rare display of emotion by the intense coach.
Brook Lopez scores 30 points as Stanford beats WSU 75-68 in Pac-10 semifinals
Lopez had 30 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots, and the 11th-ranked Cardinal beat No. 21 Washington State 75-68 Friday night in the semifinals of the Pac-10 Conference to continue their domination of the Cougars.
Lawrence Hill scored 14 points and Robin Lopez had nine points and eight rebounds for the second-seeded Cardinal (26-6), who advanced to Saturday’s championship game against No. 3 UCLA.
Kyle Weaver had a career-high 25 points and 12 rebounds to lead the third-seeded Cougars (24-8).
“You’ve got two towers down there,” Weaver said, referring to the Lopez twins. “They’ll make it hard on anybody to finish. I was just trying to attack the basket and make them play defense.”
Stanford’s Trent Johnson, the Pac-10 coach of the year, realizes the difficulty of Saturday’s assignment.
“We need to play really well,” Johnson said. “It’s obvious that this is a basketball program and a team that doesn’t have any weaknesses. This will be the stiffest test of the season for us.”
Stanford has played in the tournament finals twice, beating Washington to win the championship four years ago and losing to Arizona in 1989.
The four semifinalists are assured of NCAA tournament berths. What’s unclear is how many other Pac-10 teams will get a bid when invitations go out Sunday.
“I will be extremely disappointed if there aren’t seven teams,” the coach said, referring to Arizona State, Oregon and Arizona as well.
ACC
No. 7 Duke beat Georgia Tech 82-70 on Friday night, but not before the Blue Devils allowed most of a 20-point lead to slip away before pulling away in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament quarterfinal.
“That was as much game pressure as we’ve had all season long,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “You feel like you’re in control of the game, and then 3 minutes later, it’s crazy. I tried to tell our kids … ‘That’s how postseason is. Nobody wants to go away. You have to put them away.”’
The second-seeded Blue Devils (27-4) advance to Saturday’s semifinal against Clemson.
Playing for the first time since a 76-68 home loss to rival North Carolina six days earlier, Duke entered the tournament determined to prove that last year’s first-round loss to North Carolina State was simply an aberration for a proud program that appeared in nine straight ACC title games from 1998-2006 and won seven league championships during that stretch. Seven of the 10 players in the rotation claimed their first postseason victory of any kind with the Blue Devils.
“I thought this team made steady progress. The mistake I made with this team was before the season—we scheduled way (too tough),” Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt said of a schedule that included trips to Top 25 teams Connecticut, Indiana and Vanderbilt.
Clemson reaches the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament for the first time in 10 years.
82-48 loser Boston College (14-17) committed 22 turnovers a night after the 11th-seeded Eagles stunned Maryland to keep their season alive.
Raymond Sykes added 12 points for the third-seeded Tigers, who earned a matchup with No. 7 Duke on Saturday thanks to the largest margin of victory in its checkered ACC tournament history.
Clemson’s previous biggest blowout in the ACC tournament was a 21-point win over North Carolina State in the 1962, the only year the Tigers reached the ACC final.
Sticking around for the weekend is an unusual experience for the Tigers, who were 14-54 all-time entering the night and are the only charter member of the league never to win the tournament title in its 55-year history.
It wasn’t the best performance for the defending tournament champion No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels.
North Carolina and Florida State also finished in a 30-30 tie on the boards, marking only the third time all season the Tar Heels had not outrebounded their opponent. In the two previous meetings, North Carolina outrebounded Florida State by an average of 21.5 per game.
Tyler Hansbrough scored 22 points. The ACC player of the year went 8-for-10 at the foul line—all in the second half—after not getting to the line in last week’s win at Duke.
Virginia Tech pulls away from Miami 63-49 to reach ACC semifinals
Virginia Tech, coming in without a signature win to impress the NCAA committee, pulled away in the second half with a smothering defense against the fifth-seeded Hurricanes (22-10), who believe they’ve already locked up a spot in the NCAA field.
The Hurricanes’ strong RPI and a strong finish that includes a win over No. 7 Duke gives them strong credentials to get an NCAA tournament bid.
Miami, which beat North Carolina State in Thursday’s first-round, went more than 7 1/2 minutes without a field goal in Virginia Tech’s decisive run and couldn’t overcome a second straight subpar game from its top scorer.
Jack McClinton scored 16 points, but was only 4-of-17 from the field and 3-of-11 from 3-point range.
Tom,
Thanks for the NCAAA update. But we all have the internet, TV and newspapers.
Couldn't have put it any better... Probably the funniest comment I've seen so far this year. Thx Nites
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