Thursday’s Sweet 16 takeaways: New faces heading to Elite Eight
The Candy 16 of the NCAA males’s faculty basketball event kicked off on Thursday night time with a few No. 1 seeds in motion and a rematch of final yr’s nationwide championship sport. A kind of No. 1 seeds (UConn) is shifting on. One among them (North Carolina) just isn’t.
We check out all of that and extra with some takeaways from Thursday’s motion.
Some new groups reaching the Elite Eight
We’re used to seeing Clemson and Alabama play one another for nationwide titles on the soccer subject.
Now we get to see them achieve this on the hardwood.
Each groups punched extraordinarily uncommon tickets to the Elite Eight on Thursday night time by scoring main upset wins of their Candy 16 matchups.
No. 6 seed Clemson earned its first ticket to the Elite Eight because the 1979-80 season with a 77-72 win over No. 2 seed Arizona, whereas No. 4 seed Alabama pulled off a serious upset towards No. 1 seed North Carolina, 89-87, to make its first journey to the Elite Eight since 2004.
It is just the second journey to the Elite Eight in program historical past for each faculties.
That is particularly uncharted territory for Clemson. Previous to this season, the Tigers had made the event simply two instances within the earlier 12 years and had gained simply three whole event video games relationship again to 1997. They’ve gained three event video games this yr alone.
Now the 2 groups will meet Sunday with a visit to the Ultimate 4 on the road.
Neither college has ever reached a Ultimate 4 in males’s basketball. That’s assured to alter for certainly one of them.
RJ Davis picked a foul time for an off night time
The massive story for North Carolina on Thursday night time was an off night time from ACC participant of the yr RJ Davis.
Regardless that he completed the sport with 16 factors, nearly all of that got here from the foul line. He was a whole non-factor from the sector, making simply 4-of-20 subject targets whereas going 0-for-9 from three-point vary.
Simply to place these numbers in some perspective, it was his second-worst capturing efficiency of the season (forward of solely a 1-for-14 efficiency towards Virginia) and the primary time all season he didn’t make a single three-point shot.
One other disappointing ending for Arizona
Arizona Wildcats followers are beginning to get used to NCAA event disappointment and Thursday was one other chapter in that saga.
It has been practically a decade because the Wildcats have superior past the Candy 16 and Thursday’s 77-72 loss to Clemson was the sixth consecutive event look during which have been eradicated by a lower-seeded crew.