Goodbye little guys
There won’t be any little guys to pull for on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.
For just the second time since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, no double-digit seed advanced to the round of 16.
Winthrop was the last of the teams seeded 10th or lower to have a chance to reach the third round, but the 11th-seeded Eagles lost 75-61 to Oregon on Sunday. The only other double-digit seed to advance to the second round, No. 12 Virginia Commonwealth, lost 84-79 in overtime to Pittsburgh on Saturday.
No double-digit seed reached the third round in 1995, and only five times since 1985 had only one moved on. The most to reach the round of 16 was five in 1999.
Last year, No. 11 George Mason, which went on to the Final Four, and No. 13 Bradley reached the third round.
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NO 1-2 PUNCH: Second-seeded Wisconsin’s 74-68 loss to UNLV on Sunday meant yet another year when at least one of the top two seeds in each of the four regions failed to reach the third round.
Since 1985, the top two from each region moved on to the round of 16 only twice, in 1989 and 1995.
Wisconsin is the only one of the 1 and 2 seeds not to advance to the third round. The West Regional, with Kansas, UCLA, Pittsburgh and Southern Illinois, is the only one with the top four seeds still alive.
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CONFERENCE CALL: The Atlantic Coast Conference had the most teams in the field of 65 with seven. The Big Ten was one of three leagues with six. They both have just one team left in the third round.
North Carolina, the top seed in the East Regional, is the lone ACC team remaining after Virginia Tech and Virginia lost Sunday in the second round, joining Maryland and Boston College, which lost Saturday, on the sideline. Duke and Georgia Tech didn’t make it out of the first round.
Ohio State, the top seed in the South Regional, is the only Big Ten remaining after Purdue and Wisconsin lost Sunday in the second round, joining Michigan State and Indiana, which lost Saturday, on the sideline. Illinois lost in the first round.
The Southeastern Conference, which started with five teams, and the Pac-10, which started with six, each have three teams still alive. The Big 12, which started with four, and the Big East, which started with six, both have two left.
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DEFENDER RUN: Florida matched the last six defending national champions by advancing to the third round with its 74-67 victory over Purdue.
The last two — North Carolina and Connecticut — both had their runs at a second straight title end in the round of 16.
The three before that — Syracuse, Maryland and Duke — all had their defenses end in the regional finals.
Michigan State, in 2001, was the last national champion to return to the Final Four. The Spartans lost there to Arizona.
The last team to repeat was Duke in 1992.
‘‘This is fun right now,’’ Gators coach Billy Donovan said after the win over Purdue. ‘‘They should enjoy winning. I know they wouldn’t enjoy the other side of it if we were going home and this was over, so we need to enjoy this.
‘‘They need to be kids and have fun and enjoy this experience because they’ve worked hard to get to this point.’’
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SHOOTING COMEBACK: Kevin Kruger’s first NCAA tournament game certainly wasn’t his best, considering he missed all eight of his shots — all 3-pointers — in UNLV’s 67-63 victory over Georgia Tech.
The fifth-year senior, who transferred from Arizona State to play for his father with the Runnin’ Rebels, missed his first three shots Sunday but bounced back to finish 4-for-10 from the field, all but one attempt from beyond the arc, and had 16 points, six rebounds and seven assists in a 74-68 victory over Wisconsin.
Kruger entered the tournament shooting 36.5 percent (74-for-203) from 3-point range.
‘‘I kept telling him, ‘You are going to make some shots,’’’ teammate Wendell White said. ‘‘He did. That’s what happened.’’
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OH BROTHER: The Landry family’s planned sweet 16 party in St. Louis fell apart in about in a half-hour on Sunday.
Carl Landry had 18 points and 10 rebounds in Purdue’s 74-67 loss to top-seeded Florida in New Orleans, in what turned out to be the senior forward’s final collegiate game.
About 30 minutes later, second-seeded Wisconsin lost 74-68 to UNLV in Chicago. Sophomore forward Marcus Landry had four points and three rebounds for the Badgers.
So instead of facing each other with a Final Four berth at stake, the brothers will have to settle for just one meeting in their careers, Wisconsin’s 69-64 win this season.
Two brothers, twins in fact, still have a chance at a Final Four reunion. Rodrick Stewart of Kansas and Lodrick Stewart of Southern California will both be playing in the third round.
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CHARITY CASE: Memphis came into the NCAA tournament as one of the worst free throw shooting teams in Division I, shooting 61.3 percent from the line.
In the second-seeded Tigers’ 78-62 victory over Nevada, that stat went out the window as they made 20 of their first 24 on the way to shooting 76.5 percent (26-for-34).
Even Joey Dorsey, who came into the game shooting 46.5 percent (67-for-144), made four of six on Sunday.
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SLUMPING HOKIES: Virginia Tech certainly wasn’t offensive in its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1996.
The Hokies scored the last 12 points of the game to beat Illinois 54-52 in the first round, then lost 63-48 to Southern Illinois on Sunday.
The point totals were the lowest of the season for Virginia Tech, which entered the tournament averaging 72.7 points per game.
‘‘It’s very, very simple: you make shots, you win. You don’t make shots, you don’t win,’’ Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said.
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ILLINI CONNECTION: Two former Illinois coaches won second-round games Sunday in Chicago’s United Center.
Lon Kruger, who led the Fighting Illini to the NCAA tournament in 1997, 1998 and 2000, advanced to the Midwest Regional semifinals with UNLV’s 74-68 victory over second-seeded Wisconsin.
Bill Self, who led the Fighting Illini to the NCAA tournament in 2001, 2002 and 2003, advanced to West Regional semifinals with top-seeded Kansas’ 88-76 victory over Kentucky.
Illinois, now coached by Bruce Weber, who led the Fighting Illini to the national championship game in 2005, lost in the first round.
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