On the second day of the NCAA Tournament, everything went pretty much as predicted.
No. 2 seed Auburn beat No. 15 Jacksonville State, 80-61, as expected (which also means JSU, unfortunately for the fourth team from Alabama, was expected to lose).
No. 6 seed Alabama lost to No. 11 seed Notre Dame, 78-64, which was disappointing but, given the ups and downs of the Crimson Tide’s play this season, not unexpected.
And No. 12 seed UAB, one of the teams widely picked to pull an upset, instead lost 82-68 to No. 5 seed Houston, a team that went to the Final Four a year ago.
Auburn (28-5) advances to play Miami, which held on to win a 68-66 thriller over Southern Cal, on Sunday in Greenville, S.C.
To those who may not have seen Auburn’s Jabari Smith before, they got to see exactly why he is one of the most electrifying players in the country. Smith scored 19 points with 13 rebounds, but his “posterizing” dunk over Jacksonville State’s Brandon Huffman with 1:03 left to play left even his own teammates slack-jawed and shaking their heads in awe.
The Gamecocks looked ready to give Auburn a run for the money, hitting five of their first seven three-point shots to take a six-point lead less than nine minutes into the game. That wasn’t surprising, since JSU came into the game as one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country.
But then Auburn’s defense took over and JSU missed its next 12 three-point attempts and would not make another until halfway through the second half.
The Tigers’ Walker Kessler had a near triple-double with 13 points, 10 rebounds, and nine blocked shots.
Jalen Gibbs’ 20 points and Jalen Finch’s 17 led Jacksonville State (21-11).
Alabama (19-14) earned its way into consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since 2006 by playing one of the toughest schedules in the country. Like the little girl with the little curl, when the Tide was good it was very, very good – beating Gonzaga, Houston and Baylor; but when it was bad …
The Tide ended the season with four consecutive losses. Guard Jahvon Quinerly went down with what was called a “significant knee injury” in the opening minutes of the game, and without the team's second-leading scorer, Alabama struggled to find an offensive rhythm.
Quinerly has had his ups and downs this season, with some great games and some bad ones which prompted coach Nate Oats to take him out of the starting line-up at times. However, it’s no secret that when he is ‘on,’ Alabama is a much better offensive team.
Without him, more pressure was put on leading scorer Jaden Shackelford, but Shackelford went 2-for-7 in the first half with eight points. He finished making four of 17 shots with 13 points and seven rebounds.
Notre Dame had a 41-36 lead at halftime. Alabama scored six straight points early in the second half to get within 44-42, but the Irish responded with a 17-5 run. Alabama made just 12 of 32 from the field in the second half and had two scoring droughts of more than three minutes.
In a late game from Pittsburgh, the Blazers (27-8) knew they would have their hands full with an experienced Houston team that advanced to the Final Four a year ago.
The Cougars took an early lead and never trailed, although UAB got within 10 points several times in the second half. But the Houston defense kept the Blazers well below UAB’s 80-points per game average and held Blazer guard Jordan Walker, who averaged 20.4 points per game this year and 31 points per game in the Conference-USA tournament, to 17 points and a shocking one-of-10 from three-point range.
UAB came into the game hitting 38.4 percent of three-pointers but made just 26.3 percent (five of 19) in this game.
This particular edition of March Madness has earned the ‘madness’ tag quickly. After Thursday’s opening day shockers, Friday's games had more underdogs coming out on top, with No.11 Notre Dame beating No. 6 Alabama, No. 10 Miami winning over No. 7 USC, and No. 11 Iowa State taking down No. 6 LSU.
ESPN’s SportsCenter reported the last perfect bracket in ESPN’s Bracket Challenge had been busted by last night.
