CNN —
It’s been three long days, but the men’s NCAA tournament returns Thursday with 16 teams just two wins away from the Final Four.
Four games are set for both Thursday and Friday, setting the stage for a weekend of high-pressure college hoops.
Here are five things to watch from the Sweet 16:
The team that everyone loves to hate might be unstoppable.
Led by Cooper Flagg, a finalist for the Naismith Trophy as the best player in men’s college hoops, the Blue Devils absolutely rolled through the first weekend of the tournament. First, it was a 93-49 trouncing of Mount St. Mary’s in the opening round and then – on a day full of drama in most of the other games – it was an 89-66 stomping of Baylor that sent them to the Sweet 16.
The scariest thing for Duke’s opponents is the number of options they have that can beat you. Sure, everyone is thinking about Flagg, but the standout player of the opening weekend was Tyrese Proctor, who scored 25 and 19 points against Baylor and Mount St. Mary’s, respectively. If you slow either of them down, Kon Knueppel – the freshman who averaged 14.1 points per game in the regular season – might take up the scoring mantle instead.
So far, the Blue Devils have improved on their regular season shooting percentage and 3-point shooting percentage and dropped their turnovers in their opening two games of the tournament. If Arizona and star guard Caleb Love – a transfer who once played against the Blue Devils at archrival North Carolina – can’t slow down Duke’s well-oiled machine, then head coach Jon Scheyer may have an easy path to San Antonio and the Final Four.
“This is just something I dreamed about ever since I was a little kid,” Flagg said Wednesday of playing in the NCAA tournament. “These are the moments that I imagined myself being in when I was in the driveway, things like that. Just a surreal feeling to be here in these moments and have these opportunities. I just feel really blessed.”
The Southeastern Conference sent a record 14 teams to the tournament this year and seven of them have made it all the way to the Sweet 16.
Auburn, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Kentucky will all be playing for an Elite Eight berth and the conference is guaranteed at least one spot in that round – the No. 2 Volunteers and No. 3 Wildcats will be squaring off on Friday.
Of the eight games being played in the Sweet 16, only two won’t feature an SEC team – a truly incredible accomplishment for the traditionally football-focused conference.
The Big 12 and Big Ten each sent four teams to the second weekend of the tournament – Arizona, Houston, Texas Tech and BYU for the Big 12; Michigan State, Purdue, Maryland and Michigan for the Big Ten – and, in a sign of where that conference is right now, only Duke is representing the ACC.
Florida was tested. So were Auburn and Houston. Duke rolled.
In a year when chalk has been the name of the game – high seeds beating low seeds, with a handful of upsets – the prospect of an all-top-seeds Final Four looms. Still, it’s possible that a chalky first weekend of the tournament could lead to college basketball chaos in the second weekend.
The Friday matchups, in particular, look tasty. Auburn faces No. 5 Michigan at 9:39 p.m. ET on Friday, with Houston facing No. 4 Purdue about 30 minutes later. Michigan cruised against Texas A&M in the round of 32 on Saturday after surviving UC San Diego’s upset bid in the opening round and the Big Ten tournament champion Wolverines will be aiming to keep up their late-season momentum against the Tigers.
The Boilermakers, meanwhile, have been out to prove that they are well and truly over their March flakiness. Matt Painter took his team all the way to the championship game last year and crushed possible Cinderella stories from High Point and McNeese State in the opening rounds. Purdue has a history of bowing out of the tournament in embarrassing fashion over the last decade – taking down a top seed in the Sweet 16 might be the way to show last year was no fluke and those days are gone for good.
It’s hard to imagine this version of John Calipari as an underdog. He’s got a national championship, six Final Fours and six SEC regular season and tournament titles to his name.
And yet, here he is, a Hall of Fame coach leading No. 10 Arkansas into the Sweet 16 in the closest thing this tournament has to a Cinderella.
Arkansas is – of course, because it’s a Calipari team – stacked with talent. Three of Calipari’s players from Kentucky followed him to Fayetteville. Johnell Davis transferred in from Florida Atlantic University and freshmen Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond all decommitted from Kentucky to follow their coach to Arkansas.
But despite all that talent, it was a mixed bag of a season for the iconic coach in his first season as a Razorback. Arkansas went 22-13, finished ninth in the SEC with a below .500 conference record, had a five-game losing streak and didn’t really start putting it all together until the end of the season. In taking down No. 7 Kansas and No. 2 St. John’s in the tournament’s opening weekend, the Razorbacks are suddenly looking very much like a typical Calipari team.
Next up for Arkansas is high-powered Texas Tech. The Red Raiders averaged 80 points per game during the regular season and are led by forward JT Toppin. Tech cruised past UNC-Wilmington and No. 11 Drake in its opening games of the tournament – it’s expected that the Razorbacks will be more evenly matched for the Red Raiders than either of those mid-majors.
Here are all the men’s Sweet 16 matchups, times and channels starting on Thursday:
Thursday
- No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 6 BYU (7:09 p.m. ET on CBS)
- No. 1 Florida vs. No. 4 Maryland (7:39 p.m. ET on TBS/truTV)
- No. 1 Duke vs. No. 4 Arizona (9:39 p.m. ET on CBS)
- No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 10 Arkansas (10:09 p.m. ET on TBS/truTV)
Friday
- No. 2 Michigan State vs. No. 6 Ole Miss (7:09 p.m. ET on CBS)
- No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 3 Kentucky (7:39 p.m. ET on TBS/truTV)
- No. 1 Auburn vs. No. 5 Michigan (9:39 p.m. ET on CBS)
- No. 1 Houston vs No. 4 Purdue (10:09 p.m. ET on TBS/truTV)
CNN’s Jacob Lev contributed to this report
