Thursday’s quartet of Sweet 16 games involved no upsets. If anything, it was the exact opposite: a night spent watching some of the best teams in the country this season do their thing (some in more dominant fashion than others). Saturday’s resulting Wisconsin-Arizona and Kentucky-Notre Dame Elite Eight matchups should be outstanding. But first, here’s what we learned Thursday night.
Kentucky will finally face a real test Saturday. Seriously. John Calipari’s now 37-0 juggernaut treated West Virginia like a No. 16 seed Thursday, going up 18-2 off the bat and 42-15 late in the first half. By the end of the Wildcats’ 78-39 rout, the Mountaineers had the same number of made field goals (13) as turnovers. Ouch. Kentucky’s first three tourney foes, Hampton, Cincinnati and West Virginia, have averaged just 48.7 points. That’s ridiculous.
In Saturday’s Elite Eight game in Cleveland, though, Kentucky will meet the best team it’s faced all season in 32-5 Notre Dame. The closest comparison would be mid-December foe North Carolina, but the Irish are better than the Tar Heels at the one thing a team will need to excel at to have any hope against the Wildcats -- 3-point shooting. Notre Dame ranks second nationally in effective field goal percentage (58.5) thanks in part to its 39.2 percent outside shooting. Of course, whether the Irish can actually defend towers like Karl-Anthony Towns and Willie Cauley-Stein with just one regular contributor taller than 6-8 is another story.
Speaking of Notre Dame …
Mike Brey’s offense is a thing of beauty. The Irish are headed to their first Elite Eight since 1979 on the strength of an ultra-efficient half-court offense, one that even defensively stout Wichita State had no answer for in the second half of an 81-70 Notre Dame victory.
Over one particularly spectacular four-plus-minute stretch, the Irish broke open a 56-48 game by making seven of eight shots, featuring half-court sets that led to dunks, layups and threes, and all set up by assists. Jerian Grant’s 11 assists included four during this stretch alone, including a no-look dart to Zach Auguste for a layup. Steve Vasturia’s backdoor pass for a Pat Connaughton layup and Auguste’s alley-oop to Demetrius Jackson were nifty, too. With the win, Notre Dame improved to 8-1 on the season against the Sweet 16 field. The Irish are not an elite defensive team by any means, but only Wisconsin and Duke field comparable offenses.
