Saturday’s Elite 8 Games

My nephew Brendan was in the Mecca (Madison Square Garden) on Thursday night and saw two outstanding games, including the Kansas State – Michigan State instant classic. Provides me with a great backdrop for today’s ‘Elite 8’ previews. He happened to witness K-State’s Markquis Nowell set an NCAA tournament record with 19 assists, snapping a record that me, my brothers – Rich (Brendan’s dad), Mike, Joe, and my Dad witnessed in 1987, when UNLV’s Mark Wade dished out 18 assists in the Runnin’ Rebels 97-93 loss to Indians in the Final Four in the Superdome.  

9 Florida Atlantic (34-3) v 3 Kansas State (26-9) – 6:09 TBS 

Kansas State favored by 2 

Florida Atlantic had never won an NCAA tournament game before this season, now they’re in the ‘Elite 8’. 

Among FAU’s former coaches are former Runnin’ Rebel and NBA veteran Sidney Green, former Tar Heel player and coach Matt Doherty, former GW and St John’s coach Mike Jarvis, and former NBA veteran and Pistons coach Michael Curry.  

The Owls are balanced, and don’t have one player that averages playing two-thirds of a 40 minute game. The Owls have nine players that average between 15.8 and 26.2 minutes per game.   

Among the Owls nine rotation players, only one is a senior – with three juniors, three sophomores, and two freshman. The Owls have three players that average double-digit scoring per game – Johnell Davis, Alijah Martin, and Vladislav Golden, all sophomores.  

The Owls average making 8.98 of their three-point attempts per game, shooting at an impressive 37.2% from beyond the arc. Seven Owls have drained 30 or more three-pointers this season. 

Owls coach Dusty May served as a student manager at Indiana for four seasons under Bobby Knight from ‘97-00. This is May’s fifth season at FAU, in his first role as a head coach, and holds a 100-59 (.629) record. May served as an assistant under current Georgia coach Mike White at both Louisiana Tech and Florida. 

FAU, located in Boca Raton, began playing at the D1 level in the ‘93-94 season. The Owls only other tournament appearance came in 2002, after finishing 13-7 and third place in the Atlantic Sun, but winning the conference tournament.  

The Owls 34-3 record has produced the best winning percentage among all the ‘Elite 8’ teams, and the 34 victories are three or more wins greater than any of the other seven teams remaining. 

Kansas State has advanced to four Final Fours, but none since 1964. The Wildcats advanced to the semifinals in ‘48, ‘51, ‘58, and ‘64, losing to Kentucky in ‘51 in their only national championship berth. 

The Wildcats won their first three ‘Elite 8’ games, in ‘48, ‘51, and ‘58, but have won just one of their last ten quarterfinal games, including losing their last seven. 

The Wildcats were picked to finish last in the Big 12 in the ore-season by the conference coaches, and finished third.  

The Wildcats were 16-1 at home, and entered the tournament with a 7-8 record on away or neutral courts, before winning the last three in the tournament. 

This Wildcats team features nine transfers, including seven first year transfers, as coach Jerome Tang was left with just two players, after coach Bruce Weber resigned last March. Those two, Markquise Nowell and Ismael Massoud transferred to K-State under Weber, and decided to stay. 

For my money, Nowell has been the most valuable, and most outstanding player of the tournament through three games. The 5’8 point guard put on the performance of the tournament thus far in the Cats victory on Thursday night, producing 20 points and an NCAA tournament record 19 assists in their overtime win over Michigan State. Not only has Nowell been a table-setter, averaging 14 assists in three tournament games, he’s averaging a team-best 21.3 points per game in the tournament. Nowell has been doing it all season, ranking second in the NCAA in assists, at 8.1 per game.  

Nowell grew up in Harlem – 109th and Lexington, one of three Cats from Harlem, along with Massoud and Nae’Qwan Timlin. Nowell joined a litany of NYC point guards who rose to the occasion as a collegian under the bright lights of MSG, from ‘Pearl’ Washington’s Big East tournament days with Syracuse, to Mark Jackson’s days at St John’s, to Kenny Anderson and Rod Strickland coming as visitors from Georgia Tech and DePaul, respectively, to Marbury, to Kemba Walker, who Nowell idolized as a child. Nowell set a tournament record before the home crowd, and Massoud, for his part, scored a career-high 15 points in his hometown. Their production in the win over Sparty earned themselves another gig in MSG on Saturday.  

Manhattan, Kansas, Manhattan, New York. So nice, they named it twice.  

Coach Tang served as an assistant to Bryce Drew at Baylor for 19 seasons, including as the associate head coach during the Bears national championship season in ‘21. This season, in his first season in the first chair since coaching high school in Texas in 2003, Tang was named the AP Coach of the Year, as well as the Big 12 Coach of the Year. Tang was born in Trinidad and Tobago.  

Shout outs to the Wildcats greats – Rolando Blackman and Mitch Richmond, and the contemporaries, Mike Beasley, Rodney Magruder, and Kamau Stokes (City College ‘14). I remember Blackman leading the Cats to the ‘Elite 8’ in ‘81, with their two-tone purple uniforms – light purple tops, dark purple shorts.  

4 UConn (28-8) v 3 Gonzaga (31-5) – 8:40 TBS 

UConn favored by 2.5 

No team has won as many national championships over the last 25 years as has Connecticut, who has won four since ‘99. If the Huskies were to win it all this year, they’d join North Carolina and Duke for the most national championships over the last 50 seasons (‘74-23), with five, and would also tie the Tar Heels and Blue Devils for second most national championships since 1960 (64 seasons), second to only UCLA. 

The Huskies are 5-6 in ‘Elite 8’ matchups, but 5-2 since their first national championship season in ‘99. In each of the last three times the Huskies have played in an ‘Elite 8’ game (‘09, ‘11, and ‘14), they’ve not only won the game but won it all.  

UConn has met Gonzaga just once in the NCAA tournament, but it happened to be an ‘Elite 8’ showdown too, a 67-62 Huskies win, which led to their first national title in ‘99. The Huskies were a one seed, while the then less heralded Bulldogs were a ten seed.  

Dan Hurley has been coaching since ending his playing days at Seton Hall, assisting his father Bob for one season at nationally renowned St Anthony’s in Jersey City, where the Hurley’s lived. After that, Hurley was an assistant at Rutgers for four seasons, before going back to the high school level for ten seasons and building St Patricks (NJ) into a national power. Then, Hurley took his first head coaching college job at Wagner, and stayed for two seasons before taking the job at Rhode Island, where he’d stay for six seasons, before taking the UConn job in 2018. His brother Bobby, the former Duke legend and current Arizona State coach, assisted Dan at both Wagner and Rhode Island, before taking his first head coaching college job at Buffalo.  

Since a mid-January loss to St John’s, UConn is 12-1 when they score 70 points, 1-3 when they do not.  

Huskies leading scorer Adama Sanogo, who was born in Mali, and began playing soccer, didn’t start playing basketball until 2014. In three tournament games, Sonogo is averaging 19 points and 9.7 rebounds per game, shooting an astonishing 76.3% (29-38) from the field. The 6’9 245 junior is now a two-time All-Big East first team selection. 

Huskies sophomore guard Jordan Hawkins is projected to go in the top half of the first round in the 2023 NBA draft. Hawkins played his first two high school years at Gaithersburg, before transferring to DeMatha before his junior season. Hawkins helped lead the Trojans to the 4A Final Four as a freshman, and finished his scholastic career being named Maryland’s Gatorade Player of the Year in 2020 as a Stag.  

12 of the last 15 NCAA tournaments have been won by a one seed, but in two of the three instances a top seed didn’t come out victorious over the last 15 post-seasons, it was the Huskies who were national champions. The Huskies won the ‘11 national title as a three seed, and the ‘14 crown as a seven seed, the second highest seed to win a tournament, second only to ‘85 Villanova, who were an eight seed.  

Shout out to ‘Uncle’ Cliff Robinson, Ray Allen, ‘Rip’ Hamilton, Rudy Gay, Charlie Villanueva, and Kemba Walker. And, of course, the builder, Jim Calhoun. The Huskies program is the most underrated college powerhouse in the game, as their success over the last quarter century puts them in the ‘one shining moments’ conversations with the Duke’s, the Carolina’s, and the Hoosiers of the world.  

The highest major of all mid-majors – the Gonzaga Zags. The Zags success over the last quarter century can match with anyone, save for the elusive national title. The Zags have made two national championship game appearances in the last five post-seasons, falling short of Carolina in ‘17, and Baylor in ‘21. 

The Zags have made a staggering 13 ‘Sweet 16’ appearances in the last 24 post-seasons, and now six ‘Elite 8’ appearances in that same span.  

Zags coach Mark Few has been the head of the program for 24 seasons, after serving nine seasons as an assistant with the team. Few has led the Zags to 19 WCC tournament championships, and 22 regular season crowns.  

Few has led the Zags to an NCAA tournament bid in each of his 23 completed seasons (no post-season in ‘20), as well as led them to the WCC tournament final in each of his 23 full seasons.  

Few boasts the highest winning percentage in NCAA men’s college basketball history, registering a 689-134 record, producing a .837 win percentage, decimal points ahead of Sam Burton (.833), who coached West Texas A&M for 12 seasons from the 20s through the early 30s. Few became the third quickest to reach 500 (612 games) and 600 wins (754) in NCAA history.  

The Zags are the highest scoring team in college basketball, averaging 87.5 points per game. The Zags shoot a mind-boggling 52.9% from the field, and 38.7% from beyond the arc. Surprisingly, that success hasn’t translated at the charity stripe, with the Zags connecting on just 70.1% of their attempts, more than five percentage points less than UConn, who shoots at a 75.4% clip at the line.  

Senior Drew Timme is a lost breed, a four year player and three year star. Timme averages 21.5 points per game, after averaging 19.0 per game as a sophomore, and 18.4 per game as a junior. Timme is the Zags all-time leading scorer, producing 2,295 points in his four seasons with the Zags. Timme also ranks fourth on the Zags all-time leading rebounding list, 14 away from the third highest mark.  

Shout outs to John Stockton, Adam Morrison, Elias Harris, Damontas Sabonis, and Ronny Turiaf.