The best and worst of everything from Thursday’s Sweet 16

Two absolute classics, a potential tournament favorite emerging, and the top play of March to date.

Let’s get to all of it.

(3) Kansas State 98, (7) Michigan State 93 (OT) (East)

The game of the tournament so far, and I didn’t think the runner-up was particularly close to being within shouting distance … until a few hours later.

As thrilling as Gonzaga-UCLA was down the stretch, it didn’t quite deliver as consistently from start to finish the way the first game of the evening to tip-off did.

The largest lead of the game was seven. Michigan State shot 49.2 percent from the field and Kansas State shot 55.9 percent, becoming just the second team this season to shoot better than 50% from the field against the Spartans. Michigan State shot a scorching 52.0 percent from three, while K-State countered with 45.8 percent.

You also had two New York natives — Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell and Michigan State’s Tyson Walker — going huge play for huge play inside Madison Square Garden.

For a moment, Walker seemed to have made the biggest play of the night; a driving left-handed shot that tied the score at 82 and forced the first overtime of the NCAA tournament so far.

Nowell countered in the extra period with the best and most-talked about play of March thus far, one we’ll talk a little bit more about below.

The diminutive Wildcat floor general would reach 19 assists during overtime, setting a new NCAA tournament record for assists in a single game. Nowell’s final dime was an inbounds pass to yet another New York native, Ismael Massoud, who buried a baseline jumper to put Kansas State ahead by 3 with 17 seconds to play.

Walker tried to play hero once more on the other end, but he was stripped by Nowell, who then drove the length of the court for an exclamatory layup just before the final buzzer sounded.

Oh, and Nowell did all this despite suffering an ankle injury in the second half that resulted in a quick 9-2 Michigan State run while he was sidelined.

“Today was a special one, man,” said Nowell. “I’ve got to give a lot to credit to my teammates for battling, for fighting through adversity when we was down. I can’t even explain how I’m feeling right now. I just know that I’m blessed and I’m grateful.”

Narratives can change fast from one round to the next, but this is quickly starting to become “The Markquis Nowell Tournament.”

The electrifying Third Team All-American now has 42 assists through three games, shattering the previous record for most assists by any player through the Sweet 16. The old record of 33 had been shared by Joey Rodriguez of VCU in 2011 (who took 4 games to do it) and UCLA’s Earl Watson in 2000. Oh, and Nowell’s also averaging 21.3 ppg in the Big Dance.

A first-year head coach in Jerome Tang versus a 28th year head coach in Tom Izzo who had pulled more seed-line upsets than any coach in the history of the tournament. A Kansas State team that was picked to finish last in the Big 12 and which hasn’t been to a Final Four since 1964 versus a perennial powerhouse in Michigan State trying to get to its ninth Final Four under Izzo alone. Incredible shot making and incredible effort on both ends of the floor for 45 full minutes.

This was an absolute March classic.

UConn

The Kansas State-Michigan State and Gonzaga-UCLA games are all anyone’s going to be talking about Friday morning, which is understandable. But lost in the shuffle is going to be the fact that UConn continues to move like a tremendous machine, and looks like it may now be the team to beat through two and-a-half rounds of this tournament.

The Huskies were widely expected to face a stern test from uber-talented Arkansas on Thursday evening. Not so. UConn got whatever it want on offense from the game’s opening tip to the final horn, steamrolling its way to an 88-65 demolition of Eric Musselman’s team.

For all its historical success in the tournament, the 23-point margin of victory was the largest ever for a Connecticut team in the Sweet 16 round or beyond.

The performance was so complete that it left Bill Murray — whose son, Luke, is a UConn assistant — begging Dan Hurley to pull a Musselman and go topless after the game.

UConn has won its first three games of the tournament by 62 total points, and all of them have come by 15 points or more. That 20.7 ppg average margin of victory is easily the largest of any team still standing.

While they’ve made 30 three-pointers in the tournament so far (9-of-20 from three on Thursday), the Huskies did it both inside and outside against Arkansas. They shot 61.0 percent from the field in the first half and had nearly as many points in the paint (24) as the Razorbacks had total points (29).

Despite facing an Arkansas team that Clark Kellogg might refer to as “spurtable,” Connecticut allowed the underdogs no hope after halftime. They kept up their breakneck pace, they extended their lead from 17 points to 29, and never let it dip below 19.

Adama Sanogo is playing as well on both ends of the floor as any big man in the tournament, Jordan Hawkins is stepping up to be that star guard on a March tear that every Final Four team needs, and as a unit, the Huskies have been at their best defensively over these last three games.

It’s all there for Connecticut at the moment.

Tennessee

It’s nights and days like these that you hope Rick Barnes isn’t Twitter name searcher.

Despite all his regular season success at Tennessee, Barnes still hasn’t been able to get the Vols past the Sweet 16. The head coach hasn’t been to an Elite Eight, period, since taking Texas there in 2008.

The latest March disappointment came Thursday night against 9th-seeded Florida Atlantic, a team against whom Tennessee controlled the action for the first 29 minutes or so. The Vols played the game at their preferred pace and successfully drug the Owls “into the mud” with them up until about the midway point of the second half. It was then that FAU started to connect on the outside shots that had been finding only rim up until that point, and it was then that Tennessee lost control.

Michael Forrest went on a personal 8-0 run that turned a 4-point FAU deficit into a 4-point advantage. The Owls never trailed again, as defensive minded Tennessee simply couldn’t find any offense to deliver a return blow. The Volunteers shot just 33.0 percent from the field for the game and went just 6-of-23 from beyond the arc.

This is the fifth straight tournament where UT has had its season ended by a worse-seeded team. A positive? At least Florida Atlantic wasn’t a double-digit seed like Michigan (#11 in 2022), Oregon State (#12 in 2021) or Loyola-Chicago (#11 in 2018).

Baby steps.

1. Gonzaga-UCLA

This is primarily for Thursday night’s thriller, but we can also extend this cheers to the overall Gonzaga-UCLA March series, which has now given us three absolute classics over the last two decades.

The latest installment felt like it was going to wind up being a tale of two halves. And then it wound up being a tale of like eight different final minutes.

UCLA dominated the opening 20 minutes. Gonzaga had no one who could keep Bruin point guard Tyger Campbell in front of them, and only the stellar offensive play of Drew Timme inside kept the Zags within a respectable distance. Mick Cronin’s team led 46-33 at the break, but their lead would never grow larger.

A renewed energy and commitment on the defensive end fueled Gonzaga in the second half. Timme continued to light up the wounded Bruins —who were playing without big man Adem Bona — in the post, and on the other end, the Zags held UCLA without a field goal for a whopping 11 minutes. This allowed Mark Few’s team to build a 10-point advantage with just 2:40 to play.

Then, the ghosts of 2006 crept out from the shadows.

Pac-12 Player of the Year Jaime Jacquez began to attack the basket effectively, some revved up UCLA pressure forced a key turnover, and Gonzaga suddenly couldn’t find its stroke at the free-throw line. The furious rally couldn’t help but evoke memories of “The Adam Morrison Game,” one of the most famous — and painful if you’re a Bulldog fan — Sweet 16 contests in the history of March Madness.

The episode of history repeating itself took full hold after Timme missed badly on a pair of free-throws and UCLA’s Amari Bailey buried a three on the other end to put the Bruins ahead with 12.2 seconds to go.

In that game 17 years ago to the day, Gonzaga did not have a timeout to use after UCLA scored the go-ahead bucket, and a frenetic sequence ended with Bulldog point guard Derek Raivio losing the ball and Morrison winding up on the court in tears.

This time, Mark Few was ready.

The man who likely holds the dubious but also respect-demanding title of “best coach to never win a title” dialed up the same full-court action that Villanova used to beat North Carolina at the buzzer of the 2016 national championship game. The play resulted in Julian Strawther getting a shot at a game-winner from virtually the same spot where he hit one earlier in the season against BYU.

The Las Vegas native delivered again.

After a steal by Gonzaga’s Malachi Smith, who then made 1-of-2 free-throws, UCLA had one final chance to send the game into overtime. Campbell got a very good look from about 30-feet, but the potential game-extender sailed just long.

For Gonzaga, the thriller puts them just three wins away from putting to bed the “can they actually do it?” talk forever. For UCLA, the conversation about this season seems destined to surround the questions of what if Jaylen Terry wasn’t lost for the year and what if Adem Bona had been able to play against the Zags. The team certainly seemed to be good enough to win a national title at full strength, and was right there even at about 75-80%.

For everyone else, we’ll just hope that we see these two squaring off in every tournament from now until eternity.

2. The Markquis Nowell/Keyontae Johnson lob

You’ve seen the play by now, but to start this conversation, let’s make sure we watch it again.

Now let’s look at the court-level view.

Quick summary here: That is New York native Markquis Nowell appearing to intentionally get into it with his head coach to relax the defense, then throwing a half-look alley-oop pass from just inside halfcourt to Keyontae Johnson — the player who terrifyingly collapsed on the court in December of 2020 — for a reverse cram to break a 92-92 tie in the final minute of overtime in a Sweet 16 game being played at Madison Square Garden.

Oh, and the assist allowed Nowell to tie the record for assists in a single NCAA tournament game, a record he would break minutes later.

Simply put, this might have been the coolest shit I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Want it be even cooler? Just before it happened, Nowell looked up in the crowd at Isaiah Thomas and Michigan State legend Mateen Cleaves and said “watch this.”

Now Jerome Tang told Sports Illustrated’s Richard Johnson after the game that this “wasn’t a dummy call” and that Nowell and Johnson just have a great connection and made a great play. I’m choosing to completely ignore this information.

K-State is the most fun team in the tournament, Markquis Nowell is the most fun player in the tournament, Keyontae Johnson is the best story of the tournament, and they had been saving this swaggy as fuck play-call all year long, just waiting for the perfect moment. This is my truth.

Pre-meditated or not, this was an all-time March moment from a player on an all-time March run.

3. Hometown kids

Thursday was a fantastic night for a lot of things, none more so than star players returning to their hometowns, burying game-winners, and then letting everyone both in attendance and watching from home know whose city it is.

First up, Markquis Nowell, the man whose Twitter handle is @MrNewYorkCityy and who would like everyone to know that he calls the Big Apple home.

Next up, Julian Strawther, who was born in Las Vegas and played his high school ball at Liberty in nearby Henderson, NV. After burying the shot that would ultimately sink UCLA’s season, Strawther also wanted the basketball world to take note of the fact that the event which just occurred had taken place in the city which he calls home.

If there’s a Louisville or a Kansas City native taking the floor in their home city on Friday night, their team is probably the one you need to be wagering on.

1. Uros Plavsic’s flagrant foul

The dirtiest play of Thursday night came from Tennessee’s Uros Plavsic, who’s honestly lucky that he wasn’t ejected for this.

Not only was the forearm a cheap move, it was dumb. Tennessee trailed by just four at the time (although the three-point shot that was in the air would ultimately rip through the net), and there was only 7:33 to play. The offensively-inept Volunteers could ill-afford to just give points away to the Owls at this juncture, and Plavsic did just that.

2. The Big Ten

While we still have a shot at our first West Coast champion since 1997, Michigan State’s loss to Kansas State means that the Big Ten’s streak of title futility will extend into at least its 24th year next season.

But it’s more than just the lack of national championships for the league at this point.

The Big Ten has received more bids than any other conference in each of the last three NCAA tournaments. With those 26 total bids, the conference has produced zero Final Four teams and just one regional finalist. The conference has put 17 teams in the field the last two seasons and hasn’t had a single team play in the Elite Eight.

The metrics will likely continue to tell us that the Big Ten is one of the two best conferences in college basketball next season, but it’s getting harder and harder to trust any of the league’s top performers on the sport’s biggest stage.

3. UConn’s Vegas hotel

No team in the NCAA tournament is playing as well as the UConn Huskies right now, but that doesn’t mean that Danny Hurley’s team hasn’t been met with some adversity in Las Vegas.

The team was set to check into the Luxor hotel on Tuesday, the hotel booked for the team by the NCAA, but players quickly complained that their rooms were riddled with “dirt, vomit, and worse.”

The team bailed on the hotel and was thankfully able to find new accommodations. While athletic director David Benedict said the school “didn’t want to make a big deal” out of the situation, UConn fans quickly began to accuse the NCAA of trying to sabotage the Huskies.

Thankfully, the situation didn’t appear to have any sort of negative affect on the Huskies’ play Thursday night.

Drew Timme, Gonzaga

UCLA had no answer for the Gonzaga big man, who went nuts to the tune of 36 points (the most for any player in this tournament so far) and 13 rebounds. With the performance, Timme went from 24th to tied with Austin Carr for 11th on the all-time NCAA tournament scoring list.

Markquis Nowell, Kansas State

The man who has taken this tournament by storm put forth yet another work of art, scoring 20 points, handing out a tournament record 19 assists, and recording five steals in Kansas State’s overtime win over Michigan State.

Jaime Jaquez Jr., UCLA

In what was likely his final performance as a Bruin, the Pac-12 Player of the Year nearly willed UCLA into the Elite Eight, scoring 29 points, grabbing 11 rebounds, recording three steals and dishing out three assists.

Jordan Hawkins, UConn

He only had to play 28 minutes thanks to his team’s total effort against Arkansas, but Hawkins buried three triples and all nine of his free-throw attempts on his way to a game-high 24 points.

A.J. Hoggard, Michigan State

Hoggard did everything he could to keep Sparty’s season alive, scoring a game-high 25 points and recording a team-high six assists.

Keyontae Johnson, Kansas State

Sure, let’s see it again.

1. The Markquis Nowell tournament

Sometimes this tournament can be so magical that it can get the whole country talking about a guy they didn’t know existed three weeks earlier. The whole country is talking about Markquis Nowell.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

2. Owl power

Florida Atlantic, which had been to just one NCAA tournament before this year and never won an NCAA tournament game, is just one win away from the Final Four.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

3. Timme time

The man you either love or hate isn’t done yet.

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

1. “I’m just really, really thankful I get to yell at them in practice one more day. We just get to spend another day and dap each other up, all little things that really matter. I’m just so thankful for that.” —Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang

2. “If people have a problem with that, they can go … go somewhere else.” —Drew Timme resisting the urge to swear on live TV for the second time in a week.

3. “My opening statement is it took 33 minutes to get me in here, which is ridiculous.” —UCLA head coach Mick Cronin

Let’s do this again. Bring snacks. Maybe a hot dip or something.

This post was originally published on SBNation