GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Cameron Boozer shook off a quiet first half to finish with 19 points and No. 1 overall seed Duke shot 61.5% after halftime Saturday to pull away from TCU for an 81-58 win in a physical second-round game at the NCAA Tournament.
The freshman voted a unanimous first-team Associated Press All-American earlier this week had just two points and missed his only shot in the first half. But he scored three times during the 11-0 second-half burst — twice on high-low feeds from fellow big Patrick Ngongba II in his return to the lineup — as Duke (34-2) finally shook free of the ninth-seeded Horned Frogs (23-12).
That 11-0 run was the capper on a 26-6 surge that spanned nearly nine minutes, with TCU missing 15 of 17 shots after Jayden Pierre’s layup tied it at 44-all with 13:56 left.
EAST
NO. 3 MICHIGAN STATE 77, NO. 6 LOUISVILLE 69
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Coen Carr recorded his first career double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds, and Jeremy Fears Jr. had 16 assists as Michigan State advanced to the Sweet 16 for the 17th time under coach Tom Izzo, beating Louisville in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Fears added 12 points on 3-of-13 shooting but did the most damage for Michigan State with his precision passing. The country’s assists leader, who came in averaging 9.2 per game, became the first Big Ten player with 10 or more assists in each of the first two games of an NCAA tourney. He had 11 in the Spartans’ first-round win over North Dakota State.
Magic Johnson had double-digit assists in four NCAA Tournament games during the Spartans’ run to the 1979 national title, before assists became an official stat.
Third-seeded Michigan State will play the winner of Sunday’s game between No. 2 seed UConn and No. 7 seed UCLA in the East Region semifinals on Friday night in Washington.
Carr, a high-jumping, 6-foot-6 junior forward, reached double-digit rebounds for the first time and came within one point of his best scoring game.
Trey Fort contributed 12 points off the bench for Michigan State, and Jaxon Kohler had 10 points.
MIDWEST
NO. 1 MICHIGAN 95, NO. 9 SAINT LOUIS 72
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Yaxel Lendeborg punctuated his 25-point outing with a massive dunk in transition, and the Midwest Region’s top-seeded Michigan advanced to the Sweet 16 with a victory over Saint Louis in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Morez Johnson Jr. had 15 and eight rebounds for Michigan (33-3), which matched a program record for victories set during its seventh and most recent Final Four appearance in 2018.
The Wolverines’ 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara had 16 points, five rebounds and four blocks to increase his season blocks total to 96, one short of matching Michigan’s single-season record set by Roy Tarpley in 1985-86.
The Wolverines advanced to the round of 16 for the second consecutive year and seventh time since 2017. They’ll play the winner of Texas Tech and Alabama at Chicago on Friday.
Amari McCottry had 14 points and five rebounds for Saint Louis (29-6), which saw its season end after setting a single-season record for wins with its 102-77 first-round win over Georgia.
The Wolverines’ size and depth proved too much for the ninth-seeded Billikens, who dropped to 0-6 in second-round games.
SOUTH
No. 2 HOUSTON 88, No. 10 TEXAS A&M 57
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Emanuel Sharp scored 18 points, Chris Cenac Jr. had 17 points and nine rebounds, and No. seed Houston rolled past No. 10 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday to reach the Sweet 16 for the seventh consecutive year.
Milos Uzan added 15 points for the Cougars (30-6), the No. 2 seed in the South Region. Houston will play in its home city on Thursday against either No. 3 seed Illinois or No. 11 seed VCU, and coach Kelvin Sampson’s squad — which lost in the national title game to Florida last year — again looks like an opponent nobody wants to play.
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Josh Holloway scored 12 points in a reserve role for Texas A&M. The 10th-seeded Aggies (22-12), who beat St. Mary’s in the first round, struggled against Houston’s aggressive interior defense. The Cougars won the rebounding battle 46-29, had 19 offensive boards and blocked seven shots.
No. 3 ILLINOIS 76, VCU 55
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Andrej Stojakovic scored 21 points and No. 3 Illinois beat 11th-seeded VCU to advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three seasons under coach Brad Underwood.
Tomislav Ivisic had 14 points and 11 rebounds and Keaton Wagler chipped in with 14 points for the Fighting Illini (26-8), who advanced to face South Region No. 2 seed Houston, an 88-57 winner over Texas A&M.
Underwood celebrated after the game by waving both arms up in the air simultaneously at the Illinois crowd.
Illinois, which had a huge height advantage, held VCU to 35% shooting and outrebounded the Rams 45-29. The Illini blocked five shots.
Terrence Hill Jr. had 17 points for VCU (28-8).
No. 4 NEBRASKA 74, No. 5 VANDERBILT 72
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Braden Frager made a driving layup with 2.2 seconds left, and Nebraska advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time, outlasting Vanderbilt in a scintillating second-round NCAA Tournament game when Tyler Tanner’s heave from beyond half court rimmed out at the buzzer.
Frager finished with 15 points and Pryce Sandfort also scored 15 for the fourth-seeded Cornhuskers (28-6), who had never won a March Madness game until beating Troy two days ago. Nebraska advances to the South Region semifinals in Houston, where it will face either top-seeded Florida or ninth-seeded Iowa on Thursday.
Tanner scored 27 points and Tyler Nickel added 16 for No. 5 seed Vanderbilt (25-9), which was trying to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2007.
WEST
No. 3 ARKANSAS 94, No. 12 HIGH POINT 88
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Darius Acuff Jr. had 36 points and six assists to help No. 4-seeded Arkansas survive a scare from 12th-seeded High Point with a victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Razorbacks (28-8) will face the winner of Sunday’s matchup between top-seeded Arizona and No. 9 seed Utah State on Thursday in the Sweet 16 in San Jose, California.
Two of the highest-scoring teams in the nation combined on a back-and-forth affair that featured 15 lead changes and six ties, before Arkansas had just enough late to send coach John Calipari to his 17th Sweet 16.
No. 11 TEXAS 74, No. 3 GONZAGA 68
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Jordan Pope and Matas Vokieaitis each scored 17 points, Camden Heide hit a game-sealing 3-pointer and Texas became the first team in five years to go from the NCAA Tournament’s First Four to the Sweet 16, beating Gonzaga.
First-year coach Sean Miller’s 11th-seeded Longhorns (21-14), who lost five of six entering the tournament and looked underwhelming in their First Four win over N.C. State, will face either No. 2 seed Purdue or No. 7 seed Miami on Thursday in the West Region semifinals San Jose, California.
The last First Four team to reach the Sweet 16 was UCLA, which made it all the way to the Final Four in 2021.
Graham Ike led third-seeded Gonzaga (31-4) with 25 points, but the Bulldogs struggled to generate much secondary scoring.
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