College Basketball Nation: Duke Blue Devils

1. Being on the NCAA tournament selection committee has become a bad omen for athletic directors or commissioners keeping their jobs, with a third member losing his day job while on the committee. Last year, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe was fired and had to step away from the committee; he was ultimately replaced by Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione. Then, UConn athletic director and chair Jeff Hathaway was forced to “retire.” He had to take a faux consultant job with the Big East to stay on the committee. Hathaway is now the athletic director at Hofstra. The latest to lose his job is SMU AD Steve Orsini, abruptly fired Thursday. Chair Mike Bobinski of Xavier and new NCAA vice president Mark Lewis will now have to huddle to find a replacement for Orsini on the committee. If they stay in the Big East/Conference USA area, they should look at USF AD Doug Woolard, Big East associate commissioner Dan Gavitt or East Carolina AD Terry Holland.

2. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Kentucky’s Anthony Davis -- the consensus No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft -- brings shot-blocking, something the U.S. Olympic team may need this summer in London. Davis’ chances have risen due to the injury to Orlando’s Dwight Howard. Krzyzewski said Davis isn’t “trying out” for the team; rather, Davis is now in the pool of players who may be selected. Krzyzewski said it would be good to get Davis indoctrinated right away into USA Basketball. “He’s a great talent and a good kid," Krzyzewski said. “Hopefully we don’t get any more guys hurt."

3. Organizers for the Battle 4 Atlantis -- the top non-conference tournament -- won’t decide on the bracket until August for the November event. The event, at the Atlantis Hotel on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, could put all eight teams in the NCAA tournament. They are: Louisville, Duke, Stanford, Missouri, Minnesota, Memphis, VCU and Northern Iowa.
1. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Wednesday that he was in full support of the rules committee decision to have one finished, flat surface on the court instead of temporary decals or logos. “I just wish they would get rid of them," Krzyzewski said. “You could put them alongside the court. Where else is this in the middle of a court or playing field? There isn’t a logo in between the second baseman and shortstop. You’re not side-stepping over Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The main thing is that it was dangerous." Krzyzewski also chimed in on the plethora of transfers who have graduated and are seeking waivers to play elsewhere while attending grad school. A number of these players have been shopping around this spring. “It makes rising seniors free agents," Krzyzewski said. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing."

2. The NCAA dropped the ball on the 75th anniversary of the NCAA tournament, in 2013. The NCAA could have been at Madison Square Garden had it planned for the event long ago. But the Garden didn’t hear from the NCAA until too late, after dates had to be booked with the NHL (Rangers) and NBA (Knicks). The old MSG housed the NIT and the NCAA tournament in the 1940s. The NCAA should have gone old-school, putting the first and second rounds or the regional finals at historic spots for the sport. Instead, it settled on the Staples Center (Los Angeles), Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis), Cowboys Stadium (Arlington, Texas) and now the Verizon Center (Washington, D.C.). I know the NCAA has to deal with pro-style arenas, but there are college venues with historic significance in the sport that have decent size and capacity that the NCAA could have planned for well in advance (MSG, Rupp, Phog Allen, Huntsman Center). If it meant a tougher ticket for 2013, then so be it.

3. Murray State went for the sure thing and decided to play in the Charleston (S.C.) Classic over being in a Kansas State NIT Season Tip-Off pod that wouldn’t guarantee a trip to New York for the semifinals. The Racers complete the eight-team field in the Charleston tourney, scheduled for Nov. 15-18, with Baylor, Boston College, Charleston, Colorado, Dayton, St. John’s and Auburn. Baylor is the favorite in this tournament but Murray State should be seeded second or at the least third in this field.
I'm not sure how much Duke can use newly committed recruit, power forward Amile Jefferson, in the 2012-13 season. It strikes me as difficult to assume a player with such a slight frame (Jefferson is listed at 6-foot-7, 190 pounds) who is a "jump shot away from being special" (according to ESPN recruiting scouting analysis) will play alongside Mason Plumlee, and Duke's coterie of perimeter scorers, or whether Duke needs more of the stretch-forward role they got from departing senior Ryan Kelly, the apparent antithesis of Jefferson's game.

But in the end, it doesn't matter: Duke desperately needed to add to its 2012 recruiting class. On Tuesday, after one of the most drawn-out recruitments in recent history -- it feels like we say that every year -- Jefferson spurned NC State, Kentucky, Ohio State and Villanova. The decision was surprising; many expected Jefferson to commit to NC State, and Jefferson's mother even carried an NC State hat in her purse, just to be safe. In the end, Duke landed the No. 25-ranked player in the class of 2012, because Jefferson considered it a "once in a lifetime opportunity."

Clearly, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's recruiting pitch got across.

The questions now are whether Jefferson can help right away, where fellow McDonald's All-American and shooting guard Rasheed Sulaimon fits in the backcourt, and so on. If Jefferson can excel as early as this season, all the better for the Blue Devils. If he can't, he provides the promise of well-developed talent as a sophomore, particularly after Mason Plumlee graduates. In either case, with a short bench, a lack of frontcourt depth, and the creeping suspicion that Coach K had (even briefly) lost the pace of the nation's best recruiters, Jefferson's commitment is as important for competitive reasons as it is symbolic ones. Where the pieces all fit remains to be seen.

It's probably fair to assume Coach K will figure it out. After all, there's a reason why his take-home got this big.
1. Conference USA coaches and athletic directors met in Destin, Fla., Monday and, according to multiple sources, there is a strong movement to move the 2013 conference tournament from Memphis to Tulsa. Memphis is leaving for the Big East after next season and while it would make more economic sense to keep the event where it is, there isn't a lot of goodwill toward the Tigers to give them an added advantage in their final season in the conference. A decision on the tournament will be made next month.

2. Old Dominion is taking its time on deciding whether to upgrade football. The A-10 is apparently not an option anymore. If the Monarchs are deciding between the CAA and upgrading football to go into C-USA, then from a basketball standpoint, staying put makes more sense. If it’s a football decision then the Monarchs have to move. If it’s about hoops then ODU staying with George Mason and in a familiar basketball-first conference would be more beneficial to the continued success of this program.

3. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski made his intentions clear that he won’t coach the US National team beyond this summer. An NBA coach could be the next choice (and on Twitter a good suggestion came in the form of Doug Collins). If a college coach has another shot then Michigan State's Tom Izzo or Kansas' Bill Self, who have strong USA Basketball ties, could be in the pecking order. But it’s still unclear what direction the team/program will take after Coach K departs from the top job.
The offseason is rough, but at least we have two things:

1. The NBA Playoffs.

2. Olympic basketball.

[+] Enlarge
Mike Krzyzewski
Bob Donnan/US PresswireDuke coach Mike Krzyzewski helped revitalize USA basketball, winning Olympic gold in 2008.
I realize there are many college hoops fans who have no interest in the pro game, and while I don't understand you lot -- it's really good basketball, promise! -- such a stance does mean you likely take no solace in the mere presence of the NBA playoffs. But we can all get behind Olympic basketball, right? The collection of the world's best players, wearing the Stars and Stripes, vying for a gold medal -- it's a thrilling experience made all the more exciting by the continued global evolution of the game.

Though it may feel like it, it wasn't always this way. Just twelve years ago, USA Basketball appeared to be on something like a permanent decline. The 2004 Olympic team failed to capture gold at the Games, losing to Argentina 89-81 in the semifinals, and the recriminations were long and loud and thoroughly embarrassing to coach Larry Brown and his players (most notably Allen Iverson), who were seen as emblematic of the NBA's supposed me-first culture. The international game was on the rise -- less selfish, less brash, more fundamental -- and the United States, dominant basketball superpower, was on the way out.

That didn't happen, and we have two men to thank.

One is USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo, who revamped the men's national team with the establishment of a player pool designed to give the organization more structure and continuity. Colangelo's general vision has been the driving force behind the idea of USA Basketball as a program, not as an isolated, once-in-four-years affair.

The other is the man Colangelo hired to oversee the team, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who today announced this summer's 2012 Olympics would most likely be his last on the job. Under Coach K, USA Basketball became something less like a lark -- hey, sure, let's go win gold and travel, should be fun -- and something more like a consistent, dedicated annual effort. In 2008, Coach K selected an amazing team built on the league's best talent, with players who were not only better than their competition but adjusted their styles to the international game (a frequent criticism of past teams) and played selfless, ego-free basketball. Coach K got Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul and Dwight Howard and you-name-it to play together. (Watch footage of Bryant's defense in that tournament. It was breathtaking.) When Spain's talented team tested the Americans in the 2008 gold medal game, they were ready. The 2004 team would have been run off the floor.

Then, in 2010, Coach K won again, this time in the FIBA World Championships with a group of players effectively dubbed the "B Team" -- young, emerging stars like Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Andre Igoudala, Kevin Durant and Kevin Love. (The list goes on: Eric Gordon, Stephen Curry, Rudy Gay, Danny Granger ...). Nearly every player on that team came back from the 2010 FIBAs and went on to be a star on the league, Durant and Rose most notably. And is it a coincidence that Lamar Odom was sixth man of the year in 2011, or that Tyson Chandler anchored the Dallas Mavericks to an NBA title?

We can argue the developmental benefits of USA Basketball under Coach K. What we can't argue is the massive evolution the team has undergone since that nightmare in 2004. A fractured, bloodied entity is long since behind us: The 2012 men's Olympic team will come in as the obvious favorite, and none of the questions of the past -- Can the personalities work together? Can the U.S. play the international style? -- will linger over the proceedings. Coach K is an old-fashioned patriotic type. Whether you agree with his politics or not, his ability to imbue his star-studded, millionaire-loaded national teams with that spirit -- country first, team second, individual last -- has to be considered among the finest accomplishments of his career.

It would be too much to say Colangelo and Coach K "saved" USA Basketball. The players are far too good for that. Even as the game globalizes, the rest of the world still has a long way to go to catch up. And the personalities of the 2008 stars, specifically Bryant, went a long way toward ensuring a level of focus and dedication not seen in 2004.

Still, eight years ago, USA Basketball was in crisis. Today, it's as strong as it's ever been. It isn't always hard to coach the best players in the world, but it isn't always easy, either. And Coach K was the perfect man for the job.
Do we know how good Michael Gbinije is? We do not. The former Duke player -- who will transfer to Syracuse, as announced by that school this weekend -- didn't give us much to analyze in his freshman season. He made 19 appearances but averaged 5.8 minutes per game, in which he notched a whopping 1.7 points and 0.8 rebounds per contest. We do have some idea of Gbinije's talent: He was a touted incoming recruit for the Blue Devils, a top-30 player in the 2011 ESPNU 100, and clearly one who could make an impact before his Duke career came to a close.

[+] Enlarge
Michael Gbinije
Mark Dolejs/US PresswireMichael Gbinije played sparingly his freshman year, averaging 1.7 points and 0.8 rebounds in 19 games.
Whether he could have done that at Duke -- where Miles Plumlee is graduating but junior Mason Plumlee will return for his senior season, and the youngest Plumlee, redshirt freshman Marshall, is waiting in the wings -- remains up for debate. There are two items of note about this transfer:

1. If Gbinije wanted to avoid a talented frontcourt -- if he was planning on playing right away -- then his decision to attend Syracuse seems slightly suspect. The Orange will have one of the deepest frontcourts in the country in 2012-13, with Rakeem Christmas and C.J. Fair and Baye Keita and even James Southerland, and two more incoming big men in center DeJuan Coleman (the nation's No. 14-ranked player) and power forward Jerami Grant, who ranks No. 37 in the class of 2012. Gbinije will have to sit out the customary transfer year, but depending on which Syracuse players shine in 2012-13, and which decide to leave for next summer's draft, he may find playing time in an Orange uniform just as hard to come by as it was in Durham, N.C.

2. Syracuse won't become a member of the ACC next season; along with Pittsburgh, the Orange have elected to wait until after the 2012-13 football and men's basketball seasons to try their much-ballyhooed and long-delayed (thanks to Big East exit protocols) leap to the ACC. But eventually, most likely within Gbinije's career at the school, Syracuse will face off with Duke as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Which means Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski just kind of, sort of -- gasp! -- allowed a player to transfer within his own league.

And yet frogs are not raining from the sky, and cats are not lying down with dogs. There is a distinct lack of mass hysteria involved here. In other words, Division I coaches of the world, there is a way to handle transfers like this in a particularly non-dramatic fashion. A thumbs-up to Coach K for allowing his player to transfer in decidedly straightforward fashion, despite the chance Gbinije could play against the Blue Devils at some undisclosed future time and place. Life goes on.
I know, I know: That headline feels akin to “Dog does not bite man.” I can see the age-old commenter question already: Why is this news?

It is indeed news. Why? Because the past couple weeks have seen a noticeable uptick in rumors about Duke guard Andre Dawkins' future at the school. Typically, such rumors are easy to dismiss. But Duke fans have been at the message boards relentlessly, sure something was up -- that Dawkins was being dismissed, that he was transferring schools, that he had been arrested, you name it. The rumblings were persistently loud enough that on Thursday night Duke had to release a statement on the topic, asserting that Dawkins would remain a Blue Devil, but might redshirt the 2012–13 season, which would delay his final season of eligibility.

[+] Enlarge
Andre Dawkins and Scott Wood
Lance King/Getty ImagesDuke's Andre Dawkins might redshirt this coming season, according to the school.
So Dawkins isn’t leaving, but he might sit out a year. Why? According to his father, Dawkins is still dealing with the death of his sister, Lacey Dawkins, who was killed in a car accident on Dec. 5, 2009, when she was on her to way to watch her brother play collegiate basketball for the first time. From the Raleigh News & Observer:
“He’s dealt with a lot,” Dawkins’ father said. “It’s been tough. It hasn’t been easy at all. With the fast pace of playing high-level basketball, you don’t really get the time to deal with things like that.

“Everyone is different, and so everyone might handle that situation differently. I appreciate the fact that’s an option for him if that’s going to be the case. That’s been really great.” […]

Dawkins’ father stressed that Dawkins is doing well.

“I didn’t want you have to the impression that anything’s wrong,” he said. “This may be an option for him in the fall because he came in early, so this just may be an option for him. I didn’t want people to think he’s sick or anything’s wrong.”

So there you have it. Dawkins might still need some time to cope. Duke might allow him that time without him having to leave the program. Once rumors like this get started, it’s hard to blame fans for fearing the worst -- oftentimes, those fears are grounded in legitimacy -- but in this case, the truth is far less nefarious than anything on the Internet. Fancy that.

In any case, Duke fans would surely love to see Dawkins back in uniform as a senior this fall. They’d also love to see him raise his game to a more consistent level. Dawkins has always been one of the nation’s best, more lethal outside shooters, but he has yet to round into something more than that, and his production has been hampered by off-again-on-again bouts with inconsistency.

The good news for Duke: If Dawkins doesn’t play, the Blue Devils will still have Seth Curry, Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton returning, while adding the No. 3-ranked shooting guard prospect in the country -- and No. 12-ranked player overall -- in Rasheed Sulaimon.

Dawkins still holds a tremendous amount of promise in that body, with that sweet shooting stroke. But if he is unable to play in 2012–13, much as they won’t like it, the Blue Devils should be able to move forward without him.
The question is, what needs fixing? And once you've decided on that, how do you go about doing it?

[+] Enlarge
Mike Krzyzewski and Austin Rivers
AP Photo/Gerry BroomeDoes college basketball need better organization on a day-to-day basis? Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski seems to think so.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski appeared on Oklahoma City sports talk show "The Sports Animals" Monday, and he was asked this exact question: "What do we have to do to fix the game of college basketball?"

This is a really broad question. It assumes that college basketball needs fixing, but it doesn't provide any premise for exactly what about the sport is so desperately in need of repair. I can think of a few things, of course. Coach K, for his part, made an interesting point -- that the relationship between the NBA and college hoops is fundamentally broken:
"First of all college basketball doesn’t control college basketball," Krzyzewski said. "The NBA controls college basketball. They are the ones along with the players union that sets the rule. College basketball just reacts to what the NBA does to include the early entry date. College basketball put out April 10. Well, that date doesn’t mean anything. April 29 is when guys have a chance to put their names in the NBA draft.

"I think one of the main things that has to happen is college basketball has to have a relationship with the NBA," he said. "There should be someone in charge of college basketball who on a day-to-day basis sets an agenda for our great sport. We don’t have anything like that. As a resolve we don’t have a voice with the NBA or the players union and that’s just kind of sad."

Who would disagree with that?

I'm not sure the one-and-done rule is the biggest problem afflicting college hoops specifically -- it affects, what, 30 players (tops) every year? -- but it is not unfair to say the utter lack of relationship between the NBA and the college game is a major problem affecting both levels of the sport, but particularly college basketball, generally. And how do you fix that? Coordination. Organization. Some apparatus by which NCAA president Mark Emmert can say, "Hey, NBA, we're happy to keep doing our thing down here -- building players' brands and developing them for entry into your professional embrace -- but you've got to throw us a bone. We're really getting slammed." This would seem to be in the NBA's interest, too. After all, the deal it gets from the NCAA is pretty good, but the deal could be better, couldn't it? Talent evaluation is still less a science than an art. General managers still make mistakes on weak information, still have a limited amount of time to get to know draftees in intimate ways. Is there any way to close that gap?

This is basically me noodling here, and I admit there are no ready-made solutions. At the end of the day, what Coach K is probably really talking about is a move to a two-and-through (copyright John Gasaway) or three-and-free (I just made that up) via the NBA collective bargaining process. That's really the only hope for changing the one-and-done rule, which seems to be the popular consensus even among those coaches (like John Calipari) who have utilized it to their competitive advantage.

But the general idea -- some relationship between college hoops and the NBA, similar to USA Basketball and the NBA, or USA Basketball and the college game, some go-between, some committee, something -- would be an undeniably positive step in the right direction for the sport as a whole, right?

Video: Shabazz Muhammad picks UCLA

April, 11, 2012
Apr 11
8:06
PM ET
video Shabazz Muhammad (Las Vegas), the No. 2 overall player in the ESPNU 100 and the top-ranked small forward, announces his choice of the Bruins over Kentucky and Duke.
Update: Despite what Perky Plumlee told the Durham Herald-Sun Monday, Mason Plumlee is indeed going to return to the Blue Devils for his senior season, according to a report from CBS Sports' Jeff Goodman Tuesday afternoon. An official announcement is expected later in the day.

I'm going to leave this post up, because the general stuff about the draft deadline is still relevant, I think, even if it doesn't directly apply to Plumlee. One wonders if Plumlee and his family realized there wasn't much to be gained by drawing the decision out until the April 29 NBA deadline, simply because there are few good pathways to knowledge about draft stock in the current configuration.

Below is the original post.

----

Technically, today, April 10, is the NBA draft deadline. Put more accurately, April 10 is the NCAA's NBA draft deadline, the product of a proposal forwarded by ACC coaches in recent years, since approved and enacted by NCAA committee leadership, to move the draft decision date up to the last day before the start of the spring signing period. Why? So NBA hopefuls have to make up their mind in time to give coaches a heads up on whether or not they can sign that next big thing to a college scholarship.

It's an unfair rule ... and it didn't take long for pretty much everyone to find the loophole. Cue Mason Plumlee's father, Perky Plumlee, as told to the Durham Herald-Sun:
“That date is meaningless to us,” Perky Plumlee said. “Mason’s got a very difficult decision to make. The fact that the NBA and NCAA got their rules crossed up, that’s not our fault. It’s not our responsibility. As far as I’m concerned, he has until the 29th to make his decision. He has my blessing to take all the time he needs.”

How is this possible? Because the NBA's draft deadline date is actually April 29, and players who don't sign with an agent and don't submit paperwork to enter the draft before April 29 can indeed maintain their collegiate eligibility. Perky Plumlee has given Mason Plumlee -- who looks like a late first-round pick at this point -- his blessing to do exactly that, so that's what Mason is going to do.

But what about the blessing of Plumlee's coach, Mike Krzyzewski? Because even the April 29 deadline, like the rule itself, is a bit deceptive. As Draft Express's Jonathan Givony explained in an excellent primer on the new rule in March:
Since the NCAA bars third parties (even family members) of college players from reaching out to NBA teams to discuss their draft stock and the NBA itself has strict no-contact rules regarding the way teams can communicate with players who are not officially draft-eligible (before the early-entry list is released in early May), the only way an underclassman can gather information about his draft stock is through his college head coach. Furthermore, the head coach is only allowed to talk with the principal basketball operations executive from each team (ie: the general manager), according to NBA rules, and the underclassman may not participate in or be present during any such conversation.

Instead, the most a player can do is request an evaluation from the NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee, a group of 20 representative executives chaired selected by the NBA League Office. A player can request an evaluation from the committee no later than April 3, and is supposed to receive that evaluation no later than April 6.

And so all the power of the draft deadline process was shifted to the collegiate head coach's hands. This is where trust comes in: A player and his family, particularly one in Plumlee's tenuous fringe-first-round neighborhood, have to trust that Coach K is accurately and impartially inveighing what he's hearing from NBA scouts and general managers about a player's draft status. The only other option is covert, private outreach on the part of the family, which runs a huge risk of ineligibility if any improper contact with NBA league officials is discovered by the NCAA.

Players were once allowed all the way up to the last few weeks before the draft to obtain information about their draft status, information that was far more accurate -- because the draft changes quickly, almost to the minute. And three months out, no one knows what's going to happen. Now, it's up to the undergraduate committee, a few real days of legitimate information gathering, and the player's college coach, who is not exactly a perfectly impartial party.

So you can forgive Plumlee and his family for wanting to take as much time as possible with the decision, even if that decision will come down to what they're hearing from Coach K and what's being written by draft gurus like Chad Ford and Givony. It's a mess, and there are no good routes forward. But for Plumlee and other prospects like him, this is probably the best.

Video: Austin Rivers to enter NBA draft

March, 23, 2012
Mar 23
12:58
PM ET

Andy Katz with the latest news on Duke freshman Austin Rivers' plan to enter the 2012 NBA Draft.

Video: A bad night to be No. 2

March, 17, 2012
Mar 17
4:14
AM ET
video
Rece Davis, Hubert Davis and Jimmy Dykes break down the No. 2 seeds Missouri and Duke falling on Friday.
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- When Lehigh guard C.J. McCollum was a freshman at GlenOak High School in Canton, Ohio, he was only 5 feet, 2 inches.

He grew 5 inches as a sophomore, 4 inches as a junior and 3 inches as a senior.

"I knew the growth spurt was coming," McCollum said. "I just prayed it came before graduation."

McCollum's growth spurt came before he left high school, but his lack of height caused him to get overlooked by most major college basketball programs.

On Friday night, McCollum finally had a chance to show those teams what they missed, as he scored 30 points to help lead the 15th-seeded Mountain Hawks to a 75-70 upset of No. 2 seed Duke in a South Regional second-round game at Greensboro Coliseum.

For Mark Schlabach's full column, click here.

Lehigh, others climb the upset mountain

March, 17, 2012
Mar 17
1:53
AM ET
On a day in which lower-seeded teams played even with higher-seeded teams, the biggest story in college basketball was 15th-seeded Lehigh’s stunning win over No. 2 seed Duke.

This was the second 15-versus-2 win of the day. It marked the first season in which a pair of 15 seeds won an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game.

The Blue Devils lost for only the fourth time in the round of 64 under Mike Krzyzewski. They entered the day 28-0 all-time against teams seeded 12th through 16th, but could not handle C.J. McCollum and his Mountain Hawks teammates.

McCollum scored 30 points and drew 13 fouls, the second-most by a player in a game in the last three tournaments (Jimmer Fredette drew 14 last season against Wofford).

Lehigh outscored Duke 19-4 in transition Friday during the Mountain Hawks' second-round win. Lehigh entered the championship tournament with the 16th-best transition defense in the nation. The Blue Devils, on the other hand, had been outscored by 1.9 transition points per game this season, the second-worst differential in the ACC.

Lehigh also attempted 37 free throws, the most by a Duke opponent in a tournament game since 1955, when Villanova attempted 42.

This was the first loss for current ACC members against a 15 or 16 seed in the Round of 64. It wasn’t the only big upset of the evening.

Here’s a snapshot look of the rest of the games from Friday night.

Midwest Region
(2) Kansas 65, (15) Detroit 50

Thomas Robinson had his nation-leading 24th double-double this season. It is the first time that a Horizon League team hasn't won a Men's Basketball Championship game since 2004.

(10) Purdue 72, (7) Saint Mary's 69
Purdue has won 14 straight Round of 64 games, including one in each of the last six seasons.

(12) South Florida 58, (5) Temple 44
South Florida gets the win in its first Round of 64 appearance since 1992. Temple has lost in the Round of 64 in four of its last five Men's Basketball Championship appearances. The Owls scored at least 64 points in every other game this season.

(13)Ohio 65, (4) Michigan 60
The Bobcats became the sixth team to win a tournament game as both a 13 and 14 seed (they beat Georgetown as a 14 seed two seasons ago).

Ohio scored 63 of its 65 points in the half court, shooting nearly 16 percentage points higher than Michigan in half-court sets. In their last tournament victory over Georgetown in the 2010 Men's Basketball Championship, the Bobcats shot 57 percent and outscored the Hoyas by 18 points in the half court.

Since 2004, Ohio is 2-2 in tournament play. All other MAC teams are a combined 0-6.

Michigan is now 10-1 all-time versus teams seeded No. 12 or worse.

West Region
(1) Michigan State 89, (16) LIU Brooklyn 67

Draymond Green had 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists to lead the Spartans, his second consecutive triple-double in the Men's Basketball Championship (he had a triple double in Round of 64 loss to UCLA last season).

Green joins Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson as the only players with multiple triple-doubles in Men's Basketball Championship history (Robertson had four, Johnson two).

(9) St Louis 61, (8) Memphis 54
Saint Louis wins a Men's Basketball Championship game for the first time since 1998. Head coach Rick Majerus is now 11-1 in round of 64 games. It is only Saint Louis' fourth tournament victory in program history.

South Region
(10) Xavier 67, (7) Notre Dame 63

Xavier wins in the Round of 64 for the fifth time in six seasons. Tu Holloway moved past Jamie Gladden for 7th on Xavier's all-time scoring list (1,790) and led all scorers with 25 points.

Notre Dame assisted on 76 percent of its field goals Friday against Xavier. It was the first time this season that Notre Dame has lost when assisting on at least 60 percent of its field goals (previously 19-0).

Video: Breaking down Upset Friday

March, 17, 2012
Mar 17
1:26
AM ET
video

Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Hubert Davis and Rece Davis break down the Friday night upsets of No. 2 seeds Duke and Missouri.
BACK TO TOP