Whatever happens Monday night against Texas A&M, Gonzaga took the next step.

As The Associated Press' Doug Feinberg pointed out on Twitter during Saturday night's games, this year is just the third time since the NCAA tournament expanded that the chalk held without exception on the first day of competition. In 16 games, the higher seed won each time (even though it wasn't particularly easy in many of those cases).

[+] Enlarge

AP Photo/Elaine ThompsonHer teammates get more attention, but Vivian Frieson is a huge part of Gonzaga's success, including Saturday's win over UNC.

And that says as much as anything about Gonzaga's accomplishment in beating North Carolina to earn the rematch with the Aggies.

The Bulldogs played the role of chalk and played it to perfection. It's one thing to win as the underdog with talent, as they did last year as a No. 12 seed in knocking off Xavier in the first round and nearly beating Pittsburgh in the second round. It's another thing to step on the court with the weight of expectations and not stumble from the burden.

It's what Kelly Graves was talking about way back in November in Brookings, S.D., as he sat watching his team's final shootaround before the opener against South Dakota State, a game pitting mid-major powers with aspirations to be more than just nice stories.

"We don't think of ourselves as a, quote, mid-major," Graves said then. "It's a term we don't really like around Spokane. And I think we're starting to get into that next group, where maybe not everybody looks at us as a mid-major. I hope; that's kind of what our goal is. So I don't feel like it's stacked against us. We've tried to do the things that we can do, to where we don't just have to win our conference tournament."

Beating North Carolina and living up to the No. 7 seed is a pretty good step.

More because of the exposure that a win against the Tar Heels offers, even when it comes past midnight on the far right of the continent, than anything Gonzaga actually did differently, the win opens a lot of conversations on the national level. After putting on a show with 15 assists -- not to mention at least five her teammates owe her lunch for failing to convert -- Courtney Vandersloot might be the best point guard in the country. Graves might be one of the best coaches in the country. Katelan Redmon and Tiffanie Shives might battle each other as the most valuable transfer in the country.

But one thing that's not debatable is how indispensable Vivian Frieson is to this team. Routinely overshadowed by Vandersloot, West Coast Conference all-time leading scorer Heather Bowman and even Redmon, the Washington transfer and rising star, Frieson finished Saturday's game with 16 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks. She might be an ultimate role player destined to go the way of Tara Mitchem or Meg Dahlman -- and fans in Springfield, Mo., and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., will know exactly what that means, as will fans in Spokane for many years to come -- but here's hoping Frieson gets her time in the spotlight between now and Monday night -- or beyond.

"Viv is one of those special players that can kind of do it all," Vandersloot said in November. "She makes something out of nothing."

Remember way back in October, North Carolina was picked to win the ACC. Although, admittedly, when those picks were made, Jessica Breland's status was still uncertain. Then Breland, who battled Hodgkin's lymphoma during the summer, ended up redshirting the season. And the Tar Heels definitely missed her.

Still, through January, it looked as though UNC would be able to overcome her absence with relative success. The Tar Heels were 16-3 entering their Feb. 1 game against Florida State. But that's when it all started to collapse.

UNC lost to the Seminoles 83-73, after which Heels coach Sylvia Hatchell ripped her players' effort and said they would practice at 6 the next morning. But that wake-up call didn't seem to do much good.

The loss to FSU started a slide in which the Heels lost seven of eight, and the victory was in overtime against Wake Forest. UNC rallied to beat league champion Duke in the regular-season finale but then lost to Maryland in the ACC tournament.

After a win over North Carolina Central to "practice" for the NCAA tournament, the Heels could have had a fresh start in the postseason. But they continued the downward trend, falling 82-76 to Gonzaga and finishing 19-12. After a long flight back from Seattle, the Heels might take a mental break, then start thinking about next season. They will return all their starters and get Breland back.

From the ashes of this season gone wrong, the Tar Heels should be able to salvage hope for next season … provided, that is, Breland's return makes everyone else play up to her capability.

• They meet again: Duke holds its opponents to an average of 54.5 points per game, while LSU keeps its foes to 51.7. So, will we see a lot of offense on Monday when these teams meet in the second round?

"LSU is a tremendous defensive team, and so are we," Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "So I'm not sure what that means for the matchup."

Uhh … we're gonna take a guess it means a final score in the 50s or less. Duke held Hampton to 37 points in the first round Saturday -- the 13th team this season the Blue Devils have limited to 50 or fewer points -- while LSU kept Hartford to 39.

"I think everyone was engaged and contributed," said Duke senior Keturah Jackson, who made all six of her shots from the field and was one of three Blue Devils with 13 points. "We were all in tune."

This will be the fourth meeting in the NCAA tournament for Duke and LSU but the first since McCalllie and fellow coach Van Chancellor joined their respective teams.

The programs first met in 2000, with LSU taking a 79-66 Sweet 16 victory. In 2005, LSU advanced to the Final Four after a 59-49 regional final victory. And in 2006, they met at the Final Four in Boston, with Duke winning 64-45 in the semifinals.

• Mighty Monroe: Florida State's Jacinta Monroe doesn't have an imposing build, but that doesn't mean she can't impose her will on opponents. The slender 6-foot-5 senior, who had 16 points and seven rebounds for the third-seeded Seminoles in their 75-61 victory over Louisiana Tech, is determined to give opponents more to worry about.

"I like to show my versatility, not just being a one-dimensional post player," Monroe said. "I like to play the 4 and the 5, and when I'm at the 5, I like to step out on bigger post players. I've worked on my jump shot. I want to add more to my repertoire and not just be a layup post player."

Monroe grew up in Fort Lauderdale and joked that she was "tired" of south Florida and wanted to head north. So she went, um, all the way to Tallahassee for college. OK, so it's not like moving to Minneapolis, but still …

"I just loved the team at FSU," she said. "And, you know, it wasn't too cold up here. It was different enough, though."

• Aggies' 'other' weapon: Texas A&M's trio of players from Kansas City -- Danielle Adams, Tanisha Smith and Tyra White -- has rightfully gotten a lot of attention this season. And in the No. 2 seed Aggies' 84-53 victory over Portland State, Adams led the team in scoring (23 points) and Smith nearly had a triple-double (17 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists).

However, not to be overlooked is the Aggies' sophomore post player, Adaora Elonu of Houston. She entered the NCAA tournament averaging 8.8 points and had 15 on Saturday. Elonu is the second member of her family to play hoops for Texas A&M; older brother Chinemelu also competed for the Aggies.

• Ending strong: Going to the NCAA tournament used to be all but automatic for Louisiana Tech's players, as the school made the field for the first 25 seasons of the tourney's existence.

However, from 2007 to 2009, Tech didn't make it. That meant Shanavia Dowdell, the Western Athletic Conference player of the year the past two seasons, and fellow senior Tiawana Pringle had never been to the Big Dance.

That changed as Tech won the WAC tourney final over Fresno State and got the automatic bid. Coach Teresa Weatherspoon's squad then had the tall order of facing No. 3 seed Florida State on the Seminoles' home court.

Dowdell was on fire in the first half but picked up her third foul with about 4&12fraction; minutes left before the break. With her on the bench, FSU rallied and tied the score 40-40 at halftime.

Then the Seminoles pulled away in the second half, limiting Tech to 5-of-30 shooting from the field. Still, Dowdell finished her Tech career on a high note, scoring 28 points on 11-of-14 shooting and pulling down 12 rebounds.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- There's a word for scoring 32 points in your first career NCAA tournament game.

"It's pretty, I guess the word's 'remarkable,'" Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell said after his fourth-seeded team survived and advanced with an 83-77 first-round win over Liberty.

Yep, "remarkable" will work. We also would have accepted: phenomenal, precocious, tantalizing or, for our friends watching from the Bay State, wicked good.

[+] Enlarge

Mark Zerof/US PresswireKentucky freshman A'dia Mathies scored a career-high 32 points in a 83-77 win over Liberty.

The day before A'dia Mathies played her first NCAA tournament game -- in her first appearance as a collegian in her hometown, no less -- Kentucky's standout freshman said she didn't feel additional pressure given the circumstances of the game to come. She hadn't been through this kind of thing before, she mused, thus she didn't know what conventional wisdom would expect her to feel. So instead of worrying about feeling it, she'd just go play, thanks all the same.

There's a certain logic to all that. The kind of logic that leads people to willingly and happily jump out of an airplane for the first time with nothing but a parachute on their back. They haven't done it before, so how can they be afraid if they don't know what they're supposed to be afraid of?

The rest of us think this all through while cowering as far from the open plane door as possible.

But with her team on its heels, if not quite on the ropes, early against a big, talented 13th-seeded Liberty team entirely unimpressed with the difference between the seed lines, Mathies jumped. She hit big shot after big shot, got to the free throw line time after time and led the Wildcats out of the danger of upset territory.

Mathies finished with those 32 points on 9-of-15 shooting (12-of-17 from the free-throw line) and fittingly hit the 3-pointer that put Kentucky ahead for good midway through the second half.

"I wouldn't begin to tell you I know exactly what A'dia was thinking or feeling, but she doesn't get real keyed up," Mitchell said. "And I think that she handles [pressure] probably a little bit better than a lot of people do, and I think that's why she's so special as a player. I just think she has that ability, she sort of has that quiet confidence about herself.

"And one thing, she just cares so much about her teammates, I think she understands at this point in time how valuable she is. Great players can sense when they need to raise their level, and she really kept us in it there."

The closest Mathies came to admitting this game was in any way different from the 32 before it? She said she heard someone call her name in warm-ups and sneaked a glance at the crowd. (It turned out to be a friend's mom.) Not that she thought doing so hinted at faltering focus -- just that she had heard it wasn't the kind of thing you were supposed to do. Pesky conventional wisdom again.

Perhaps her performance really shouldn't have been a surprise. Kentucky's second-leading scorer this season behind SEC player of the year Victoria Dunlap (who added 15 points and eight rebounds), Mathies actually improved her field goal percentage in conference play, a rarity for any player given the depth of the league and doubly out of the ordinary for a freshman. Then she went out and scored 25 points in an SEC tournament semifinal against Mississippi State.

Kentucky's system gives its players a lot of freedom and with it asks them to be responsible for availing themselves of that freedom. For a freshman to thrive at this time of year with all of that freedom and all of those family members in Freedom Hall? Well, it's remarkable.

"It's got to be a special player," assistant coach Matt Insell said. "A'dia Mathies is a very special player. From day one, from the first individual workouts, she took it on herself that she wanted to be a go-to player on our team, and she's done that; she's conquered that. It takes a special player to be able to come in and be able to take that and say, 'OK, this is your freedom, this is the college game; it's going to be a physical game,' and to take that and to run with it. A lot of kids would back up and be a little timid and scared. She hasn't at all."