No. 16 seed Jackrabbits to face No. 1 Gonzaga in NCAA Tournament

In a tournament made famous by the notion that anything can happen, one thing still has not: In 129 tries, no 16 seed has ever beaten a 1. They are outscoring opponents by 23.4 points per game this season while averaging 51.8 percent shooting from the field.

Markkanen, who’s expected to be a high first-round National Basketball Association draft pick, was a constant as North Dakota couldn’t match his size (7-foot, 230 pounds) or skill.

Otzelberger, who was sentimental about the end of his first season as head coach of SDSU, was asked how Thursday’s NCAA appearance would help the program moving forward after the Jackrabbits looked mired in mediocrity just a few weeks prior to Thursday’s gritty effort. The Wildcats are coming off a very impressive Pac-12 tournament title run in Las Vegas in which they disposed of both UCLA and OR, a couple of very impressive foes and legit Final Four level teams in their own right.

No. 8 Northwestern vs. It should create a mismatch which Gonzaga can easily exploit with centers Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins. Markkanen is a 7-footer who shoots 43% from three, and it isn’t on limited shot attempts. Can the Wildcats escape the possibility that their season highlight was achieved when the school’s name popped up on the bracket in the West Region? He clearly had what seemed to be a positive and humble attitude towards that when the season began, but it was still hard to imagine Daum’s game improving by leaps and bounds the way that it has. They’ll have to be at least as sharp. The Seminoles were 7-8 away from home and own four losses against teams that missed the field. A regional final matchup against frenetic fourth-seeded West Virginia – the nation’s best at full-court pressure – would be a high-intensity affair with upset possibilities. Notre Dame’s Steve Vasturia pulled down the rebound and was fouled.

Got your brackets picked out? “They earned that seed”. What’d they scrub with here?

In Buffalo, Bonzie Colson scored 18 points and fifth-seeded Notre Dame survived a first-round scare by edging No. 12 Princeton. This might turn out to be the dullest region. Wisconsin (25-9) shouldn’t be a no. 8 seed, Florida (24-8) and Virginia (22-10) are both underseeded per Kenpom, and Duke (27-8) arguably should’ve been a no. 1 seed.

The Jackrabbits can take solace in the fact that they won their last matchup against Gonzaga – 88-78 – in 1956. The Wildcats (30-4) rolled to the Pac-12 title after the return of star Allonzo Trier from a 19-game suspension. It’s obvious they’re not hardened by the weekly demands placed on teams in tougher conferences. These are two terrific programs that have played fairly frequently and always engaged in furiously competitive games. Gonzaga could face an early test from either No. 4 West Virginia or No. 5 Notre Dame in the Sweet 16, according to FiveThirtyEight. No player on the Jackrabbits roster is taller than 6-foot-9. He is also money at the free throw line, hitting 91.0 percent on his attempts to rank ninth nationally in free throw shooting. And they have some very, very capable, talented players, unsafe players. “To me, at that point, when you’re playing a team that’s a top-10 team in the country, regardless, you’re going to be playing somebody really good and with a lot of strengths”.

Xavier junior wing Trevon Bluiett. The sophomore forward tore it up in the Summit League title game, scoring 37 points and collecting 12 rebounds in a 79-77 win over Nebraska-Omaha. 40 percent of the points scored against the Jackrabbits came from threes. So there’s no telling how much he might deliver on a given night. “He totally reminds me of Kyle Wiltjer (former Gonzaga big man who went on to play for the Houston Rockets), just scores the ball so easily, ball goes in, never seems to get rattled”.