Roundup: Oregon is Elite for the second straight year
Tyler Dorsey’s nifty layup in the final minute lifted Oregon to the Elite 8 for the second straight year with a 69-68 win over Michigan, but Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports focuses on how Oregon’s defense shut down the Wolverines. The Ducks now get Kansas with a trip to the Final Four on the line.
It looked like the Pac-12 was going to get a second team into the Elite 8 Thursday night, but the Wildcats blew a late 8-point lead to Xavier in an eventual 73-71 loss to the 11th-seeded Musketeers. Jeff Eisenberg is here to break down Arizona’s breakdown against Xavier for ya.
UCLA will try to become the second Pac-12 team to reach the national quarterfinals with a Friday night showdown against fellow blueblood Kentucky, and Matt Norlander of CBS Sports has a detailed UCLA-Kentucky game preview for you to take a gander at.
On the women’s side, Stanford is one of five Pac-12 teams in the Sweet 16 as the Card gets ready to square off with third-seeded Texas Friday night. Tom FitzGerald features the Samuelson family with Karlie playing at Stanford and sister Katie Lou playing at UConn. Of course, the family would love to see a Stanford-UConn final (which could happen because they’re on opposite sides of the bracket).
Meanwhile, the Beavers get third-seeded Florida State Saturday in Stockton, and Gina Mizell takes a look at Breanna Brown’s contributions to Oregon State’s NCAA Tournament run. The redshirt junior may very well transfer at the end of the year for her final season of eligibility, so this could be her last game(s) in a Beaver uniform.
Well according to John McGrath of the Tacoma News Tribune, Michael Porter Jr. doesn’t fit Mike Hopkins’ system at Washington. Can’t say I agree with the headline or the article (calling an 18-year-old a diva for potentially not staying at a school where his dad is no longer going to be an assistant coach is just a tad irksome), but I guess there’s no room for the Gatorade National Player of the Year on a team that went 2-16 in conference last season (these aren’t Hopkins’ assertions, just to be clear).
The Cougs keep on dancing along in the WNIT, as Washington State defeated UC Davis 71-62 to reach the WNIT quarterfinals. The Cougs will next face Iowa on Sunday.
It could have been an all-Pac-12 WNIT quarterfinal, but Colorado lost to Iowa 80-62 in Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday (BuffZone.com). The Buffs wrap up J.R. Payne’s inaugural season in Boulder with a 17-16 record.
Lindsay Schnell tells us about former USC football players Adoree’ Jackson and JuJu Smith-Schuster going through the pre-draft process. Before Jackson gets drafted, he needs to get some dental work done, apparently.
Ted Miller whips up this feature on Utah defensive end Kylie Fitts, who hopes to bounce back in 2017 after suffering a season-ending foot injury in Week 2 against BYU (assuming he gets another year of eligibility, which he almost certainly should).
David Lombardi writes that Cal’s defense will get a fresh start with the new coaching staff. Head coach Justin Wilcox is a defensive wizard.
Jeff Metcalfe pens this piece on Danny White’s hiring on the Arizona State football coaching staff as a consultant. White was a head coach in the Arena League for 16 years and played for the Dallas Cowboys from 1976-88, while his dad, Wilford, was ranked the ninth-best Sun Devil football player in program history by The Arizona Republic.