NCAA Tournament 2016: Sweet 16 schedule, scores and highlights

The Elite Eight hasn’t started yet, but we already know an ACC team will play for the national championship. On Sunday, ACC squad Virginia will play ACC squad Syracuse for a Final Four spot. Then, ACC squad North Carolina will play ACC squad Notre Dame for another Final Four spot, and then the ACC squads that win those two games will play for a shot at the title.

Simply put, this is the best NCAA Tournament any conference has ever put together. The ACC will win at least 19 games in the tournament, breaking a record held by the Big East in 1985. The conference will earn $39.9 million from the NCAA Tournament’s television deal, which is a record.

Syracuse pulled off a late-game comeback to beat Gonzaga and advance to the Elite Eight. Carmelo Anthony was very fired up about it. He even channeled his inner DJ Khaled to list the reasons they didn’t want Syracuse to win. Now all he needs is some keys to success for the Orange’s next game against Virginia.

If you’re going to go up for a chest bump, you need to make sure you’re strong enough to do it.

Christian White was not ready for the heat Michael Gbinije was bringing and ended up laid out. That’s the kind of intensity Syracuse needs though.

With Duke out, and with Maryland slowly but surely despatched by Kansas, two number one seeds march on to the regional finals, after which a potential all No. 1 seed Final Four may very well lie ahead. Here are three storylines from Thursday’s Sweet 16 action.

Villanova, quite frankly, looks unstoppable, and with 88.3 points per game average in the dance this year, Kansas should have some very real misgivings about meeting these Wildcats on Saturday, especially if the Jayhawks struggle to find the gas pedal on offense.

Yes, Oregon defeated Duke on Thursday night to advance to the Elite 8 but that wasn’t the best thing that happened to Oregon’s mascot. The best thing that happened is that he was graciously photobombed by Kobe Bryant.

The game between Kansas and Maryland ended with a little bit of drama, but not because of another NCAA Tournament buzzer-beater. Well, not a game-winning buzzer beater.

The Jayhawks were leading by 14, 77-63 with the final seconds ticking off. Frank Mason III had the ball and was dribbling out the clock. He appeared to be oblivious that there was even time left on the clock, casually dribbling (traveling) around the basket before laying it up and in.

No. 1 Kansas pulled away in the seocnd half for a 79-63 victory over No. 5 Maryland in the South Region, and No. 1 Oregon followed that with a 82-68 win of its own against No. 4 Duke in the West Region.

But Maryland never even managed to knot up the game in the second half, and so Kansas is in its first regional final since 2012, when the Jayhawks made the national championship game and lost to Kentucky. Kansas will meet No. 2 Villanova on Saturday.

Here are three things we learned from the Wildcats’ first Sweet 16 win since 2009.

The Wildcats’ last trip to the Final Four in 2009 ended at the hands of North Carolina, an 83-69 loss that sure still stings for a program that’s earned not unfounded “flop” name calling from without. In the 2015 Big Dance, Villanova was the first No. 1 seed bounced from the field in a close 71-68 loss to NC State in the second round.

It was just another trey in a first half in Louisville that saw the Wildcats and Hurricanes combine to go an impressive 13-for-19 from distance.

Ohhhh, Sheldon McClellan dropped him!!!!

But the Ducks are very good, playing the No. 4-seeded Blue Devils as the top team in the West Region. They also figure to have something of a home-court advantage in Anaheim, though Duke has a large basketball fan base and could bring a lot of blue to the Honda Center.

Duke had a reasonably fortunate path to the Sweet 16. It struggled but ultimately won cleanly against No. 13 UNC-Wilmington in the first round, then got a plum second-round win against a Cinderella, 12th-seeded Yale team playing without its expelled team captain. Duke didn’t play especially well in either game, but here the Blue Devils are, anyway. Oregon, by a long shot, will be the best team Duke has played in the tournament.

The first weekend of March Madness is in the books, and it has been incredible. We had arguably the biggest upset of all-time, with No. 15-seed Middle Tennessee State beating No. 2-seed Michigan State, which many people thought was going to win it all. Every lower seed except No. 16 had at least one winner, and there was plenty of drama to go around, from buzzer beaters (hey there, Northern Iowa and Wisconsin) to collapses (hey again, Northern Iowa).

That sets up an incredible round of Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight matchups. North Carolina and Indiana are playing some of the best basketball in the country, and they’ll play for a chance to take on the Wisconsin-Notre Dame winner in the Elite Eight. The winner of that region will take on the winner in the Midwest, which features Virginia-Iowa State and Syracuse-Gonzaga. There might not be two more contrasting styles in the country than Virginia and Iowa State, as the Cyclones will try to run the court and the Cavaliers will try to slow them down.

The winner of the Maryland-Kansas game plays the winner of Thursday’s Miami-Villanova game in the Elite Eight, with the South Region’s eventual champion heading to Houston the next weekend for the Final Four.

Where: KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, Ky.

Texas A&M faces Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 on Thursday in what shapes up as one of the most interesting games of the entire NCAA Tournament. The winner will play either Oregon or Duke in the West Region’s final on Saturday.

On one side: the Aggies, coming off one of the most improbable comeback victories in the history of organized sports. On the other: the Sooners, led by National Player of the Year candidate and bucket-getter extraordinaire Buddy Hield. The game has talent and plenty of subtext, pitting the former Big 12 member Aggies against their former conference peers, the Sooners. This time, they’re meeting with everything on the line.

The Wildcats are the South’s No. 2 seed, while the Hurricanes are No. 3. But don’t count the Canes anywhere near out. They’re about a four-point underdog, and they’ve beaten some of the country’s strongest teams already this season — Virginia and Louisville back-to-back in February, then Wichita State in the second round of this tournament.

The matchups are fascinating. Both teams have elite offenses and stout defenses to go with them, and each would give Kansas a lot to handle in a hypothetical Elite Eight meeting. A group of veteran guards leads Miami, with seniors Sheldon McClellan and Angel Rodriguez averaging a combined 29 points and six assists per game. Villanova also benefits from a seasoned rotation, which includes junior guard Josh Hart (15 points per game) and forward Kris Jenkins (13). This is the last tournament ride for senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono, a four-year starter.