16 things you should know about the Sweet 16

The awkward three days between the end of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and the start of the Sweet 16 are some of the most painful on the sports calendar. After three straight weeks of non-stop league championship races, conference tournament games, and Big Dance thrillers, we’re left with nothing but ordinary television and actual interaction with other human beings. It’s awful.

Thankfully, the madness takes hold of us again Thursday night, and it won’t let go until the Final Four is settled on Sunday.

Here are 16 things you should know before fully jumping back into the madness.

1. There are no programs in this year’s Sweet 16 that are appearing in the round for the first time. Loyola-Chicago is breaking the longest second-weekend drought, appearing in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1985.

2. Friday’s meeting between Duke and Syracuse will feature the two winningest men’s Division I coaches in in history. Between them, Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Boeheim have combined to win a whopping 2,026 games.

3. Coming from the First Four in Dayton, Syracuse is the only team in the Sweet 16 that had to win three games to get there. Perhaps more impressively, the Orange were the underdog heading into all three of those games (Arizona State, TCU, and Michigan State). Boeheim’s team is currently an 11.5-point underdog against a Duke team that it was dominated by in a 60-44 loss earlier this season.

4. None of the top four seeds out of the South Region advanced to the Sweet 16, marking the first time in history this has happened.

No. 1 seed Virginia was stunned by No. 16 seed UMBC.

No. 2 Cincinnati blew a 22-point lead with 11 minutes to go in a loss to No. 7 seed Nevada.

No. 3 seed Tennessee was beaten in the final seconds by No. 11 Loyola-Chicago.

And No. 4 seed Arizona got the party started when it was blown out by Buffalo in the first round.

5. The biggest benefactor in the South Region chaos is Kentucky, which now appears to have a highly navigable path to the Final Four. If they get there, the Wildcats will be just two wins away from becoming the first No. 5 seed to ever win the national title. Five seeds have made the Final Four six times and played in the championship game three times, but they’ve never cut down the nets.

6. Six programs are appearing in the Sweet 16 for the second straight year: Kentucky, Michigan, West Virginia, Kansas, Gonzaga, and Purdue.

7. In each of the last five NCAA tournaments, at least one team seeded seventh or worse has won a regional title and moved on to the Final Four.

2017 — No. 7 South Carolina

2016 — No. 10 Syracuse

2015 — No. 7 Michigan State

2014 — No. 7 Connecticut and No. 8 Kentucky

2013 — No. 9 Wichita State

Six of the 16 teams left standing are seeded seventh or worse. Three of them are in the South Region.

8. An 11-seed has won in the Sweet 16 seven times in tournament history, and each time it was paired up against a No. 1 seed in the Elite Eight. Xavier accomplished this feat just a year ago, ultimately falling to top-seeded Gonzaga. If Loyola defeats Nevada Thursday, the Ramblers will be the first No. 11 seed ever to face a non-No. 1 seed in a regional final.

As for the other No. 11 seed in the Sweet 16, there’s some potential good news for Syracuse if it’s somehow able to beat Duke. In those seven regional finals featuring No. 11 seeds, the underdog has prevailed and moved on to the Final Four three times — LSU in 1986, George Mason in 2006, and VCU in 2011.

9. Nine of the 16 coaches left have been to at least one Final Four. Five — Krzyzewski, Boeheim, Bill Self, John Calipari, and Jay Wright — have won national championships.

10. Big 12 Player of the Year Devonte’ Graham was just 10 of 31 from the field in Kansas’ opening weekend games against Penn and Seton Hall. The Jayhawks managed to win both, but it’s hard to see them picking up two more victories this weekend if Graham isn’t more on his game.

11. This is the 11th straight year that the Big Ten has sent multiple teams to the Sweet 16. Still, the conference is looking for its first national championship since Tom Izzo and Michigan State cut down the nets in 2000. Purdue and Michigan are both looking to end the streak of futility that is nearing two decades.

12. North Carolina’s second-round loss to Texas A&M guaranteed not only that this will be the 12th straight year without a back-to-back national champion, but the 12th straight year that the reigning national champ has failed to make it back to the Final Four.

Since Florida won the second of consecutive championships in 2007, here’s how the reigning champ has fared in the NCAA tournament:

2008: Florida – Missed tournament
2009: Kansas – Sweet 16
2010: North Carolina – Missed tournament
2011: Duke – Sweet 16
2012: Connecticut: – First round
2013: Kentucky – Missed tournament
2014: Louisville – Sweet 16
2015: Connecticut – Missed tournament
2016: Duke – Sweet 16
2017: Villanova – Second round
2018: North Carolina – Second round

13. Prior to 2013, a No. 7 seed had never made the Final Four. Now, Nevada and Texas A&M are looking to ensure a 7-seed wins at least on region for the fourth time in the last five years.

14. Nevada played 85 minutes of basketball during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. It led for just 4 minutes and 24 seconds in those games, while its opponents led for 76 minutes and 12 seconds. Yet Eric Musselman’s team is still dancing.

Nevada has actually trailed at halftime in each of its last five games. The Wolf Pack erased a 14-point second-half deficit to pull off an OT win over Texas in the first round of the Big Dance. They then made an even more improbable rally, coming from 22 points down with less than 11 minutes to go to stun second-seeded Cincinnati. The 22-point comeback is tied for the second largest in NCAA tournament history, matching the deficit Duke came back from against Maryland in the 2001 Final Four. BYU rallying from 25 down to beat Iona in a First Four game back in 2012 is the most extreme March Madness comeback.

15. This is Kentucky’s 43rd trip to the Sweet 16, the most of any program in history. North Carolina and UCLA are second all-time with 33 appearances in the round of 16. Kansas (31) and Duke (30) round out the top five.

16. Four teams in this year’s Sweet 16 have never made it to the Final Four: Nevada, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Clemson. Of that quartet, only Clemson has ever played in the Elite Eight.