

The Trojans’ 5 percent odds lead the remaining Pac-12 crop and represent the only conference team to have better than a 2 percent probability. 15 seed ever to advance out of the second round.ĭespite the Pac-12’s early round success, the FiveThirtyModel model still isn’t bullish on its chances to win a national championship. Oral Roberts is still in the hunt, the second No. Two of the 10 teams with our model’s best odds to cut down the nets at the start of the tournament didn’t make it out of the first round, and two more were ousted in the second. Both Oregon State and USC have locked down the competition, with each holding opponents to an effective field-goal percentage below 36 percent, according to CBB Analytics.Ĭhaos hasn’t been exclusive to the Pac-12 and has been the lone constant in the opening two rounds. 6 Instead, the Beavers have advanced behind a stubborn defense, which held the Cowboys to 27.7 percent shooting, their worst shooting performance since 2014. 5 Tinkle’s group has the second-worst remaining offense, according to KenPom. The lone exception to all the scoring, it seems, is Oregon State, which stunned Tennessee and downed title dark horse Oklahoma State to arrive in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1982. “They spaced us out, made it really difficult for us to help with them being excellent shooters,” senior Abilene Christian guard Reggie Miller said after his team fell to the Bruins. “We couldn’t get stops,” BYU head coach Mark Pope said after his team’s loss. UCLA put up 86 points on Michigan State, 73 points on BYU and 67 points on Abilene Christian.

The Bruins entered the tournament on a four-game losing streak but have shot their way to the Sweet 16, and in the process they became the fifth First Four team to advance out of the second round. “We had a lot of fun out there,” senior guard Chris Duarte said in summation.Ĭronin has historically coached stronger defensive teams than offensive ones, but this season has been an exception. 2 Iowa in the second round, in what ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg called “one of the more complete offensive performances in recent tournament history.” Behind nine uncontested dunks - the most in a game by any team in the past five men’s NCAA Tournaments, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group - the Ducks ran up a team-tournament-record 95 points. Oregon advanced out of the opening round by default and proceeded to shellack No. Of the nine best offensive teams remaining in the tournament according to Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency metric, one-third come from the Pac-12, and each of those teams 4 is shooting better than 42 percent from beyond the arc during the event. Pac-12 teams seem comfortable with the rims in Indy. Maybe now we’ll get some damn respect.”Īdded Oregon coach Dana Altman: “The Pac-12 has shown exactly how strong it was.”

“I’m very happy for our program, but I’m extremely happy for the Pac-12 Conference. We’re obviously putting everybody on notice,” said Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle. Follow him on Twitter: the KSL Sports app.“We’ve got some talented, talented teams in our league. Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast ( SUBSCRIBE ) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m., KSL Newsradio). Portland on Thursday took a pause and their status for the league tournament is in question. The one team that is a question mark at the moment in regards to COVID-19 is the Portland Pilots. 3 seed and the Waves, who defeated BYU once this year, are on the Cougars side of the bracket. Pepperdine edged out Saint Mary’s for the No.
