Ncaa: And Then There Were Eight Arkansas, Virginia, Okla. St., Umass Round Out Elite Field With Victories
Top seeds were uprooted twice Friday night, but last year’s No. 1, Arkansas, is still around as the NCAA tournament field was pared to eight teams.
Corliss Williamson was around at the end, and that’s a major reason Arkansas beat Memphis 96-91 in overtime to advance to Sunday’s Midwest Region final.
The Razorbacks will meet Virginia, which eliminated the region’s top seed, Kansas, 67-58 in the other game Friday night. Junior Burrough, giving away 6 inches to Kansas’ 7-foot-2 Greg Ostertag, scored 18 points for the fourth-seeded Cavaliers.
The other top seed knocked off was Wake Forest, dropped 71-66 by Oklahoma State in the East Regional semis. OSU’s Bryant Reeves got the better of Wake’s Randolph Childress during a pivotal meeting of two star players in the last 20 seconds.
Childress, scoreless over the last 8 minutes after scoring 22 points, had the ball and the game in his hands with 20 seconds to go and Oklahoma State clinging to a 69-66 lead.
It was obvious Childress was looking for a 3-pointer to tie the game and force overtime.
But Reeves blocked his path and Childress bobbled the ball. Reeves picked it up and flipped it to Terry Collins for the dunk that propelled the Cowboys into Sunday’s region final against Massachusetts.
UMass buried Tulsa 76-51, and has been virtually unchallenged so far, winning its previous tourney games by 17 and 22 points.
Marcus Camby scored 20 points for the Minutemen, who weren’t bothered in the least when forward Lou Roe was limited to eight points, snapping a string of 19 doublefigure outings.
On tap today
The horseplayers call it “chalk.” The NCAA calls it seeding. Whatever it is, it means the top two seeds in both the West and Southeast regionals will be meeting today for a trip to the Final Four.
It’s top-seeded and top-ranked UCLA against Connecticut in the West, and topseeded Kentucky against North Carolina in a meeting of longtime powers in the Southeast.