Lauren Cox had 22 points and 11 rebounds, and Baylor earned its first Final Four berth since 2012 by beating Iowa 85-53 on Monday night in the Greensboro Regional final.
Gonzaga was college basketball’s No. 1 team in offensive efficiency according to the respected Kenpom metric. Texas Tech was No. 1 in defensive efficiency. Only one could go to the Final Four on Saturday in Minneapolis. Texas Tech is. Defense is.
Defending national champion Notre Dame and Stanford have Hall of Fame coaches in Muffet McGraw and Tara VanDerveer and successful traditions that include two NCAA titles for each program. Even though they followed similar paths, they went years without meeting. But lately, they keep bumping into each other.
Off to Oregon’s first appearance in the Final Four, guard Sabrina Ionescu set the theme for the second-seeded Ducks. “All I gotta say is we’re not done yet,” Ionescu said after she had 31 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in Oregon’s 88-84 victory Sunday over top-seeded Mississippi State.
They gathered one last time as a team in the locker room. Gonzaga head coach Mark Few knew there was nothing he could say that would mend his players’ broken hearts or slow down their tears.
Drawing inspiration from injured forward Chuma Okeke, the No. 5 seed Auburn Tigers finished off a joyful romp through college basketball royalty by bringing down the winningest program of all. Their 77-71 overtime win over second-seeded seed Kentucky in the finals of the Midwest Region on Sunday came after blowouts of Kansas and North Carolina that served notice: Auburn is more than a football school.
Cassius Winston put Michigan State on his shoulders and carried the Spartans into the Final Four. The do-everything point guard took over the game when his team faced its biggest deficit and led second-seeded Michigan State to a 68-67 victory over overall No. 1 seed Duke on Sunday in the East Region final.
The Cavaliers (33-3) redeemed themselves from last year’s loss to UMBC by relying on veterans, sound defense, poise, controlling the ball and a failure to be rattled even when the Boilermakers had the chance to ice the game in regulation at the foul line.
