Inside the games

No. 1 seeds keep blooming

The No. 1 seeds still have a shot at history.

With Florida’s 65-57 victory over Butler on Friday night and North Carolina’s 74-64 win over Southern California, the four No. 1 seeds have all advanced to the regional finals.

There has never been a Final Four with the four top-seeded teams.

Ohio State and Kansas, the other No. 1 seeds, both moved on to the round of eight Thursday.

Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, this is the fifth time the four No. 1s have reached the regional finals.

In 1993, three moved on to the Final Four. Two advanced in 1987 and 2001, while only one – Texas – made it in 2003.

Gators maintain their run

Florida has made the longest tournament run for a defending champion since Michigan State in 2001.

Michigan State, which won the title in 2000, reached the Final Four in its effort to repeat, losing to Arizona in the semifinals.

Florida is the first national champion to return all five starters since Arizona in 1998. The Wildcats lost to Utah in the regional finals that year.

“Teams are going to play you a lot different when you’re the defending national champions, and we’re aware of that,” Florida center Al Horford said.

Doing Pacific-10 proud

The Pac-10, with UCLA and Oregon, is the only conference with more than one team in the round of eight.

Since conferences were allowed to accept multiple bids in 1975 only once did one league not have more than one team reach the regional finals and that was that year.

This will be the fourth time seven leagues are represented. The last time was 1997 and the Pac-10 was again the lone league with two as UCLA and eventual champion Arizona reached the round of eight.

Big comebacks

Two of the No. 1 seeds made their regional semifinal wins a little tougher than might have been expected.

Thursday, top-seeded Ohio State trailed Tennessee by 17 points at halftime before rallying for an 85-84 victory.

Friday, top-seeded North Carolina was down 16 points to USC with 17:42 to play before rallying for a 74-64 victory.

Ohio State’s comeback matched the biggest halftime deficit overcome in a regional semifinal or later in the NCAA tournament.

In 1987, UNLV was down 17 at the half against Iowa before rallying for an 84-81 win that sent it to the Final Four.

Associated Press