NCAA Tournament 2019: Top takeaways from first night of Sweet 16

The first four teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight on Thursday night. Here are the biggest things we learned from all four games.

The 2019 NCAA Tournament resumed on Thursday with the first half of the Sweet 16 and, like most of the rest of the tournament, was somewhat chalky.

Both top seeds advance to the Elite Eight as Gonzaga and Virginia took care of business and will face No. 3 seeds – Texas Tech and Purdue, respectively – as the Red Raiders and Boilermakers pulled off upsets.

Texas Tech did so convincingly with a dominant defensive showing against Michigan. Purdue went the tougher route, beating Tennessee in overtime in what might be the game of the tournament.

Ryan Cline became a star with his performance for the Boilermakers thanks to a career-high 27 points and seven made three-pointers, most of which came in the second half to keep Purdue in the game.

That was clearly the game of the day, yet no team looked as dangerous as the Zags. We start today’s Rauf Report with them and their victory over Florida State.

Gonzaga 72, Florida State 58

Gonzaga’s defense is better than we give them credit for
The Bulldogs have (rightfully) earned their reputation as an offensive team this year thanks to having the nation’s highest-scoring and most efficient offense, but they flexed their muscle on the defensive end in this game.

Led by Brandon Clarke’s five blocks and Josh Perkins’ three steals, Gonzaga beat the Seminoles at their own game. They held Florida State to just 39.3 percent shooting and, more importantly, to just 3/20 shooting from three-point range. The Zags also won almost all the individual matchups on that end as Trent Forrest was the only FSU player that scored more than eight points.

This isn’t to say that Florida State came into the game as some kind of offensive juggernaut – because they didn’t – but their stellar defense kept Gonzaga’s high-powered offense under control. The Bulldogs were able to control this game thanks to their defense and the number of turnovers they created (14).

Josh Perkins and Gonzaga’s guards vs. pressure is still a problem
Speaking of turnovers and Florida State’s defense, every Gonzaga guard committed multiple turnovers as they also coughed it up 14 times.

Now, the Bulldogs led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio and ranked in the top 15 in turnover percentage, so this performance was somewhat uncharacteristic of them. But struggling against pressure defenses is something the Zags, and Perkins in particular, have struggled with over the last few years.

All you have to do is circle back to last year’s Sweet 16 game against the Seminoles when they turned it over 13 times. This year, they turned it over 22 times against Illinois’ press and 14 times against UNC (Perkins had seven and six, respectively, in the two games).

This may not be a problem because, while a great defensive team, Texas Tech focuses on their half-court defense more than pressing. Both will still test Gonzaga’s backcourt’s ball security and it is a potential Achilles heel for this group.