NCAA Tournament 2019: Top takeaways from second night of Sweet 16
By Brian Rauf
The last four teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight on Friday night. Here are the biggest things we learned from all four games.
The NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight is set following Friday’s Sweet 16 games and we had some legitimate drama.
Duke appears to have way more than nine lives after their two-point win against Virginia Tech, and Kentucky picked up a four-point win over Houston thanks to a late 7-0 run.
But the big story of the night was Auburn’s thrashing of North Carolina as the Tar Heels became the first No. 1 seed to fall and the only one that will not be playing this weekend.
We start today’s Rauf Report with the biggest takeaways from that upset.
Auburn 97, North Carolina 80
Auburn might never miss again
Ok, they’re going to, but this Tigers team is making threes at a historic clip right now. Since their regular season-ending win over Tennessee, Auburn has made 107 threes (13.4 per game).
Auburn made 17 against the Tar Heels, including 12 in the second half. It wasn’t like they were jacking up shots either as they made 45.9 percent of their shots from deep.
Bruce Pearl’s squad is a major mismatch because of the pace they play at, their athleticism, and the way they space the floor. Their three-point shooting has been their biggest weapon and they’ve been using their pace and athleticism to take advantage of openings in transition and drive-and-kick opportunities.
They were in the bubble conversation in the middle of February because they weren’t converting those opportunities. Now, Auburn is making them a rate that makes them virtually impossible to beat.
The Tigers are not getting dominated inside anymore
Auburn’s weakness is their lack of real interior presence and the way they were dominated on the glass for most of the year. They will always be a perimeter team that is at a disadvantage down low and on the glass because of their lack of size, but the way they played against UNC – one of the nation’s best rebounding teams – was impressive.
The Heels only won the rebounding battle by four and Auburn actually had the bigger interior presence defensively with six blocks. Their athleticism made a difference against UNC’s pure size.
Obviously, this is something Auburn will have to maintain if they’re going to make the Final Four, but they’ve shown the ability to do so before, most notably when they outrebounded Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game. Austin Wiley and Horace Spencer have become vital in this regard.