Men's NCAA Tournament 2023: Thursday's Sweet 16 Winners and Losers

How's that for a start to the second weekend of the 2023 men's NCAA tournament?

The Thursday night opener between Kansas State and Michigan State was an instant classic, finally providing us with a little free basketball in the first overtime game of this dance.

Game No. 2 between Connecticut and Arkansas was, well, a wee bit more anticlimactic. If you didn't watch a moment of the second half, you're surely not alone.

But the nightcaps were awesome, resulting in FAU upsetting Tennessee and Gonzaga outlasting UCLA in yet another March Madness classic between those programs.

In addition to Kansas State, Connecticut, Florida Atlantic and Gonzaga, who were the night's biggest winners?

And alongside Michigan State, Arkansas, Tennessee and UCLA, who were the biggest losers?

We're glad you asked.

The first weekend of the 2023 men's NCAA tournament was a dandy.

There was the incredible Furman-Virginia finish to get the action rolling on Thursday afternoon.

There were several massive upsets, most notably Fairleigh Dickinson and Princeton.

For crying out loud, a Mountain West team even won two games. The first weekend had everything.

Well, almost everything.

With the exception of maybe the Gonzaga-TCU game as the Sunday night capstone, the big thing missing from the first two rounds was one of those heavyweight, it-is-not-fair-one-of-these-teams-has-to-go-home, back-and-forth battles for the ages.

But the first game at Madison Square Garden delivered that magic and then some.

The entire overtime affair between Kansas State and Michigan State was played within a 13-point window. The Wildcats never led by double digits and the Spartans never led by more than four.

Every time it looked like Kansas State was about to pull away, Michigan State responded with a big three. The lone time KSU opened up a nine-point lead, Joey Hauser drilled a triple eight seconds later. When the Wildcats went on a 10-0 run late in the second half to take a seven-point lead, there was Tyson Walker with a stone-cold three four seconds later.

And in a game full of big shots, there was a window of more than four minutes in which both teams refused to miss anything. From 11:30 remaining until 7:30 remaining in the second half, they shot a combined 9-of-9 from the field and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line, just trading haymakers in the Mecca of basketball.

For the night, Michigan State shot 13-of-25 from three-point range, and still lost 98-93 in overtime to one of the greatest individual performances in tournament history.

It was 36 years ago that UNLV's Mark Wade racked up 18 assists in a Final Four game against Indiana. But it wasn't enough. The Hoosiers won the game 97-93.

With 19 assists, though, Kansas State's Markquis Nowell was able to carry the Wildcats to a 98-93 overtime victory over Michigan State.

Nowell was already the littlest big story from the first weekend of the dance.

The 5'8" point guard had 17 points and 14 assists in the opener against Montana State before really putting on a show in the second-round win over Kentucky. There was razzle-dazzle on his nine assists. There was defense in the form of three steals. And the young man from The Bronx scored 23 points in the second half alone to ensure a trip back home to the Big Apple.

And while we'll ignore the blasphemous temptation to call it one of the greatest shows ever performed at Madison Square Garden, Nowell was very much in his bag against the Spartans.

As was the case against Kentucky, he didn't do much scoring in the first half (five points), but he was still omnipresent with 10 assists and two steals before the intermission. (Once again, there was also plenty of razzle-dazzle in the form of no-look passes and behind-the-back dishes in transition.)

Nowell rolled his right ankle early in the second half, and Michigan State quickly went on a 9-2 run during his brief time on the bench. But once he came back in, it was his show the rest of the way.

He banked in a desperation three with the shot clock winding down on his first possession back on the court before recording an assist on each of Kansas State's next four buckets. (Which is precisely when everyone started looking up the all-time, tournament-game assists record.)

He added four more dimes in overtime, tying Wade's record on an alley-oop to Keyontae Johnson in a tie game with one minute remaining—something they boldly did several times in clutch moments during the regular season. And he broke Wade's record on an in-bounds pass to Ismael Massoud for a dagger bucket.

Nowell also ended the game with a takeaway and a bucket as time expired to finish the night with 20 points, 19 assists and five steals.

For about eight minutes, the Connecticut-Arkansas game looked like it might be every bit as good as the Kansas State-Michigan State game.

After being held scoreless in the second-round win over Kansas, Arkansas' Nick Smith Jr. came out hot with six early points. Fellow freshman Anthony Black also got out to a good start, though that duo was matched by Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr.

Connecticut was leading 20-17 in what was on pace to be a 185-point barn-burner when I paused the game for a few minutes to put my daughter to bed.

And I sincerely apologize to Arkansas fans for leaving my seat and evidently jinxing the Razorbacks into oblivion, because this game was over by the time I finished reading "Goodnight Moon."

Connecticut went on a 14-0 run in the span of seven possessions, storming out to a 34-17 lead, from which Arkansas never recovered. Connecticut led by at least 13 points the rest of the way, and got the margin to as large as 29 points early in the second half.

Those seven possessions perfectly encapsulated just how deep and how deadly this Huskies team can be, as eight* different players either scored or assisted on a bucket during that run.

That depth is what made this team so unbeatable for the first two months of the season, and what helped get them back to the top of the mountain heading into the dance. Connecticut can gradually wear you down like an ocean eroding a shoreline, but it'll also occasionally rise up for a 14-0 wave that just wipes out a sandcastle in the blink of an eye.

*The lone regular in the nine-man rotation who wasn't involved in that 14-0 run, Alex Karaban, still had a great night, shooting 5-of-5 from the field for 11 points with seven rebounds and a pair of steals.

With 13 minutes remaining in the second half, Arkansas trailed Connecticut 65-43. The only reporters on site who weren't working on their gamers at that point were the ones who had already finished them, as for all intents and purposes, the game was already over.

But tournament comebacks are kind of Eric Musselman's thing.

Down 65-43 midway through the second half is an impossible predicament for most, but it's the exact deficit that Musselman and the Nevada Wolf Pack faced in the second round against Cincinnati in 2018 before finishing that game on a 32-8 run for the ages.

The following year, Nevada trailed by 18 in the second half of its opener against Florida, climbing all the way back to within two points with two minutes remaining before coming up short.

In Musselman's first tournament game with Arkansas, the Hogs fell behind Colgate by 14 points in the first half before storming back for a 17-point victory. They also erased double-digit deficits in each of the next two victories over Texas Tech and Oral Roberts, but couldn't quite come all the way back from an 18-point deficit in the Elite Eight loss to Baylor.

And in Saturday's win over Kansas, Arkansas trailed by a dozen early in the second half before battling back for a dramatic win.

For whatever reason, Musselman's teams save their best in the tournament for when they're backed up against a wall.

The Hogs were simply too deep in the slop to climb their way out of it this time, as Connecticut cruised to a 23-point victory.

Ten years ago, a little-known team from Florida with no NCAA tournament history took over the NCAA tournament.

We came to know and love them as Dunk City.

Well, break out the "Fireflies" and ask "When Can I See You Again?" because I guess this is Owl City.

Florida Atlantic benefited from the chaos of March Madness when it just so happened to be the No. 9 seed that was supposed to face Purdue in the second round, instead drawing No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson.

But the Owls proved that they deserve to still be in this dance with an impressive 62-55 victory over Tennessee.

The Volunteers led by a small margin for most of the night, stifling FAU with defense, as they had done to so many teams over the course of the past four months. Twice during the regular season and once already in this tournament, Tennessee won a game while failing to score 60 points. And in what was a 39-33 contest midway through the second half, it seemed the Vols were headed for a fourth such victory.

But on a late night in Madison Square Garden, the nocturnal Owls woke up and started draining threes.

Michael Forrest went on a personal 8-0 run in the middle of what was an 18-2 FAU run overall, as a team that couldn't buy a bucket for the first 28 minutes suddenly started scoring better than three points per minute.

And Tennessee's mediocre offense just never recovered.

Perhaps most incredible about this upset is that Florida Atlantic out-rebounded Tennessee. The Owls only play two guys taller than 6'4", but they simply refused to get pushed around by a team that had its way with Duke just five days ago.

Now we get an Elite Eight game that no one could have predicted, but that no one could possibly complain about. Either we get Markquis Nowell or a Cinderella team in the Final Four. Should be awesome.

Thursday was a rough night for the SEC, losing both Arkansas and Tennessee. But at least that league still has Alabama playing on Friday, and has won three titles in the past two decades.

Not so for the Big Ten.

For a while, the "Big Ten can't win a title" narrative seemed absurdly overblown.

Yes, the league's last national championship was Michigan State in 2000. And, yes, it has had plenty of opportunities to end that drought, placing a total (including this season) of 138 teams into the dance dating back to 2001. (That's an average of 6.3 teams per year.)

But at least the Big Ten used to come close to the top of the college basketball mountain. From 2001-19, 14 teams from the league reached the Final Four with seven—2002 Indiana, 2005 Illinois, 2007 Ohio State, 2009 Michigan State, 2013 Michigan, 2015 Wisconsin and 2018 Michigan—playing for a national championship. They just couldn't seem to ever win the big one.

Lately, though, the Big Ten has been an outright embarrassment in the dance.

Nine Big Ten teams made the tournament in 2021, but only one reached the Sweet 16: No. 1 seed Michigan, which lost to No. 11 seed UCLA in the Elite Eight.

Last year, nine Big Ten teams made it again. Two reached the Sweet 16, but they both lost in their regional semifinal, with Purdue embarrassingly losing to No. 15 seed Saint Peter's.

This year, more of the same. Eight teams got in. One (Michigan State) reached the Sweet 16. And it won't be playing in the Elite Eight.

All told, the Big Ten has put 26 teams into the tournament in the past three years, going a combined 23-26 with nine losses to teams seeded No. 11 or worse.

At this point, it seems like the Big Ten simply isn't built to succeed in the tournament.

The league always seems to have about half a dozen All-American-level big men, but where are the lead guards who can take over a game in March?

Aside from Rutgers every year and Northwestern this year, where are the turnover-forcing defenses that can carry you through a poor shooting night or early foul trouble to one of those star big men?

Where is even the slightest notion that a Big Ten offense knows how to break a full-court press?

Questions for the league to address this offseason, which is now officially underway. (Except for Wisconsin carrying the torch in the NIT, which the Big Ten has already won five times since its last NCAA title.)

Gonzaga vs. UCLA was an unbelievable battle between second-team AP All-Americans.

UCLA had no answer for Drew Timme, who was on pace for at least 60 points at one point in the first half. The mustachioed star didn't come close to that, but it sure felt like it. Timme ended up with 36 points, 13 rebounds, four assists and two blocks. If he hadn't missed a pair of free throws in the closing seconds, he would have matched his career high of 38 points.

But while Timme did his thing, so did UCLA's Jaime Jaquez Jr., filling up the stat sheet with 29 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block. Jaquez had a pair of and-1 layups late in the game as the Bruins went on a 14-3 run, turning a 72-62 Gonzaga lead with 2:30 to go into a 76-75 UCLA lead with 12 seconds remaining.

Before the game ever began, many of us were already thinking back to the 2006 NCAA tournament showdown between these schools.

You know the one.

Adam Morrison.

Unbelievable UCLA comeback.

"Batista with the CATCH!"

The Bruins rallied from a 71-62 deficit to win that game by two, and it looked like they were about to do something almost identical to break the heart of another Gonzaga legend.

But while we were all thinking about that finish, Mark Few was drawing up a little something magical from the end of the 2016 national championship between Villanova and North Carolina.

Instead of Timme or Jaquez in the end, it was UCLA's Amari Bailey hitting the go-ahead triple, followed by Julian Strawther drilling one from the logo on the Kris Jenkins play, where he in-bounded it to Hunter Sallis and then got it back on almost a flea flicker of sorts for a deep but wide-open three-point attempt.

Jenkins' shot went in as time expired. Strawther's cleared the net with seven seconds remaining. So UCLA had a chance to tie or take the lead. But Tyger Campbell picked an unfortunate time to commit his only turnover of the night, stripped by Malachi Smith when he tried to get off the game-tying attempt.