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The Breakfast Buffet: March Madness Edition

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

UConn is one win away from history
The Huskies have won five national titles, been to six Final Fours, and won a combined 19 Big East regular season and tournament titles, but UConn has never been to the Final Four in back-to-back seasons. That can change with one more win. The Huskies dominated San Diego State on Thursday night in Boston, beating the Aztecs 82-52 at TD Garden. UConn has now won its last nine NCAA Tournament games by an average of 22.9 points. Dan Hurley’s squad will play Illinois on Saturday in the Elite Eight.

Brad Brownell is doing his best work in the 2024 NCAA Tournament
Clemson lost three of its final four games prior to Selection Sunday, but has been a different team during March Madness. In three consecutive games, the Tigers have had control from nearly tip to finish against New Mexico, Baylor, and Arizona. Thursday’s win against the Wildcats was maybe the biggest surprise since the game was played in Los Angeles. This is all a credit to Brownell, who has truly shined during the NCAA Tournament. After fighting his job security for the better part of the last decade, Brownell is probably one win away from earning a lifetime contract at Clemson. The Tigers have never been to the Final Four and neither has Alabama, who Clemson will play on Saturday in Los Angeles in the West Regional Final.

Terrence Shannon Jr. has exploded like a volcano
This guy saved his best basketball for the postseason. Since the start of the Big Ten Tournament, the 6-6 Shannon is averaging a whopping 31.2 points and has separated himself from people like Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht as the best individual scorer in college basketball. He scored 29 of Illinois’ 72 points in Thursday night’s three-point win over Iowa State, which put the Illini in the Elite Eight for the the first time since 2005. Illinois gets a crack at top-seeded UConn on Saturday in Boston.

On The Side

  • UConn has 59 assists on 96 made field goals in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
  • Arizona has now lost to a lower seeded team — Clemson (2024), Princeton (2023), and Houston (2022) — in the last three NCAA Tournaments.
  • Clemson’s opponents are shooting an average of 35.4 percent from the field in the NCAA Tournament.
  • Tennessee’s starting guards — Zakai Zeigler and Santiago Vescovi — are a combined 8-27 from the field and 6-20 from three-point range in the Vols’ first two NCAA Tournament games. That could be a big thing to monitor when this team faces Creighton tonight in the Sweet 16.
  • Jon Scheyer was 14 years old when Kelvin Sampson led Oklahoma to the Final Four in 2002. Tonight, the two will go head-to-head in the Sweet 16 when Duke faces Houston in Dallas. America!

Leftovers