Alabama rides its record 25 3s past BYU into Elite Eight

NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

Alabama’s Mark Sears, who hit 10 of 16 from beyond the arc and finished with 34 points, celebrates a basket against BYU during the second half in the East Regional Sweet 16 in Newark, N.J. Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Texas Tech players rejoice beating Arkansas in overtime after rallying from 16 points down in the West Regional Sweet 16 round. Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

Image

The Associated Press

There was no such thing as a bad shot for Alabama in the Sweet 16.

Certainly not from beyond the arc, where the Crimson Tide set March Madness records by making 25 3-pointers, attempting 51 and knocking one of college basketball’s most memorable teams, Loyola Marymount, out of a perch it had held for 35 years.

Mark Sears highlighted East Region No. 2 seed Alabama’s 113-88 win over No. 6 BYU on Thursday night in Newark, N.J., by going 10 for 16 from 3 and finishing with 34 points.

“I was just in a zone,” Sears said. “Once I seen the first 3 fell in, I felt the basket was as big as an ocean. And every time I shot, I felt like it was going in. Just lost myself in the game and just let everything else happen.”

Sears hit the record-breaking 22nd 3 late in the game to make it 97-66 and received a standing ovation when he checked out with 10 3s and more than 4 minutes left to play.

Sears ended up one long-range basket short of breaking the record Jeff Fryer set in Loyola Marymount’s record-breaking 149-115 tournament blowout of Michigan back in 1990. That Lions team starred Hank Gathers before his fatal collapse on the court and was coached by Paul Westhead, whose team cracked 100 points in all but three games that season.

Fun fact: After the win over Michigan, LMU beat none other than Alabama, coached back then by Wimp Sanderson. The score was 62-60 — by far, LMU’s lowest-scoring game of the season.

This year’s Tide, with Nate Oats coaching, are the highest-scoring team in the nation at 90.8 points a game. This was the ninth time they cracked triple digits.

Sears, a first-team All-America guard, was in a long-range slump entering the game. He went just 1 of 9 over the first weekend of the tournament and was just 3 of 25 over his last five games. Consider the slump busted.

“I told Mark he’s playing chess, not checkers,” Oats said. “He just kind of set everybody up, thinking he was in a slump and he’s going to come out and shoot.”

So did the rest of the Crimson Tide.

No. 1 Duke 100, No 4 Arizona 93: Duke stud Cooper Flagg put on a skills clinic and overcame an onslaught from Arizona and Caleb Love, finishing with 30 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 blocks in a victory that pulled the Blue Devils within one win of the Final Four.

Flagg, long over the balky ankle that sidelined him earlier this month, did enough to prevent Love, a thorn in Duke’s side for five years, from ruining another Blue Devils season.

Love finished with 35 points, one short of his career high, including a streak of 12 straight for his Wildcats (24-13) during a ferocious second-half run that cut a 19-point deficit to as little as five with 1:56 left.

But it’s the top-seeded Blue Devils (34-3) moving to the Elite Eight for the second straight season. Saturday comes a 1-vs.-2 clash in the East Region, when coach Jon Scheyer’s team faces Alabama.

A win would put Duke in the Final Four for the 18th time. The last time, in 2022, Love played for North Carolina and scored 28 points to bring an end to legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski’s career.

West Regional

Will Richard scored 15 points, Alijah Martin added 14 points and seven rebounds, and top-seeded Florida played a steady second half to run away from No. 4 seed Maryland and into the NCAA Tournament’s West Region final with an 87-71 win in San Francisco.

Walter Clayton Jr. contributed 13 points and four assists as Florida’s Big Three seniors and their deep supporting cast took down the Maryland “Crab Five” starters — one of Terrapins coach Kevin Willard’s concerns coming into this matchup.

Freshman sensation Derik Queen scored 27 points to lead Maryland (27-9) in what might have been Willard’s final game guiding the program. He has been linked to the opening at Villanova.

Florida (33-4) advances to play Saturday against third-seeded Texas Tech for a shot at the Final Four.

The Gators, in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2017 and seeking the program’s first Final Four berth since 2014, committed 13 of their 17 turnovers in the first half but took better care of the ball over the final 20 minutes. Florida already eliminated two-time defending NCAA champion UConn in the second round and is 10-1 in regional semifinals.

No. 3 Texas Tech 85, No. 10 Arkansas 83 (OT): Darrion Williams scored the tiebreaking basket with 7.3 seconds left in overtime after tying the game with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds of regulation to lead the Red Raiders to a spot in the Elite Eight.

The first overtime game of March Madness came thanks to a furious comeback by the third-seeded Red Raiders (28-8) from 16 points down midway through the second half against coach John Calipari’s 10th-seeded Razorbacks (22-14).

Texas Tech advanced to play top-seeded Florida in the West Region final on Saturday. Three Red Raiders — Christian Anderson (22), JT Toppin and Williams scored at least 20 points.