March Madness Day 6, Part 2

Duke 71, Michigan State 61
Defense and three-point shooting, that's the formula Duke uses. In this game, it worked beautifully for them. Duke as a team did okay (38.9%), but Seth Curry himself shot 6-for-9 from behind the arc, which was enough damage. But the real story of this game was Duke's defense. Michigan State went almost 14 minutes in one stretch of the second half without a field goal. That's incredible. For most of the second half, Michigan State had more turnovers than field goals.

I'd love to make sarcastic ref jokes here, given that Duke won and all, but they simply outplayed Michigan State on both ends of the floor. And to top it off, they hit their free throws, so Michigan State had no chance to get back in the game down the stretch.

Florida 62, Florida Gulf-Coast 50
This is how a higher seed knocks off the story of the tournament: weather the early run, slow the game down, and force them to beat you in the half court. They can't do it consistently. Florida was terrible to start this game. They didn't tally their 8th point until over 10 minutes had elapsed in the first half! That's awful, especially considering the size advantage they had.

This game came down to two stats: Florida's offensive rebounds (13) and Florida Gulf Coast's turnovers (19). Once Florida slowed the game down, it was inevitable that they would take control of this game. They were too big defensively, which made Florida Gulf Coast's job really difficult on offense, and got too many second (and third) chances at their misses on the offensive end. It was just too much for the 15 seed to overcome.