51黑料

The SEC got Florida and Auburn into the Final Four in San Antonio, thus validating its standing as the nation鈥檚 best basketball league.

The Gators rallied past Texas Tech with cold-blooded shooter Walter Clayton Jr. channeling his inner Steph Curry

The Tigers outslugged Michigan State with star postman Johni Broome battling on while held together with athletic tape.

The injury-battered Broome appeared to be finished for the day Sunday after taking an awkward fall in the second half. But he returned from the locker room to bury the pivotal 3-point jumper to keep the Tigers rolling.

鈥淕oing down, everyone and their mama in the crowd thought it was over,鈥� teammate Dylan Cardwell said. 鈥淎nd he comes back out. You would have thought Derek Jeter came out for his last at-bat. For him to knock down that 3, I鈥檝e never heard an arena that loud in my life.

鈥淢y biggest regret is not watching that game as a fan. I can鈥檛 imagine what that was like as a fan. I鈥檓 like, 鈥楢hh, we鈥檝e got to win, we鈥檝e got to win.鈥� I didn鈥檛 get to enjoy that moment like everybody else. But I鈥檓 going to watch this game back on the bus.鈥�

Florida and Auburn face each other in the semifinals, so the survivor will play the Duke-Houston winner for the title. The SEC is guaranteed to have one of the last two teams standing after a strong overall showing.

Tennessee and Alabama fulfilled their potential by reaching the Elite Eight, but they ran into much better teams when they got there. The Vols won with defense all season, but Houston is a better defensive team with more firepower too.

So the Cougars were able to step on Tennessee.

Alabama鈥檚 only chance against Duke was to knock down 3-pointers at crazy rate from start to finish. They didn鈥檛, so the deep, well-polished Blue Devils handled the Crimson Tide with relative ease.

There were other highlights for the SEC during this Big Dance, including Arkansas beating Kansas and St. John鈥檚 before coming up just short against an excellent Texas Tech team.

Also, Ole Miss picked off North Carolina and Iowa State before getting edged by Michigan State in a grind-it-out battle. Rebels fans should cherish every season they still have Chris Beard as coach.

Writing for USA Today, Paul Myerberg summed up the league鈥檚 success:

That the Volunteers and Tide couldn鈥檛 get through the Elite Eight doesn鈥檛 change the fact that the SEC is not only the best conference in college basketball this season 鈥� that鈥檚 been settled for months 鈥� but one of the most dominant single-season leagues in NCAA history. Yeah, getting even three teams into the Final Four would鈥檝e felt like a coronation; that鈥檚 something only one conference, the Big East in 1985 has ever achieved. Still, to have multiple SEC teams in the semifinals is a fitting way to end this season.

Here is what folks have been writing about March Madness:

• Justin Williams, The Athletic: 鈥淚n what has been a chalk NCAA Tournament, the bracket鈥檚 top overall seed advanced to the second Final Four in program history, repeating the 2019 run under coach Bruce Pearl. It marks just the second time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 that all four No. 1 seeds have reached the Final Four, matching 2008. Auburn will face Florida, which advanced out of the West Region. The Tigers had to topple a pillar of March Madness to get here, staring down a No. 2 seed Michigan State team that reached the Elite Eight on sheer will, led by coach Tom Izzo, seeking his ninth Final Four appearance. Pearl tried his damnedest to play the underdog card on Saturday, placing Izzo and the Spartans on a much-deserved pedestal.

"It was a preposterous ploy for an Auburn team that has been elite all season, but it wasn鈥檛 a pure bluff, either. The Tigers are more talented than Michigan State, but there was a mental barrier to clear for an Auburn group that looked to be losing altitude down the stretch, losing three of its last four before the NCAA Tournament. It鈥檚 a team that advanced the hard way, forced to mount second-half comebacks in rounds two and three, including a nine-point deficit against Michigan in the Sweet 16. And then it had to slay Izzo 鈥� Mr. March 鈥� and an opponent forged by blunt force, a slasher-film villain.鈥�

• Myron Medcalf, : “The Gators are here because no team in America has been able to turn games in their favor with devastating runs the way they have. Down nine points with 3:14 to play against Texas Tech, they ended the game on an 18-4 run akin to ones we have seen from them multiple times this season.

"Just in this tournament, they outscored Maryland 47-33 in the second half of their Sweet 16 win and had 53 points in less than 17 minutes against Norfolk State in the opening round. They have launched those same knockout punches against other elite teams, too. In the SEC tournament championship, Florida was tied with Tennessee at 16 with 11:30 to play in the first half. Eight minutes later, the Gators had a 12-point lead. Florida is college basketball's equivalent of a home run hitter in the bottom of the ninth inning.鈥�

• Candace Buckner, The Washington Post: 鈥淭he Houston men鈥檚 basketball team could have spent the entire NCAA tournament moaning about disrespect and distance, and it would have been right. Although the Cougars were properly seeded as a No. 1, they had to travel farther than usual to Wichita for the first and second rounds. That might have seemed more like a neutral site compared with having to play this weekend in Indianapolis. But the Cougars didn鈥檛 need the comforts of home to ruin the travel plans of all the Tennessee fans who made the shorter trip.

"Houston鈥檚 defense shut down the Volunteers on Sunday, a 69-50 domination in the Midwest Region final, and lifted the program to its seventh Final Four appearance and its second in the past five seasons. This business trip to Lucas Oil Stadium turned out just fine for the visitors from Texas. During the Cougars鈥� Sweet 16 game Friday against Purdue, which is just an hour away, the stadium speakers could have blasted the sound of crickets whenever Houston made a positive play.鈥�

• Matt Norlander, : “A game removed from making an NCAA Tournament-record 25 3-pointers on 51 attempts, Alabama wound up 8-of-32 (25%) from deep. It was playing catchup from the get-go, and in that sense, the game was a bust. The Tide never held a lead and never put together a run. Duke kept Alabama scoreless for more than five minutes in the second half, choking out any hope for a run to make the game interesting. And so, with a Final Four now official, so is this: We have another Great Duke Team. This one is 35-3 and two wins away from having a claim as one of the best teams in modern history. At , it currently only rates behind the 1998-99 Duke team (that was stunned in the national final against UConn) as the most statistically efficient of the past 28 years."

Megaphone

鈥淭here's not another player in America you would rather have right now than Walter Clayton with the ball in his hands in a big-time moment.鈥�

Florida coach Todd Golden.