Today’s Estimated Reading Time: 4 Minutes and 36 Seconds

Good Morning. This is the Daily Breakroom. We’re here to get your Saturday started with a few minutes of sports.

Let’s jump right in.

On to the Elite 8

After Thursday night’s games, we weren’t sure if Friday night would live up to the hype and be as exciting. We were sort of right. The four games were close at some points, but nothing like the night before. I guess you can have a thriller or an upset, but you can’t have both.

1 Alabama vs 5 San Diego State

The San Diego State Aztecs came to town and started rolling in the first half, heading into the locker room with a 28-23 lead. The second half wasn’t off to the hottest start as The Alabama Crimson Tide took control and lead 48-39 midway through the 2nd. The Aztecs went on a 12-0 run and played some stellar defense to take the 5 over 1 seed upset and win 71-64. With Bama being bounced, it was on Houston to remain as the only other #1 seed.

1 Houston vs 5 Miami

We mentioned this yesterday, but this is the beautiful thing about March. Miami struggled against Drake in the first round with some sluggish offensive play, but they found a way to get to the Sweet 16. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

The Miami group were playing like a team who really knows each, like they spent time stuck in an elevator, probably because they did get stuck in an elevator on Thursday.

Miami didn’t seem concerned from the beginning of the game that Houston had one of the best defenses in college basketball. The game was kept close until about the 4:30 mark in the first half when the Miami D really started to lock it down and went into the first half with a 42-36 lead.

Houston came out strong in the 2nd half and cut Miami’s lead down to 2 points at the 14:30 mark. Just when things were looking good for Houston, the Miami offense kicked it into another gear. The Canes started pulling away and wouldn’t be caught. They ended up with 89-75 win in another 5 over 1 seed upset.

This is the first time since 1979, when seeding began, that there will be zero #1 seeds in the elite 8.

2 Texas vs 3 Xavier

Texas came out fast on Friday night and a lot guys stepped up for the Longhorns. Texas big man Dylan Disu hurt his foot in their 2nd round game against Penn State and it was likely they weren’t going to have him on the court vs Xavier. He tried to give it a go for a few minutes but ultimately took the bench and cheered on his team. Multiple players for Texas took the opportunity to fill the offensive void. Tyrese Hunter put up 19 and Marcus Carr and Christian Bishop scored 18 each.

We were expecting a tighter sweet 16 game as Texas was only a 3.5 point favorite. With Texas outscoring Xaiver in the first half by 17 points, 20 minutes in the 2nd half just wasn’t enough time for Xavier to catch up. Xavier fell 83-71

Texas is now the favorite to win the NCAA Tournament.

6 Creighton vs 15 Princeton

While some of us were hoping the Cinderella story could carry on, Creighton had different plans for Princeton.

There were some obvious signs that Creighton was the better basketball team last night. Creighton was calm on the court, moved the ball around and their offense just felt smooth. While Princeton was getting some opportunities from three point land and had some good off ball movement sporadically, I couldn’t help but notice how frantic things looked at some points. Princeton struggled to get some of those 3 point opportunities that were coming so easily in the early rounds and they even struggled with soft presses while bring the ball up the court. Ultimately once Princeton got down in the game, it was too tough of a matchup to catch up. Creighton ended Princeton’s magical run with a final score of 86-75.

We’re making it sound like Princeton played a terrible game and that truly wasn’t the case. Creighton just played to their potential that everyone thought had in the preseason. Princeton shot 46% from the field and 42% on 3-pointers. Pretty good numbers actually. Here’s the thing…. Creighton was 58% from the field, which is 6 percentage points better than the season leading team average this year.

Elite 8 Games Today

We’ve got 2 exciting matchups tonight to decide the first two teams that will be heading to Houston for the final four.

East Region: 3 Kansas State vs 9 Florida Atlantic @ 6:09 on TBS

West Region: 3 Gonzaga vs 4 UCONN @ 8:49 on TBS

Dell Match Play Update

As we finished the round of 16 for college basketball, we move to the round of 16 in PGA Tour golf.

16 golfers advanced to today’s portion of the match play tournament. Big names are still in the action. We’re talking Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Jason Day and some more.

The pros are teeing off in the morning for the round of 16 and those who win their respective matches will advanced to the round of 8 in the afternoon and play again.

Tune in to the GOLF Channel from 10-Noon and then NBC from Noon-6pm for all the action.

That’s all for today.

Enjoy your Saturday!

-The Daily Breakroom Team