By Emma Baccellieri
South Carolina has climbed enough ladders to make it look easy.
The program has a system for cutting down nets. Under the Gamecocks’ aptly named director of player development Freddy Ready—the man works to be prepared for everything—no one has to ask who climbs the ladder next or which piece of nylon should be snipped after this one. Freshmen go first. Everyone gets one linear segment of net, except for graduating seniors, who are given the privilege of cutting out a whole diamond. The whole thing is run with workmanlike efficiency. It’s still a celebration. But it’s a modest, perfunctory one, the equivalent of enjoying a slice of office birthday cake before getting right back to work.
A trip to the Final Four is plenty nice. It’s certainly worth celebrating. But it’s the norm for the Gamecocks under coach Dawn Staley.
So on Monday night in Sacramento, No. 1 seed South Carolina cut down the nets en route to the Final Four for the sixth time in six years. (And had the 2020 NCAA tournament not been canceled due to the pandemic, 32–1 South Carolina almost certainly would have made that Final Four, too, making it seven in seven.) The Gamecocks started a bit slow. But then they turned up the heat and took the life out of No. 3 seed TCU. The final score was 78–52. Yet the gap between teams felt even bigger than that margin of victory would suggest.
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| Chris Jones/Imagn Images
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By Tim Capurso
The Texas women’s basketball team hit rock bottom on Feb. 12. Just two days before Valentine’s Day, the Longhorns heard the hard truth from their coach, Vic Schaefer, in the aftermath of a 16-point road loss to SEC rival Vanderbilt: You have no heart.
Disgusted with his team’s effort in a game in which it was trailing by as many as 26 points, Schaefer skewered the Longhorns at the postgame podium.
“We have no heart,” Schaefer said. “We’re not tough. It’s probably the softest team I’ve had in years.”
“It translates from practices … my fault,’ Schaefer added. “I’ll wear it. I’ll wear all of it. It’s my fault. It stops now.”
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Men's Schedule
Final Four
No. 3 Illinois vs. No. UConn, 6:09 ET, TBS
No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 1 Arizona, 8:49 ET, TBS
*Games on Saturday
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Women's Schedule
Monday's Games
No. 1 Texas 77, No. 2 Michigan 41
No. 1 South Carolina 78, No. 3 TCU 52
Final Four
No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 1 UConn, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN
No. 1 Texas vs. No. 1 UCLA, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
* Games on Friday
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By Pat Forde
All due respect to UConn and Illinois. They earned their Final Four berths the hard way—the Huskies went through No. 1 overall seed Duke, fighting back from a 19-point deficit, while the Illini had to take out No. 2 seed Houston in Houston. Strong stuff. Indianapolis will be graced by your presence.
That said: Their matchup is the undercard in the national semifinals Saturday. Michigan vs. Arizona is the super-juicy headliner, a collision of No. 1-seeded runaway trains that should be the de facto national championship game.
Even if Duke had advanced instead of enduring a second annual massive NCAA men’s tournament collapse—Jon Scheyer, dude, yikes—the Wolverines and Wildcats had already established themselves as the title favorites. Their tournament runs to this point have been relentless domination. Arizona’s average winning margin in four games is 20.5 points; Michigan’s is 22.5. (The Wolverines are the first tourney team since UConn in 1995 to score at least 90 points in four straight games.)
This has happened several times before, where an epic semifinal matchup decides the title and turns the championship game into something of an anticlimax. An incomplete list: UConn-Duke in 2004, won by the Huskies; Kentucky-Massachusetts 1996, won by the Wildcats; NC State–UCLA 1974, won by the Wolfpack; and UCLA-Houston in both 1967 and ’68, won by the Bruins.
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By Pat Forde
The debate began immediately and will rage in perpetuity: Where does UConn freshman Braylon Mullins’s 35-footer to beat Duke rank on the list of stunning, screaming, run-around-the-living room shots in NCAA men’s tournament history?
The immediate answer: We don’t know yet. If UConn ends up winning the national championship, that increases the payload. But for now, let’s fit it snugly into a 12-shot pantheon—with the chance to move up when all is said and done. (I considered 30 notable buzzer beaters before whittling the list to a dazzling dozen.)
Here is one man’s attempt to rank them—largely in terms of shock value. Like, a play you could not see coming until it was suddenly happening. Added factors: historic impact, spontaneity, degree of difficulty, contextual drama and whether a season ended.
Feel free to disagree:
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Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated
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By Patrick Andres
Sports Illustrated looks back at the past 25 seasons from 2000 to ’25 in men’s college basketball, ranking the top 25 NCAA tournament non-championship games. No games in the 2026 tournament were considered for this project, but Sunday’s UConn-Duke Elite Eight game would be right at home among these games.
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