NCAA Tournament Day 3 takeaways: No. 1 Alabama wins decisively over No. 8 Maryland

Men’s March Madness got real Saturday with the round of 32 underway. Defending champion Kansas and red-hot Duke are going home. No. 15 Princeton and No. 8 Arkansas are among those advancing to the Sweet 16.

Follow The Athletic’s live updates from the NCAA Tournament second round.

Alabama wins decisively over Marlyand

Maryland hung around, mucked it up, made things interesting for a bit, but this Alabama team can only be held down for so long. The Tide rolled late Saturday to a 73-51 win over the eighth-seeded Terps, advancing to a Sweet 16 that’s felt inevitable since the bracket was released.

After being held to 28 points on 10-of-26 shooting in a grinding 31-possession first half, Bama unloaded on the Terps on offense and wrapped em up on defense after halftime. The Tide outscored Maryland, 45-28, after the break, led by 15 second-half points from Jahvon Quinerly.

It is getting exceedingly difficult to envision the Alabama team losing anytime soon. Maryland did everything in its power to slow down and avoid the blitz, but the Tide simply comes with too much … everything. They scored 1.32 points per possession in Saturday’s second half.

Brandon Miller went 5-for-17 from the field, but did begin to look more and more like himself, too. In one brilliant sequence in the second half, the star freshman swooped through the lane swatting away a shot, then careened down floor, corralled a pass in transition well behind the 3-point line and lofted in a deep 3.

After going scoreless in the Tide’s opening-round NCAA Tournament game, Miller, who’s been nursing a groin injury since the SEC championship game, finished 19 points, seven rebounds, drew six fouls and posted a team best +/- of plus-25.

Alabama will play San Diego State in the Sweet 16 in Louisville. The Aztecs looked equally impressive Saturday, rolling past Furman, 75-52. — Brendan Quinn

UCLA earns it over Northwestern

SACRAMENTO — UCLA had to grind for it. Mick Cronin warned of this Friday; he had studied Northwestern, seen what they could do, seen the stylistic similarities with his own team, and warned media covering the Bruins not to assume that the path to the Sweet 16 would be quite as simple as Thursday night’s romp over UNC-Asheville had been.

“Look guys, it’s going to be a lot tougher,” Cronin said. “A lot tougher.”

He was right. Northwestern started slowly, and looked overwhelmed by UCLA’s talent; they had no answer how Jaime Jacquez Jr. can run things from the middle of the floor, or for Amari Bailey’s shotmaking.

But in the second half the Wildcats got into the game. Chase Audige was incredible in that run, making every 3 and pull-up jumper he found half a second’s worth of time to release. Boo Buie got involved, too, started pressing and prodding into UCLA’s defense.

The Bruins got sloppier on the other end. Tyger Campbell had one of his sloppier nights finishing in recent memory: He was 0-of-7 from the floor, but did make 12-of-12 from the free-throw line, which is a fair enough indication of how the second half went.

UCLA didn’t overwhelm plucky little Northwestern. The Wildcats held their own.

But as they so often do, even when they don’t play particularly well on one end of the floor, UCLA found a way to grind it out. A third straight Sweet 16 is the reward. — Eamonn Brennan

Houston hangs on to beat Auburn

Wasn’t pretty, but Houston hangs on to dispose of Auburn, 81-65. The Coogs held the Tigers to 4-for-24 second-half shooting, outscoring them 50-23 in the second half.

The bulk of the credit goes to Kelvin Sampson’s defense, but Auburn was also plainly brutal after halftime. The Tigers went 15-for-26 from the foul line in the second half, finishing 19-for-36 in the game.

The star of the night was Tramon Mark, who pumped in a career-high 26 popints while Marcus Sasser added 22. The junior guard averages 9.6 points on 3.3 made field goals per game. He went 6-for-9 for 20 points in the second half, alone, on Saturday.

Now. top-seeded Houston is moving on as both Alabama and Maryland warmup in Birmingham for the nightcap. — Brendan Quinn

How did Princeton pull it off?

Similarly to Thursday night, when they upset No. 2 seed Arizona, Princeton came in with a fantastic, simple plan for the game, and then executed it to utter perfection.

Missouri was an uptempo, pressing team, one with a highly efficient offense that was often catalyzed by turnovers in its highly impressive SEC run. So: Don’t turn the ball over on offense, work possessions until after Missouri gambled on a steal, and keep everything in front on defense, so the other Tigers have to play one-on-one.

This is exactly what Princeton did, and it worked exactly how they thought it would. A Missouri offense that ranked No. 7 in the country in adjusted efficiency coming barely managed a point per possession Saturday night, while Princeton picked off open look after open look on the other end. It was comprehensive, the biggest win by any No. 15 seed in NCAA Tournament history.

Princeton made it look obvious. — Brennan

Arkansas advances to third consecutive Sweet 16

Tennessee rolls past Duke

Tennessee just bullied Duke quite thoroughly and will be heading to New York for the Sweet 16. Florida Atlantic or Fairleigh Dickinson awaits. Olivier Nkamhoua dropped a game-high 27 points and five rebounds, shooting 10-of-13 from the field, 3-for-4 from 3 and 4-of-5 from the free-throw line.

Volunteers guard Santiago Vescovi made a game-high four 3s on his way to 14 points, five rebounds, five assists and two steals. While the Blue Devils had three starters score in double figures, their bench only managed two points and one rebound in total.

Nkamhoua and Tennessee seemed to cruise to a 65-52 win over Duke.

San Diego State defense rises to the occasion

ORLANDO, Fla. — Finally, Furman had some space, Garrett Hien slipping a ball screen, getting the ball on a perfect delivery and elevating for a dunk. Some of the Furman faithful at Amway Center — and there were a lot of them on hand Saturday — started to cheer before Hien crammed it.

The next sound they made can best be described as “Ehhhhhhh?”

San Diego State’s 6-foot-7 Aguek Arop had been lurking on the side of the rim and somehow made up the ground and got the elevation to swat the 6-9 Hien cleanly. That served as an effective summary of South Region No. 5 seed SDSU’s 75-52 rout of No. 13 seed Furman to send it to the Sweet 16 in Louisville.

It was a rejection of all things Furman wanted and planned to do, a thorough snuffing of the magic the Paladins (28-8) unleashed in Thursday’s comeback shocker to upset No. 4 seed Virginia.

Furman hit a late triple to reach the half-century mark on a day it scored .867 points per possession and made just 6-of-26 (23.1 percent) from long range. Jalen Slawson, the star of Thursday’s win, had eight points and four turnovers before fouling out.

Also, SDSU did some good things offensively ‚ the Aztecs were 23 of 38 (60.5 percent) on 2-pointers and had four players in double figures, led by Micah Parrish and his 16.

This is the third Sweet 16 in SDSU history and the first since 2014, when Steve Fisher was head coach with Brian Dutcher assisting. The Aztecs have never made it past the regional semis. They will take on the winner of tonight’s game between No. 1 seed Alabama and No. 8 seed Maryland.

Based on the depth, length, physicality and connectivity of SDSU’s defense — top 10 nationally in defensive efficiency and No. 6 in 3-point defense — the Crimson Tide could be in for a grinding kind of evening if that’s the matchup. — Joe Rexrode

Saturday’s schedule

Required reading

• Who can win the NCAA Tournament? The teams that Eamonn Brennan thinks can do it
• 2023 March Madness upsets: Bracket Breakers picks its 10 most likely first-round upsets

(Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)