The Winners and Losers of the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament
The second round of March Madness featured a Derik Queen buzzer-beater, a John Calipari win over Rick Pitino … and a distinct lack of madness
Who shined brightest in the second round of March Madness? Who fell short? Let’s dive into a special edition of Winners and Losers.
Winner: John Calipari
I don’t know how this happened after Arkansas started 0-5 in SEC play this season, but John Calipari has the Razorbacks headed to the Sweet 16. On top of that, they earned the trip by knocking St. John’s and Rick Pitino out of the dance—and out of Cal’s spotlight. There’s room for only one possibly washed-up star coach in the Sweet 16, and this time it’s Calipari. This marks the first time the coach has made it to the second weekend of the tournament since 2019, which was a couple of years before the NCAA dropped the requirement for transfers to sit out a year before joining another team. So this is the first time a Cal team has reached the Sweet 16 in the true portal and NIL era.
While two months ago Arkansas fans would have been shocked that the Razorbacks got this far, it doesn’t feel so surprising now. St. John’s was a 7.5-point favorite heading into the game, but the Razorbacks had more talent on their roster. And that showed throughout their 75-66 win—especially around the rim, where St. John’s was bothered by Arkansas’s height. Even with center Jonas Aidoo in foul trouble and stuck on the bench for much of the game, the Razorbacks blocked seven shots and held St. John’s to 53.6 percent shooting at the rim. That’s around 11 percent lower than the team’s season-long average, per CBBAnalytics.com.
That height advantage played a big role on both sides of the court. Arkansas’s bigs cleaned up on the offensive glass and scored 12 points on putbacks alone. Aidoo grabbed four offensive rebounds in only 22 minutes, Trevon Brazile grabbed two, and Billy Richmond came off the bench to haul in five of them.
The Razorbacks had a bigger frontcourt and a quicker backcourt. St. John’s defenders couldn’t stay in front of Boogie Fland, Johnell Davis, and DJ Wagner. And some soft calls led to early foul trouble for the Red Storm guards. Kadary Richmond fouled out in just 16 minutes. Simeon Wilcher was called for only four fouls but was limited to 15 minutes because of foul trouble. When the refs weren’t blowing the whistle, Arkansas’s perimeter players were gliding past St. John’s defenders and causing problems for their bigs in the paint. The Razorbacks couldn’t hit anything from deep (they shot 10.5 percent from 3 in the game), but they got whatever they wanted inside.
Across the board, Arkansas looked bigger, stronger, and faster in this game. And that was the deciding factor. St. John’s was a better team throughout the season, but on Sunday, Arkansas had the best team on the court. It’s not uncommon for Calipari to work wonders with a talented, underachieving team in March. But his other late-blooming squads needed time to coalesce because they were so young. This team is different. Fland, Billy Richmond, and Karter Knox are highly touted freshmen, but they haven’t played leading roles in the Razorbacks’ resurgence down the stretch. Rather, the team’s turnaround came when Fland missed two months with a thumb injury, Richmond’s not a starter, and Knox averages under 10 points per game. Arkansas is built around a group of talented transfers and actually has some experience.
Calipari may not have outschemed his old rival in Providence on Saturday. Even during their heydays battling it out in the state of Kentucky, he never really had to. Calipari usually had the more talented team. And a decade later, he’s still riding that advantage to tournament wins over Pitino. Cal’s still got an eye for the best players.
Loser: Rick Pitino’s Belief in RJ Luis
Luis was St. John’s best player all season and the Big East Player of the Year. But in his team’s season-ending loss, he couldn’t get on the court in crunch time. This wasn’t a matter of foul trouble: Luis languished on the bench with just one foul. Pitino yanked him from the game at the 4:56 mark of the second half after he sank two free throws to cut the Arkansas lead to 64-62. He never came off the bench after that.
After the game, Pitino seemed offended that a reporter would dare to ask why he didn’t play his best player with St. John’s season slipping away.
Pitino finally admitted that he benched his star because he played like crap. “You know he was 3-for-17,” Pitino said. “You know he was 0-for-3 [from 3]. So, you’re answering your own [question]. … I’m not gonna knock one of my players.”
Pitino didn’t want to say it, but I will: Luis had a rough day on Saturday. He couldn’t hit a shot from the perimeter, and he ran himself into a cul-de-sac whenever he attempted to drive into the paint. Per Synergy, he missed eight layups alone.
Luis seemed undeterred by his inability to put the ball in the basket in any manner. He just kept chucking up bricks, with seemingly no intent to pass the ball up to a teammate. So it made perfect sense to sit him on the bench … but only for a minute or two, Rick! With Kadary Richmond and Wilcher in foul trouble, Pitino didn’t have many viable options. He was forced to give Lefteris Liotopoulos, a freshman from Greece, 17 minutes in a game he had no business playing in, and the Arkansas guards targeted him whenever he stepped on the court. He did hit a 3 in the first half, but he missed every other shot he took. Luis may have been bad, but St. John’s was still worse off without him. In fact, Luis finished the game with the team’s best plus-minus, at plus-5.
Pitino did an amazing job with the team this season, but he overthought this call.
Winner: Tyrese Proctor
Jon Scheyer’s 2024 recruiting class was a national title contender starter pack. Cooper Flagg is the do-it-all superstar—who also has a rare competitive streak. Khaman Maluach is a frighteningly mobile 7-footer who seems to be picking up new skills by the week. At 6-foot-7, Kon Knueppel is already one of the top shooters in college basketball and can also handle the ball. All three are projected first-round picks in the upcoming NBA draft. If you surrounded those three with any Division I talent, you’d have a lineup that could compete for an NCAA title. But Scheyer didn’t put just any old roster around his talented freshmen class. He put an ideal group alongside them, and now, after its 89-66 blowout against Baylor on Sunday, Duke looks poised to run over the rest of the field.
Proctor led the charge against the Bears. He led all scorers with 25 points on 90 percent shooting, and it was cool to see the junior get this moment during a season that’s been all about the freshman class. He’s been a dutiful player for Scheyer. He started his career as an off-ball guard before moving to point guard midway through his freshman year, when Duke needed it. Now he’s back off the ball, where he looks more comfortable. He’s shooting a career-high 41.5 percent from 3 this season and made seven of eight shots from deep in the win against Baylor—including this tough stepback jumper over the outstretched arm of a defender.
Duke has been dominant all season thanks to Flagg, Knueppel, and Maluach, but the team has lacked a veteran scorer in crunch time of losing games. As Proctor continues to gain confidence and starts doing more off the dribble, he’s emerging as that scorer, which might be the missing piece of Duke’s championship puzzle.
Winner: Walter Clayton Jr.
The biggest cheat code in college basketball is a point guard who can hit a pull-up 3 coming off a pick-and-roll. And a player can break the game if they don’t even need the screen. That’s the best way to describe what Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. did to Connecticut in a 77-75 win that ended the defending champs’ 13-game tournament win streak. Clayton scored 23 points and knocked down five 3-pointers. Only one of those was assisted by a teammate, and the others were heavily contested.
Connecticut did its job defensively, forcing Clayton into highly difficult shots. But he made them anyway. There aren’t any coaching adjustments for “he’s just too good.” Dan Hurley tried to get the ball out of Clayton’s hands, with Samson Johnson hedging hard on ball screens. But the big man’s presence didn’t deter the Florida star. He just took an extra dribble or two and coolly knocked down the shot. Good offense beats better defense.
Clayton’s played a lot of good offense this season. He ranks second in the country in 3-pointers off the dribble, with 62, and fourth in made 3s as a pick-and-roll ball handler, per Synergy. Opponents have to pick him up higher up the court, which opens more space for his teammates. His defender has to go over any ball screen, which allows him to get into the paint and create for his teammates. Or opposing teams can play the screens aggressively by putting two defenders on Clayton, but that just creates a four-on-three advantage for the players away from the ball. UConn did a little bit of everything against Clayton down the stretch, and none of it worked.
He did get off to a slow start in the game. Before hitting his final three shots, he opened up with 3-of-11 from the field. But Florida stuck close to UConn thanks to Alijah Martin’s 14 first-half points. Will Richard also chipped in with a pair of triples. The Gators didn’t have much offense beyond that, outside of a few putbacks following offensive rebounds and 22 made free throws. No other player scored in the double digits.
That was just enough to get by a battle-tested Connecticut team. But the Gators will have to play better in the future to make it to San Antonio. Having the biggest cheat code in the sport should help.
Loser: Dan Hurley’s War on Refs
Connecticut’s long-shot bid for a three-peat finally came to an end on Sunday, and Hurley went out doing what he seemingly loves most: complaining about the referees. On his way back to the locker room, Hurley was caught on camera telling members of Baylor’s team, “I hope they don’t fuck you like they fucked us. I hope they don’t do that to you, Baylor.”
Florida did go to the foul line 12 more times than Connecticut, but the overall foul count wasn’t lopsided by any means. The Huskies got whistled for 21 fouls, compared to 17 fouls for the Gators. Hurley was likely ticked off because both of his big men, Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed, were in foul trouble for most of the game. But that’s been an issue for both players all season. Johnson averaged 6.1 fouls per 40 minutes and Reed was at 5.5, according to KenPom. This team, in general, just can’t defend without fouling. It finished 342nd in the country in opponent free throw attempt rate, per KenPom. It ranked 134th in the same metric a season ago.
That spike in foul rate may have been a personnel issue. Or maybe it was a collective “fuck you” from officials who have been berated by Hurley on the sidelines for the past few years. I don’t actually believe that to be the case—Johnson was called for some ticky-tacky fouls, but most of the whistles against UConn on Sunday were justified. However, I wouldn’t blame the refs if they did try to push back on Hurley for his antics.
Those were easier to laugh off when Connecticut was winning championships instead of going out the first weekend. Or when they weren’t directly costing his team games, as when Hurley got called for a technical in the final minutes of overtime in a tied game against Memphis.
Hurley can’t keep acting like this all the time. It got particularly bad this season, as he strained through an up-and-down year with a team that clearly didn’t have it.
To his credit, the Huskies did finally resemble a title contender in the game against Florida. Hurley put together a hell of a plan and had his team playing hard. For much of the game, Connecticut looked like the better team.
Florida had to work for everything it got on the offensive end, and the Huskies generated plenty of open looks for their best shooters. They just couldn’t hit them. UConn finished the game 8-of-29 from the 3-point range, and nine of the misses came on unguarded shots, per Synergy. Hurley set up Solo Ball, Liam McNeeley, and Alex Karaban for plenty of good looks, and they threw up a bunch of bricks.
Hurley’s coaching job on Sunday, which came up just short, is why you put up with all the theatrics on the sidelines and the cringey viral clips. He’s a good coach, even if he is a poor loser.
Winner: Matt Painter (for Having Trey Kaufman-Renn)
The McNeese story was fun while it lasted. And it may have even lasted a bit too long, with the rapping student manager Amir Khan reportedly having signed a dozen NIL deals and even “entering the portal” to follow coach Will Wade to NC State. Look, I’m all for Khan making as much money as possible from his newfound fame, but the videos aren’t as charming when they’re sponsored by “the experts at TurboTax.”
Thanks to Matt Painter and Purdue, though, there will be no more of those entrance videos this season. The Boilermakers made quick work of underdog McNeese in a 76-62 win that wasn’t nearly as competitive as that score implies. Purdue’s offense was ruthlessly efficient against Wade’s hyperaggressive defense. As expected, the now-former McNeese coach had a few curveballs to throw at Painter. The Cowboys switched all over the court and even threw an extended 1-3-1 zone at the Boilermakers. But last year’s national runner-ups seemed prepared for it all. Purdue picked apart the McNeese defense with quick passes that almost always led to an open 3 or an easy bucket around the rim.
Big man Trey Kaufman-Renn was the boss of this game from the start. Painter put him in the middle of the floor, where he could take the undersized Cowboys defenders to the rim after a switch or make plays as a passer. He was directly involved in the first 10 points Purdue scored.
Kaufman-Renn finished the game with 22 points, 15 rebounds, and three assists on 7-of-12 shooting. He’s averaging 21.5 and 11.5 over the first two rounds of the tournament and has Purdue back in the Sweet 16 for a second consecutive season. While Kaufman-Renn hasn’t quite filled the shoes of Zach Edey, who won National Player of the Year honors two seasons in a row and gave the Boilermakers 25 and 10 on a nightly basis, he’s been the low-post star Purdue has needed all season—and the game-plan piece Painter needed to end McNeese.
Winner: Derik Queen
Maryland’s got a loaded offense, and coach Kevin Willard runs a bunch of creative stuff to get every member of the “Crab Five” involved in the scoring—but the team’s best play is still throwing the ball to Queen up top, clearing out, and letting him go to work. With the Terrapins trailing Colorado State 71-70 and just 3.7 seconds remaining on the clock (and possibly their season), Willard asked who wanted the ball—and Queen, the only freshman in his Crab Five lineup, demanded it. So Willard dialed up Maryland’s best play.
What a freaking shot. It’s contested. He’s going to his left. He’s leaning, he’s twisting, and he still finds the right angle to bank it in. I can’t believe he made it. But this feeling isn’t really new for Maryland fans. We’ve been watching Queen do this kind of thing since November. There isn’t a more creative scorer in the country from 15 feet and in. He’s got every shot: hesitation pull-ups, turnaround jumpers, spin layups, and one-footed fadeaways.
Queen finished the win over the 12th-seeded Rams with 17 points, six rebounds, and two blocks on 7-of-12 shooting, including two 3-pointers, which haven’t been a strength of his all season. Maryland needed every last bit of production from its star freshman against the Rams, led by Nique Clifford. The 6-foot-6 senior from Colorado Springs looked like a future pro in the losing effort, leading all scorers with 21 points to go along with seven rebounds and six assists. He dished out what would have been the game-winning assist—if not for Queen’s heroics.
This contest looked like it would be Maryland’s fifth loss on a late game-winning shot this season. Instead, thanks to Queen, the Terps will continue on for at least one more game.
Winner: Overtime Drama
Up until Queen’s buzzer-beater, the men’s tournament hadn’t provided much late-game drama. After two full rounds, we still haven’t seen a game go into overtime. But things have been a little more exciting on the women’s side, where there have already been two overtime games, including the most exciting game of March Madness so far: Kansas State’s 80-79 win over Kentucky to advance to the Sweet 16.
Kansas State had to erase a five-point deficit with 1:18 left in regulation just to make it to OT. And in that time frame, Jaelyn Glenn hit a 3 to cut the lead down to two, with just under 80 seconds to play. Then Temira Poindexter briefly put K-State out in front with a contested 3 from the wing. But Kentucky quickly answered with a Georgia Amoore 3 to push the Wildcats (the ones in blue) back into the lead. With 8.1 seconds left, the Wildcats (in purple) tied it up at 69 with a short turnaround jumper by Serena Sundell. Kentucky’s last chance to win in regulation was blocked by Poindexter, sending the game into overtime. It was a breathtaking final sequence.
Poindexter wasn’t done with the late-game theatrics, though. After a couple of tough pull-up jumpers by Amoore in overtime, Poindexter gave Kansas State the lead for good, scoring a clutch corner 3 with just under a minute remaining in OT. Amoore got a good look from the baseline to win the game at the buzzer but couldn’t get it to fall, and Kansas State got the upset win in Lexington in the first real thriller of the 2025 tournaments.
Loser: March “Madness”
If either of your brackets is busted after the opening weekend of the men’s and women’s tournaments, you have only yourself to blame. You definitely can’t blame it on the madness of March. We haven’t really seen any when it comes to the actual results. The Sweet 16 field on the men’s side is already filled out, and only one double-digit seed (Arkansas) made it to the second weekend. All 16 teams are from three power conferences: the SEC (seven teams), Big Ten (five), and Big 12 (four). Not even the Big East could crack the field. Only half of the final 16 women’s spots were filled as of Sunday night, but South Dakota State would have to upset UConn and Paige Bueckers to stop that tournament from being an all-power-conference affair, too. If all of the favorites win out on Monday, the highest seed playing in the women’s Sweet 16 will be a 5. Cowards are dominating bracket pools across the country.
There’s an easy explanation for why this is: NIL and the transfer portal have created more talent pipelines for the power programs. On the men’s side, it’s led to more experienced power conference schools. On the women’s side, where the players can’t enter the WNBA draft until three years after their high school graduation, experienced powerhouses are nothing new, but their rosters are even better now thanks to the portal, which allows the top coaches to replace recruits who didn’t pan out with good players they may have overlooked during the recruiting process.
On one hand, the lack of parity has made this year’s opening weekend a little less exciting than those in the past. There are no more endearing Cinderella stories to latch on to. And outside of Queen’s buzzer-beater, we haven’t gotten any moments that will be remembered for years to come. At least not yet. But we should also look on the bright side: The Sweet 16 will be stacked with power conference teams and lots and lots of talent. Maybe this March has been lacking in madness. But the basketball has been damn good, and it should get even better over the next few weeks.
