It wasn’t exactly David versus Goliath, but 6-seed and nationally unranked Xavier had a tall order to fill against the red-hot 2-seed Arizona Wildcats in Los Angeles on Thursday night. To add to the tourney drama, Xavier coach Chris Mack faced his former employer of five years and good friend, Arizona coach Sean Miller.
Trailing with seven minutes to go, Arizona fought off a tough team in Xavier with a 19-7 run, defeating the Musketeers, 68-60. Arizona trucks on to face Frank Kaminski and the Wisconsin Badgers in the Elite 8 in a rematch of last year’s West region final.
With three quarters of the teams eliminated, we are entering the Sweet 16, the round that has given hoops fans instant classics for years. Hopefully Thursday’s late game in Los Angeles won’t disappoint. Seven-seed Xavier is taking on 2-seed Arizona in the “House that Kobe Built,” also known as the Staples Center.
This game showed that a 14 seed can play with the big boys. Georgia State played a great game against Xavier in the first half with multiple lead changes and a halftime difference of just 4 points. The second half was just as close until the last few minutes of the game when Xavier started to pull away. Free throws made the difference in this game with Dee Davis from Xavier making 6 free throws in the last 44 seconds of the game. Xavier ended the last chance for a true Cinderella team to make it to the Sweet 16.
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