Men’s NCAA Tournament 2024: Sunday’s Elite Eight Winners and Losers

Men’s NCAA Tournament 2024: Sunday’s Elite Eight Winners and Losers0 of 5

NC State’s DJ Burns Jr. and Ben MiddlebrooksPatrick Smith/Getty Images

The Final Four for the 2024 men’s NCAA tournament is all set.

No. 1 seed Connecticut, No. 1 seed Purdue, No. 4 seed Alabama…and No. 11 seed North Carolina State?

If you had that before the tournament began, congratulations. You’re either some kind of witch/wizard, a very lucky dart-thrower, someone from Raleigh or probably all of the above.

But for as unpredictable as this quartet may be, it sure is going to be a fun final weekend in Phoenix.

One which just might still result in Purdue losing to a double-digit seed for a fourth consecutive year after all.

Before we start looking too far ahead, though, let’s recap what happened on Sunday in Winners and Losers fashion.

Winner: The Inevitable National Player of the Year (for a Change)1 of 5

Purdue’s Zach EdeyAaron J. Thornton/Getty Images

Over the past few years, the various National Player of the Year trophy ceremonies have been a little…awkward.

Last year’s Wooden Award winner, Zach Edey, played for a No. 1 seed that was unceremoniously bounced by No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson.

The year before that, Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe had to make his rounds accepting all of that hardware after his team’s first-round loss at the hands of No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s.

In 2021, Luka Garza’s Iowa Hawkeyes did at least survive the opening round, but got blown out in a second-round loss to Oregon.

Then, of course, in 2020, Obi Toppin’s award ceremonies were all conducted over Zoom a few weeks after the world shut down.

You have to go back to 2018 and Jalen Brunson to find the last time the NPOY was already going to be at the Final Four on account of his ability to carry his team that far into the Dance.

But that drought is over after Edey’s unreal individual effort in Purdue’s 72-66 victory over Tennessee.

By halftime, Edey already had his standard double-double, going for 19 points and 10 rebounds in the first 20 minutes. And he was just getting warmed up, ending up with a rarely seen Elite Eight 40-burger and 16 rebounds.

Tennessee joined a long list of teams that simply had no answer for the 7’4″ machine. It was clear in a hurry that Jonas Aidoo was completely overmatched, which resulted in him barely playing and not scoring a single point. The Volunteers tried Tobe Awaka and J.P. Estrella. They threw Jahmai Mashack or Josiah-Jordan James at Edey if he put the ball on the ground.

None if it really mattered, though, as the Boilermakers just kept feeding the big man like never before. (Why, oh why, didn’t they do that against FDU last year?) He had 21 field-goal attempts and 22 free-throw attempts, drawing around 15 fouls en route to a career high in points. And now, after he collects all of his awards for the second consecutive year, this time he’ll get to go out there and play at least one more game.

Loser: Rick Barnes. Before the Final Four. Yet Again.2 of 5

Tennessee’s Rick BarnesJay LaPrete/NCAA Photos/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

No matter what happened Sunday afternoon in Detroit between Purdue and Tennessee, one seemingly cursed coach was going to finally get the “can’t reach the Final Four” monkey off his back while the other’s unfortunate narrative would carry on for at least another year.

Despite 37 points in a Herculean effort from Dalton Knecht while Purdue shot just 3-for-15 from three-point range, Tennessee’s Rick Barnes drew the short straw for that postgame conversation about the coaches.

Of the two, Matt Painter needed it more. Without question.

At least Barnes had been to a Final Four before, getting to that promised land with Texas back in 2003. Moreover, Barnes isn’t the one who suffered a historically embarrassing loss one year ago. And Barnes was actually 1-for-1 in reaching the Final Four as a No. 1 seed in his career, doing so the only time he was supposed to get there.

Still, it’s an albatross that has been weighing Barnes down for a while now.

Barnes has been a single-digit seed in the NCAA tournament 25 times in his career, going to 28 dances in total. Yet all he has to show for it is that one Final Four from more than two decades ago and 30 total wins.

Comparatively speaking, Tom Izzo has 56 wins in 26 tournament appearances, including eight Final Fours and a national championship. John Calipari is in a similar boat with 57 wins, six Final Fours and one title in his 23 trips to the Dance.

By no means are we suggesting Tennessee needs to make a change. The Volunteers have finished five of the past seven seasons ranked in the top 15 on KenPom, which is something they did just twice in the 19 years prior to hiring Barnes. They’ve been consistently good. The randomness of this tournament just has not been a friend to Barnes.

Winner: The DJ Burns Jr. Show3 of 5

NC State’s DJ Burns Jr.Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

On Selection Sunday, we bemoaned the fact that too many conference tournament bid thieves robbed us of the opportunity to watch a surefire fan favorite. Robbie Avila and Indiana State ended up being the third team out when all was said and done, meaning the Sycamores would’ve been in the Dance were it not for Dayton losing in the A-10 tournament, Florida Atlantic losing in the AAC tournament, Oregon winning the Pac-12 tournament and NC State going on its miracle run through the ACC tournament.

But in the Wolfpack’s DJ Burns Jr., we ended up with an even bigger fan favorite thanks to all of that Champ Week carnage.

(And, by the way, Indiana State has made it into the “final four” of the NIT and will be playing Utah on Tuesday, if you still need a little Cream Abdul-Jabbar in your life.)

Burns was great in the first few rounds. He scored 16 in the opener against Texas Tech. He was unstoppable against Oakland, going for 24 points, 11 rebounds and four assists in that one. He keyed the offense against Marquette, matching a career high with seven assists in that upset.

He was better than ever in Sunday’s win over Duke, though.

Of all teams, the Blue Devils should have known what was coming. When these ACC rivals met on March 4, Burns had a season-high 27 points and four assists, albeit in a game the Wolfpack lost by 15 points. But Jon Scheyer hadn’t come up with any better plan for dealing with the big man, repeatedly leaving Ryan Young, Mark Mitchell or Kyle Filipowski on an island where Burns was able to feast his way to 29 points, four rebounds, three assists and a pair of blocks.

He kept the Wolfpack in the game while everyone else started slow in the first half, and then he was the one in the driver’s seat as they pulled away in the second half.

And now we’re headed for Burns vs. Edey in the Final Four.

Can’t wait.

Loser: Duke’s Second-Half Composure on Defense4 of 5

Duke’s Kyle FilipowskiPatrick Smith/Getty Images

Jamal Shead suffering an ankle injury late in the first half was a major talking point in the aftermath of Duke’s win over Houston in the Sweet 16 Friday night, but the Blue Devils showed a lot of toughness in grinding out that victory over an elite foe.

Where did that team go?

Offense was a struggle from the outset for the Blue Devils. There was a stretch of nearly 11 minutes of the first half in which Jared McCain was the only Duke player to score. And after he made a three-pointer with 10:13 left in the first half, the Blue Devils did not make another shot from outside the paint until he hit another one with 1:05 remaining in regulation.

Tyrese Proctor missed all nine of his shots. Neither Kyle Filipowski nor Mark Mitchell fared much better before both fouling out. Save for McCain, it just wasn’t their night.

But defense had been the name of the game for the Blue Devils. They held their first three tournament opponents to 51.0 PPG, and they were able to open up a 27-18 lead late in the first half against NC State in spite of their poor shooting.

Then, they just lost their way.

Trying to guard DJ Burns Jr. one-on-one in the paint turned into a one-way ticket to the wrong end of an ugly loss, as the Wolfpack scored on seemingly every possession in the second half. NC State fed its big man as often as Purdue fed Edey earlier in the day, repeatedly clearing out the half of the court he was on and just letting Burns deftly go to work for his sweet, sweet baby hooks.

And once he got going en route to his season-high 29 points, it just became contagious, with DJ Horne heating up, too. The Wolfpack scored 55 points in the second half alone, incredibly without even doing much damage from the perimeter.

Winner: The Dream Championship Pairing Staying Alive5 of 5

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

After the, uh, rapid unscheduled disassembly of the “Caleb Love Bowl” one round before it could come together, we should probably know better than to peek ahead to possible future matchups in the bracket.

However.

With Purdue’s victory over Tennessee, the dream national championship pairing remains a possibility.

Houston earned the No. 2 overall seed from the NCAA tournament selection committee, but in our pre-tournament power rankings, UConn was the clear No. 1 and Purdue was the clear No. 2. And with all due respect to the Big 12-winning Cougars, Huskies vs. Boilermakers has long felt like the best possible way to end the season.

It would be Zach Edey vs. Donovan Clingan in a Godzilla vs. King Kong type of battle of giants in the paint.

It would be the fiery Dan Hurley taking on the much more mild-mannered Matt Painter in an intriguing stylistic showdown between two of the best active coaches.

It would be the reigning national champion going up against the cursed team trying to follow Virginia’s irrational blueprint of losing to a No. 16 seed the year before finally winning it all.

And it would feel a lot like the Baylor-Gonzaga natty from three years ago—one of those rare occasions where this wildly unpredictable tournament actually produces a championship game between the two best teams in the country.

No matter the title-game matchup, there will be some great narratives. There always are. But UConn-Purdue would be objectively awesome, and at least we can dream about it for another week.