Half of this yr’s Candy 16 is about. Saturday was one other day of largely chalk within the 2025 males’s NCAA Match, with one notable exception.
Listed here are the winners and losers from Saturday’s Spherical of 32 motion.
Winner: Arkansas head coach John Calipari
For the primary time since 2019, Calipari is headed to the Candy 16. The Corridor of Fame head coach had a rocky first season in Arkansas, which started 0-5 in SEC play, however he is headed to a well-recognized vacation spot after an upset 75-66 win over West Area No. 2 St. John’s.
It is Calipari’s sixteenth journey to the regional semifinal in his 33-year faculty teaching profession, which started at UMass (1988-96) and in addition included stints at Memphis (2000-09) and Kentucky (2009-24).
Calipari suffered a number of ignominious early exits in his closing seasons in Lexington, together with two first-round losses in 2022 and 2024 as a top-three seed. It solely took him one season at Arkansas to rediscover his mojo, which may very well be unhealthy information for the remainder of the sphere.
Loser: Mid-majors
This has been a match to overlook for these exterior of the ability conferences. On Saturday, McNeese, Drake and Gonzaga (a mid-major in convention solely) misplaced to energy convention opponents by large margins. That adopted a gap spherical the place energy conferences went 20-5 towards mid-majors, with their 20 wins by a mean of 21.5 factors.
Midwest Area No. 12-seed McNeese set an ominous tone for the day with a 76-62 loss to No. 4 Purdue, trailing by as many as 26. West Area No. 11 Drake stored nearer tempo towards No. 3 Texas Tech, but it led to just about the identical consequence as McNeese, shedding 77-64.
Even Midwest No. 1 Houston by no means trailed towards perennial nationwide energy No. 8 Gonzaga in an 81-76 win.
Getting into Sunday, Saint Mary’s (West Coast), Colorado State and New Mexico (Mountain West) are the one three mid-majors left of the 24 remaining groups.
Winner: Massive 12
The convention went an ideal 3-0 on Saturday, with Houston and Texas advancing to the Candy 16 together with East Area No. 6 BYU, which defeated No. 3 Wisconsin, 91-89.
That is already an enchancment over final season when solely two of the convention’s eight NCAA Match groups reached the second weekend. In latest seasons, the Massive 12 has had a sound declare to being males’s faculty basketball’s greatest convention, and it is enjoying prefer it this yr.
Loser: Shut video games
At the very least Wisconsin and Gonzaga understood the task. However apart from BYU’s slim escape and Gonzaga’s late rally, Saturday’s motion was gentle on drama. A median of 11.5 factors determined the opposite six video games.
The typical margin of victory of this yr’s first-round video games was 16.7 factors, the most important ever for the Spherical of 64, and issues solely bought marginally tighter within the Spherical of 32’s first eight video games.
