Men's NCAA Tournament 2023: Saturday's Elite Eight Winners and Losers
One-half of the 2023 men's NCAA tournament Final Four field is now set.
The upstart No. 9 seed Florida Atlantic Owls continued their Cinderella run with a 79-76 victory over No. 3 seed Kansas State in the East Region, dominating on the glass and making the most of a lengthy dry spell from the Wildcats in the second half.
The second game of the night proved to be far more one-sided as No. 4 seed UConn continued its recent run of dominance with an 82-54 victory over Gonzaga, silencing the nation's highest-scoring offense.
Two more teams will punch their ticket to the Final Four on Sunday, but first, let's run through the biggest winners and losers of Saturday's action, looking beyond just the end result on the scoreboard.
Winner: An Impactful Night from Vladislav Goldin
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Vladislav Goldin scored just 17 points through his first three NCAA tournament games, including a fairly invisible three points on 1-of-3 shooting against Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
However, the 7'1" center had one of the best games of his collegiate career on Saturday night, helping to lead Florida Atlantic to an upset victory over Kansas State.
He finished with 14 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks, and he was a driving force behind the Owls winning the rebounding battle by a staggering 44-22 margin.
Goldin's dunk with 6:12 remaining in the second half gave Florida Atlantic a 64-63 lead, and they did not trail the rest of the way in a hard-fought game that saw Kansas State close the deficit to just one point multiple times in the final minute.
It was just the second double-double of the season for the former Texas Tech recruit, and it came at the perfect time to help keep the Owls' Cinderella run alive.
Loser: A Costly Dry Spell for Kansas State
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A three-pointer from Markquis Nowell with 8:39 remaining in the second half gave the Kansas State Wildcats a 63-57 lead.
They would not score again for nearly five minutes.
The next time the Wildcats' number changed on the scoreboard was when Nowell connected on the second of two free throws with 3:49 remaining, and during that drought, their six-point lead evaporated into a 67-64 deficit.
They went 0-for-5 from the field with a pair of missed free throws during their cold streak, and while it stayed a one-possession game right up until the final play of the game, the Wildcats were never able to recapture the lead.
Nowell had another fantastic statistical game, finishing with 30 points, 12 assists and five steals, but he also had five turnovers and shot 8-of-21 from the floor.
Meanwhile, fellow All-Big 12 performer Keyontae Johnson was limited to just nine points in 18 minutes of action. He picked up his fourth foul with 14:10 remaining and spent much of the second half on the bench before fouling out with 2:44 remaining on an offensive foul.
It's now eight straight Elite Eight losses for Kansas State since their last trip to the Final Four back in 1964.
Winner: The Fourth Final Four Team in Conference USA History
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Once upon a time, teams like Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Marquette and Memphis called Conference USA home.
Despite those high-profile programs, there were just three Final Four teams to come out of Conference USA since it was founded in 1995:
- 2002-03 Marquette (lost in Final Four)
- 2004-05 Louisville (lost in Final Four)
- 2007-08 Memphis (lost in NCAA championship)
No one would have guessed Florida Atlantic would join that list when the season began, but the Owls looked every bit a national title contender on Saturday on their way to cutting down the nets in the East Region.
Grit and determination was the story of the game, as the Owls pulled down 14 offensive rebounds and tallied 15 second-chance points.
Outside of a strong game inside from Vladislav Goldin, they also received strong individual performances from Alijah Martin (17 points), Bryan Greenlee (16 points, 4/5 3PT) and Johnell Davis (13 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists).
Tip of the cap to senior guard Michael Forrest who buried all four of his free-throw attempts in the final 20 seconds to seal the victory.
It wasn't the cleanest game, and the Owls actually committed a season-high 22 turnovers, but they still did enough to survive and advance.
Can they be the first team to bring a national championship home to the conference?
Loser: An Absolute Dud From the Nation's Best Offense
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Gonzaga was the nation's most potent offensive team all season.
The Bulldogs entered Saturday night's game averaging 87.0 points per game and ranked No. 1 in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency, and they had scored 82, 84 and 79 points in their first three NCAA tournament games.
The high-powered offense was nowhere to be found against UConn.
The Bulldogs scored a season-low 54 points, and a team that was shooting an NCAA-leading 52.6 percent on the year knocked down just 33.3 percent of its shots on the night, including an ugly 7-of-29 from the floor in the second half.
All-American forward Drew Timme also had a night to forget.
Averaging 21.5 points per game on the year and 28.3 points on 62.1 percent shooting through three NCAA tournament games, Timme got into early foul trouble and ended up picking up his fourth foul with 17:39 remaining in the second half.
As a result, he scored just 12 points on 5-of-14 shooting, and he spent the majority of the second half either watching from the bench or playing cautiously trying to avoid his fifth foul before exiting for the final time with 1:53 remaining.
The Bulldogs were always going to go as far as their offense carried them, and the Elite Eight proved to be the end of the line.
Winner: Another Lopsided Win for UConn
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The UConn Huskies have been the most dominant team in the 2023 NCAA tournament field.
With an 82-54 win over Gonzaga on Saturday, they became just the seventh team in NCAA tournament history to win each of its first four games on the way to the Final Four by 15 or more points.
Ironically, the last team to do it was Gonzaga in 2021, and the most recent example before that was UConn in 2004.
The Huskies have won their four games by a combined 90 points, with Saturday night's victory the most lopsided yet. In fact, outside of UCLA's 86-53 victory over UNC Asheville in the first round, no game has been more one-sided in this year's tournament.
The Huskies did a tremendous job attacking the Gonzaga defense and sharing the ball, tallying 21 assists on 30 made shots, with NBA prospect Jordan Hawkins leading the way with 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point range.
Maybe it's recency bias with the final buzzer sounding just moments ago, but it's hard not to look at UConn as the team to beat heading into the Final Four.
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