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Men's NCAA Tournament 2025: Thursday's Sweet 16 Winners and Losers
After four days of longingly waiting for the Sweet 16 of the 2025 men's NCAA tournament to begin, the dance returned to our lives on Thursday with a whole heck of a lot of points.
The first two games?
Not that close. Alabama ran away from BYU for a 25-point win and Florida eventually cruised to a 16-point victory over Maryland.
Here's hoping you stuck around for the late games, though, because Cooper Flagg vs. Caleb Love was all sorts of entertaining while Arkansas and Texas Tech gave us the first overtime game of this year's tournament.
If you missed any of the action or otherwise wish to relive some of it, we've got all the biggest winners and losers from Thursday's slate.
Winner: Mark Sears and Alabama's Record-Setting Three-Point Barrage
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It was readily apparent from the outset of Thursday night's opener that Alabama head coach Nate Oats noticed a little something about BYU's defense.
Guarding the perimeter?
Not the Cougars forte!
It was a season-long problem for BYU, but it had definitely gotten worse in recent weeks, each of its last five opponents hitting at least 10 triples.
And, well, until BYU did anything to stop them, the Crimson Tide were going to just keep launching from distance.
Still waiting on one of those stops by the way.
In jumping out to a 51-40 lead at halftime, Alabama shot 12-for-27 from three-point range while BYU was just 1-for-13 from distance, where it typically thrives.
There was some hope for a Cougars comeback if those numbers balanced out in the second half, but the Crimson Tide never came back to earth.
In fact, they were even more unconscious after the intermission, going 13-for-24 in the second half for a tournament record-setting 25 made triples en route to a 113-88 victory.
Leading that charge was Mark Sears, who went 5-for-7 from distance in the first half and another 5-for-9 after the break, finishing with 34 points and eight assists. It's laughable to think that this preseason favorite for National Player of the Year was held scoreless not once but twice this season, because he looked like the most unguardable player in the world against BYU.
Aden Holloway also went 6-for-13 from downtown, while Chris Youngblood was 5-for-11.
The whole team was on fire in a performance for the ages.
Loser: Under 175.5 in Alabama/BYU
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Listen, no one had any idea Alabama was going to drain 25 three-pointers in a game featuring 201 total points in regulation.
But in what world was this one not getting to at least 180 points?
Alabama entered the night averaging 90.8 points per game for the season with a defense that was never anything special. The Crimson Tide even put up 80 on Saint Mary's in the second round, which I thought wasn't actually possible.
The average total of its last 11 games was 177.6.
BYU meanwhile entered the tournament as maybe the hottest team in the country aside from Florida, had scored at least 91 points in five of its last 10 games and had the worst defense of any team that reached the Sweet 16.
Each of these teams played in three games just within the past five weeks in which even the losing team scored at least 89 points.
113-88 was a bit excessive, but the winner of this game reaching triple digits was always a distinct possibility, if not downright likely to happen.
This was destined to be a high-scoring track meet, and thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who didn't recognize that and placed a bet on the under.
Winner: Florida's Presence on the Glass
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Florida was all sorts of uncharacteristically sloppy in the first half against Maryland, committing 13 turnovers. We're mostly talking about unforced, careless turnovers, too. The Terrapins were applying token full-court pressure after made buckets, but the Gators were just throwing balls to nobody on a regular basis.
They made up for it on the glass, though.
Despite all the giveaways, Florida finished the half with a two-point lead thanks in large part to a +11 edge in rebound margin.
And once it got the turnovers under control in the second half (only four in the final 20 minutes) while continuing to destroy Maryland on the glass (another +11 advantage), things got a bit out of hand.
For the game, Florida actually grabbed more offensive rebounds (15) than Maryland had defensive rebounds (13), as ending possessions on defense seemed an impossible task for the Terrapins. Nearly a quarter of Florida's 87 points were of the second-chance variety (21).
Of course, that's what the Gators do. The Gators were already top five in the nation in offensive rebound percentage, had at least 10 in nine of their last 10 games and even grabbed 20 in their tournament opener against Norfolk State.
What's a little wild, though, is that they did it mostly without Alex Condon, who led the team and ranked fifth in the SEC with 96 offensive rebounds this season, but who missed most of the game with an ankle injury.
When Condon went to the locker room late in the first half, it felt like Maryland might have a bit of an edge the rest of the way. Unlike the Terrapins, though, Florida has some legitimate depth and got a huge 13 points and nine rebounds out of Thomas Haugh off the bench.
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Loser: Kevin Willard (and the Crab Five)
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A good story with a cool nickname will always be a crowd pleaser, and Baltimore-native freshman phenom Derik Queen leading the "Crab Five" to the Sweet 16—and getting a bag from Dairy Queen in the process—was quite the story.
Or, at least, it was the story, until the story of Maryland's season became all about Kevin Willard and whether he's going to take (or already had taken?) the Villanova job just as soon as the Terrapins' run ended.
It's a shame that this is the way things go now. The transfer portal opened on Monday and there are already well over 1,000 players in it. Dozens of coaching changes have already happened, and he who hesitates on this carousel is lost.
Willard could have handled this so much better, though. He could have even embraced the rumors like Will Wade did, or at least done something to shut down the talk instead of just ducking the questions. But he clearly learned nothing from the way his Seton Hall exit played out three years ago.
At least it's over now, though. Not that I was rooting against Maryland in the slightest, but I'm not sure we would have survived it if we had to spend the entire six-day break between the Elite Eight and the Final Four speculating about the possibility of Willard pulling something of a reverse 1989 Steve Fisher by winning a national championship before immediately leaving the team for another program.
And at least the whole Willard distraction kept us all from fixating on Selton Miguel picking the absolute worst time for his worst game of the season. After averaging 12.0 PPG for the year, the fifth-year senior went 0-for-7 from the field and missed both of his free throw attempts for zero points and zero assists in the 87-71 loss.
Curiously enough, it wasn't the only time Miguel was held scoreless in a game this season, though.
It also happened against...Villanova.
Winner: Cooper Flagg vs. Caleb Love
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There were hardly any instances in the showdown between Duke and Arizona in which Cooper Flagg was guarding Caleb Love, or vice versa.
And yet, it turned into the best head-to-head battle of this entire tournament—maybe the best in many tournaments—just exchanging haymakers for two hours.
Every time Duke threatened to pull away, Caleb Love went on an individual run to keep things interesting.
But every time Arizona got a little too close for comfort, Flagg rebuffed their comeback attempts with a big play or two of his own, including the back-breaking three-pointer at the halftime buzzer.
Just two massive stars of the sport doing everything in their power to keep their seasons alive to see another day.
You love to see it.
At halftime, Flagg had the upper hand with 18 points to Love's 14. But while Love did more scoring in the second half to get to 35 by game's end, it was Flagg filling up the stat sheet with rejections, alley oops and winning plays.
The likely Wooden Award winner and No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft ended up with 30 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three blocks in keeping the professional Duke killer from doing his thing.
The Blue Devils survived by a final score of 100-93, setting up what should be quite the point-a-palooza with Alabama on Saturday.
Loser: The Underdogs (and the Hogs)
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Both Arizona (+9.5) and Arkansas (+5.5) did cover the point spread, so there's that.
But if you bet the moneyline on all four of the underdogs on Thursday, woof.
Better luck on Friday?
The biggest sleeper left heading into the Sweet 16 was, of course, No. 10 seed Arkansas. However, the Hogs were the furthest thing from asleep for most of that game against Texas Tech.
Johnell Davis went off for 30 points. He hit the three-point bucket that gave Arkansas a 59-43 lead at the under-12 media timeout. At that point, pretty much the entire world started drumming up its Florida-Arkansas preview narratives and thoughts on how the SEC re-asserted its dominance in getting three teams into the Elite Eight—plus the possibility for three more on Friday.
Someone forgot to tell Texas Tech the game was over, though.
Christian Anderson and Darrion Williams refused to go quietly into the night, each hitting big time triples late in regulation as the Red Raiders stormed back to force overtime.
And once they got hot, they stayed hot, missing only one shot in the bonus five minutes while eking out an 85-83 victory. JT Toppin added a few late buckets, joining Anderson and Williams in the 20-point club for the evening.
While not as brutal as losing in the first round to Saint Peter's or Oakland while at Kentucky, this was a new level of pain for a John Calipari loss, allowing what Kevin Harlan said during the broadcast was the second-largest come-from-behind victory in Sweet 16 history.
Just like that, No. 6 seed Ole Miss is the closest thing to a "Cinderella" story left in this dance.
Let's see if the Rebels can survive the Spartans, though.
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