Headlines: Kentucky Wildcats to the Sweet Sixteen

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In non-Kentucky related news, Villanova, top seed of the East region, was taken down yesterday in the round of 32 by the NC State Wolf pack. If your bracket survived the completely crazy first few days of the tournament, it’s certainly done now.

"The Wildcats missed so many shots — gimme layups, uncontested jumpers, airballed 3s — that it was no surprise the first thing to fall was their Final Four target. No wonder it came to this: The ‘Cats were the first to go from a top seed to No. 1-and-done. North Carolina State, a program that authored one of the early chapters on March shockers, can add another stunner to the list: The Wolfpack are back in the Sweet 16. “We came out today with the feeling that everybody expected us to lose to a one seed,” said forward BeeJay Anya, “but we believe in ourselves and that we’re good enough to beat anybody in the country and we went down and did it.” N.C. State attacked one of the top teams in the nation for 40 minutes, playing with a chest-thumping swagger that helped them stun Villanova 71-68 on Saturday night."

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Mar 21, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Villanova Wildcats forward JayVaughn Pinkston (22) reacts after the game against the North Carolina State Wolfpack in the third round of the 2015 NCAA Tournamentat Consol Energy Center. The Wolfpack won 71-68. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Wichita State and Kansas will play today for a sweet-sixteen matchup against Notre Dame. Although both schools are located in the same state, it hasn’t been much of a rivalry in the recent history.

"The way Wichita State Coach Gregg Marshall recalls it, he asked Kansas Coach Bill Self about reviving the long-dormant nonconference series between their two programs several years ago at a Rotary Club of Wichita event called Hoopapalooza. The teams last played each other in 1993, a 103-54 Kansas rout in Lawrence, long before either coach assumed his current job. “I said, ‘Hey, we should play,’ ” Marshall said. Self’s reaction? “He laughed it off,” Marshall said. “It wasn’t a negotiation or anything. I never called his office to follow up.” Marshall did not because he sensed the conversation would go nowhere. He and Self are acquaintances, not friends. Self described their relationship as cordial and professional. Kansas already plays one of the toughest schedules in Division I, and why would Self toughen it further? For Kansans, this is their Kentucky-Louisville standoff, natural geographic rivals who played only three times between 1948 and 1983, and only because they had to in the N.C.A.A. tournament. So Sunday, when the second-seeded Jayhawks (27-8) and the No. 7 Shockers (29-4) meet up in the Midwest Region’s second round at CenturyLink Center, geography meets reality at last. Thousands of Kansas fans are already in town, outnumbering Wichita State rooters, three to one, by the looks of Friday’s afternoon session, when both teams played. It is a dream game for the Wichita State junior guard Ron Baker, a boyhood Kansas fan from Scott City, Kan., who hung a poster of the Jayhawks star Kirk Hinrich on his bedroom door."

The winner of the sweet-sixteen game between Notre Dame and either Kansas or Wichita state in expected to play Kentucky in the elite-eight, should they make it that far. Kansas and Wichita State will face off at 5:15 this evening.

Mar 20, 2015; Omaha, NE, USA; Wichita State Shockers players celebrate from the bench during the second half in the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament against the Indiana Hoosiers at CenturyLink Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

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