Associated Press
The women’s notebook …
Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo and some of his players took time away from preparing for their third-round matchup with Kansas to watch the women’s team upset top seed Duke.
Izzo stayed for the whole game, cheering from a suite, and his players were on their feet on a baseline as were 5,000-plus fans in the stands.
The Spartans had a little extra motivation in their 63-49 win with former coach Joanne P. McCallie on the Duke sidelines.
McCallie was booed when she was introduced and she simply smiled as she shook the hand of her successor, Suzy Merchant, and shared a laugh with her coaching staff.
Coach P knew how loud it could get in the Breslin Center because she coached there for seven seasons before bolting two years ago and her team found out Tuesday night.
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UN-ACC-EPTABLE: This NCAA tournament has not been the ACC’s finest moment.
Five of the conference’s six NCAA tournament entrants were gone before the end of the second round.
“With the dominance that we’ve had in the league, it was definitely a surprise. I thought we would have more teams that would advance to the Sweet 16,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said after her top-seeded Terrapins beat Utah 71-56 in a second-round game at College Park, Md.
“We are going to do our best and finest job that we can to represent the league,” said Frese, whose team won the 2006 national championship.
Maryland beat Duke in that NCAA title game ó and again this month in the ACC tournament final.
Both schools were awarded No. 1 seeds for this year’s NCAA tournament, but Duke was upset at No. 9-seeded Michigan State on Tuesday, among the biggest surprises of March Madness so far.
That was hardly the only early NCAA exit for an ACC team.
No. 3-seeded North Carolina, No. 3 Florida State ó which tied Maryland for first place in the conference during the regular season ó and No. 5 Virginia also are out. Ninth-seed Georgia Tech fell to Oklahoma.
“At tournament time,” Frese said, “you just never know what’s going to happen.”
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CINDERELLA: South Dakota State’s incredible run in its first season of Division I eligibility ended in a last-second loss to Baylor. After winning its opening game in a rout, the Jackrabbits (32-3) gave the second-seeded Bears all they could handle before falling on a floater with 0.5 seconds left.