All eyes were on Newark’s Prudential Center last weekend for the NCAA’s East Regional. Duke, Arizona, Alabama, and BYU invaded downtown Newark and all games did not disappoint. Let’s take a look back at the action.
Thursday, March 27th: Buckets Galore: Cooper, Love, and Sears Steal The Show
Thursday night’s action gave fans two high-scoring games with some big primetime performances. In the first game, Alabama surpassed Loyola Marymount’s record of 21 three-pointers by going 25-51 from beyond the arc against BYU.
The Crimson Tide led by Marc Sears’s 34-point performance did whatever they wanted on offense and completely dominated the Cougars by shooting tons of threes in transition. Sophomore guard Aden Holloway scored 23 points for the Crimson Tide 21 of those points were scored in 18 minutes.
In the nightcap, All eyes were on No.1 seed Duke and the Super Freshman Cooper Flagg. The Blue Devils were going to have their hands full as they were going up against No.3 seeded Arizona featuring Caleb Love.
Love who’s a graduate transfer at Arizona has a lot of history with Duke going back to his days at UNC this game was a final chance for him to surpass the Blue Devils and lead the Wildcats back to the Elite 8 for the first time since 2011.
This game turned out to be a classic showdown as Caleb Love and Cooper Flagg put up big-time scoring performances. Caleb Love kept Arizona in the game throughout by scoring 35 points, but they couldn’t overcome Duke’s defense and a balanced attack led by Cooper Flagg’s 30-point, 7 rebound, and 6 assist performance. Duke went on to win 100-93 closing out a night full of high-scoring performances in both semifinal games.
Saturday, March 29th: The Blue Devils Dominate the Crimson Tide en route to an 85-65 win and a trip back to the Final Four.
After Thursday’s high-scoring performances from both teams, we were looking forward to another high-scoring affair in the championship but Duke had other plans as their defense made things uncomfortable for the Crimson Tide from start to finish. Duke went on to win 85-65 and their dominance showed that they are destined to win the championship on Monday, April 7th.
Duke felt right at home winning the East Regional championship on Saturday. The Blue Devils are now 12-0 when they are playing in the Garden State during the NCAA tournament.
Cooper Flagg has swept just about every Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year award. The 6-9 forward from Newport, Maine is being mentioned with hall of famer Carmelo Anthony who was a freshman when he led Syracuse to the 2003 national championship. After leaving the prudential center that night it became clear who should be cutting down the nets on Monday and that team is the Duke Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils still have a big test ahead when they face a very good Houston squad in the semis, but I am very confident that they have shown that they have what it takes to beat anyone at this point.
Hoop Dreams NYC 