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Hoot!
No. 9 Florida Atlantic beat No. 3 Kansas State 79-76 in the East Regional finals to book one of the craziest and most unexpected Final Four berths in NCAA men’s basketball tournament history.
Making just the program’s second tournament appearance, the Owls now lead Division I with 35 wins and are the first Conference USA team to reach the national semifinals since Memphis in 2008.
Despite the loss, this has been a remarkable season for Kansas State. Picked last in the preseason Big 12 poll, the Wildcats laid the foundation for a long and successful run under first-year coach Jerome Tang.
In the second game Saturday, No. 4 Connecticut embarrassed Gonzaga 82-54 to reach the Final Four for the first time since 2014.
The Owls and Huskies lead the first round of winners and losers from Saturday’s Elite Eight action:Winners
The hottest team in the tournament has to be seen as the favorite to win it all regardless of which teams win Sunday to round out the Final Four. The 28-point win against Gonzaga marks a new high for the Huskies, who were very good during the regular season but have taken things to a different stratosphere the past two weeks. After dismantling the Bulldogs, Connecticut becomes the seventh team to win all four regional games before the Final Four by 15 or more points. Coincidentally, the last team to do that was Gonzaga in 2021.
Even while struggling from the field, Sanogo continued to spark the Huskies’ with his second double-double of the tournament. The junior forward scored 10 points on 3 of 11 shooting with 10 rebounds and a career-high six assists, taking advantage of Gonzaga’s attention to find teammates Jordan Hawkins (20 points) and Alex Karaban (12 points). Stopping the Huskies entails stopping Sanogo — and the best of luck in that.
