Tramel's ScissorTales: Kelvin Sampson NCAA Tournament's biggest winner after two rounds

Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars were down 10 points at halftime. They were injured. They were in foul trouble. They were playing a virtual road game.

Then the Cougars, top-seeded in the Midwest Regional, outscored Auburn by 27 points in the second half and won 81-64 to reach the Sweet 16. Call it Sampson’s finest hour.

The Monday ScissorTales look at the Thunder’s huge road trip to Los Angeles and check in on the NCAA’s women’s tournament. But we start with the men’s side, and the biggest winners and losers from the first two rounds of March Madness.

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Winner: Kelvin Sampson

Sampson took OU to the 2002 Final Four, made Washington State basketball relevant and has restored Houston to glory. But Saturday night showed the finest example of the grit and toughness that Sampson teams always display.

The top-seeded Cougars trailed Auburn 41-31 at halftime in Birmingham. Star guards Marcus Sasser and Jamal Shead were nursing injuries. Fouls mounted on a variety of Cougars, including Sasser, Shead and star big man Jarace Walker.

But Houston turned up the defensive heat, rode sophomore Tramon Mark’s career high 26 points and won going away. Now Houston sits with Alabama as the remaining favorites to cut down the NCAA nets.

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Loser: Current Big 12

The Big 12 was seeded to get four teams into the Sweet 16. The Big 12 got just two, Texas and Kansas State.

Kansas was upset by Arkansas, but cut the Jayhawks a little slack. Coach Bill Self missed both games in Des Moines after a heart procedure a week earlier, and the athletic Razorbacks were the worst possible matchup for KU. Texas Christian played a valiant game in taking Gonzaga to the wire.

But Baylor was a defensive no-show in getting whacked by Creighton 85-76 in Denver. That was a season-long problem.

At least the Bears made the second round. Iowa State was an offensive no-show in getting beat 59-41 by Pittsburgh. The Cyclones shot a ghastly 23.3% from the field, and ISU had 30 points with five minutes left in the game. That same Pitt team on Sunday allowed Xavier to score 42 points in the first 15 minutes of the game.

Winner: 2023-24 Big 12

The Big 12 has won the last two NCAA Tournaments – Baylor 2021, Kansas 2022 – and next season, the Big 12 could be saying three.

Houston is a big favorite to win the Midwest, and if the Cougars don’t, Texas likely will. Either would be quite capable of winning the Final Four.

And Kansas State’s gutty, 75-69 victory over Kentucky makes K-State a Final Four contender, too. The remaining seeds in the East Regional: 3-KSU, 4-Tennessee, 7-Michigan State, 9-Florida Atlantic.

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Loser: Cool showdowns

When the tournament began, all kinds of juicy showdowns loomed, needing only a verdict or two to go the right way.

Texas A&M-Texas. Pitt-Penn State. Indiana-Houston, with Sampson against his former employer. Charleston-Furman, after the latter upset Virginia, in what would have been a second-round game of South Carolina mid-majors. Alas, none came to pass.

Winner: SEC

The Southeastern Conference outshone the Big 12. The SEC has three Sweet 16 teams – Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee.

If Kansas had beaten the Razorbacks, the Big 12 would be the star league of the 2023 NCAAs. But winning matters.

Loser: Power Five football leagues

The big football conferences have most of the money and increasingly flex their muscles in other sports.

But the Big 12, SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast conferences combined for just half of the Sweet 16. San Diego State, Houston, Creighton, Connecticut, Xavier, Gonzaga, Princeton and Florida Atlantic crashed the party.

More:Tramel's ScissorTales: Will another Big 12 team win the NCAA Tournament in 2023?

Winner: New Jersey Cinderellas

First, 16^th-seeded Fairleigh Dickson made history, joining Maryland-Baltimore County as the only 16-seeds to knock off a No. 1 in the 39 years of such bracketing.

Then 15^th-seeded Princeton not only beat second-seeded Arizona, but routed seventh-seeded Missouri, to reach the Sweet 16.

In the last two Marches, 16-seed FDU and 15-seeds St. Peter’s and Princeton combined have beaten a No. 1 (Purdue), two No. 2’s (Arizona and Kentucky, a No. 3 (Purdue) and two No. 7’s (Missouri and Murray State).

Who will be the 2024 New Jersey Cinderella? Monmouth? Rider? New Jersey Institute of Technology?

Loser: ACC

After a disappointing regular season, the stately ACC also had a rough tournament. Only new-money Miami made the Sweet 16.

Duke lost in the second round. Virginia lost in the first round. North Carolina, Louisville and Syracuse didn’t even make the tournament.

Winner: Mountain West

The Mountain West had lost 11 straight NCAA Tournament games, but that streak finally ended with San Diego State’s 63-57 victory over Charleston.

The NCAA selection committee keeps giving the Mountain West respect – four spots in 2022, four more in 2023 – and the Aztecs can justify that treatment with a Sweet 16 upset of top-seeded Alabama in the South Regional.

Loser: Purdue

For one less-than-shining moment, Virginia was the dunce of the NCAAs. The program that lost as a No. 1-seed to UMBC rallied the next year, 2019, to win the NCAA championship. But the Cavaliers lost to Ohio as a 4-seed in 2021, then didn’t make the tournament a year ago.

But Purdue has taken the heat away from the Cavs. The Boilermakers joined Virginia as the only No. 1 seeds to lose to a 16-seed, continuing a stunning trend. The Boilermakers lost to 15-seed St. Peter’s in 2022, 13-seed North Texas in 2021 and to 12-seed Arkansas-Little Rock in 2016.

Winner: Big East

You’d think it was 1985 all over again. The Big East has matched the SEC with the most Sweet 16 teams, and UConn, Xavier and Creighton have fighting chances to keep the charm going.

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Thunder road trip huge

When the NBA schedule was announced last August, the Thunder’s West Coast swing in late March looked like perfect fodder.

Pile up the losses, rest Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey and Luguentz Dort, and fortify the lottery odds.

The road trip remains great opportunity. But for playoff positioning.

The Thunder plays in Los Angeles thrice this week — the Clippers on Tuesday and Thursday, the Lakers on Friday — before finishing up in Portland on Sunday. And the lottery is in the dust.

The Thunder is in the midst of the Western Conference playoff race. OKC is in eighth place at 34-35, a half game ahead of the Timberwolves, Lakers and Jazz, a full game ahead of the Pelicans. But the Thunder also is a half game behind the seventh-place Warriors, one game behind the sixth-place Mavericks and only 2½ games behind the fifth-place Clippers.

The top six teams advance to the West playoffs, the next four enter a play-in tournament, and with only 11 Thunder games remaining, the evidence is clear.

This West Coast road trip likely will determine the Thunder season. Get knocked around, particularly by the LA teams, and the Thunder will be back in the lottery, with astronomical odds of landing prize draft pick Victor Wembanyama. Do some knocking around, and the Thunder will be on the verge of a most surprising postseason.

It won’t be an easy road trip. The Lakers are desperate. The Clippers are the cool kids, who seem to play when they want to, and now seems the time to want to.

OKC is 13-21 in road games. The LA teams aren’t great at home, but at least they’re on the high side (Clippers 19-16, Lakers 19-17).

If the Thunder can get back to town 2-2, that would be good. A 3-1 record would put OKC in great position to make at least the play-in, if not the playoffs themselves. A 1-3 record would dampen the enthusiasm that has swelled around the Thunder in recent weeks.

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Mark Daigneault says he has no idea why teams struggle on the road, but he knows why the Thunder beat Phoenix 124-120 Sunday at Paycom Center.

“We don’t win that game without not only being at home, but being at home with a crowd like that,” Daigneault said. “That was a big-time crowd. I just thought that was a huge difference, and that’s what exists on the road.”

Daigneault has an interesting week. He’s taking a team of young twentysomethings, all with a little change in their pocket, for four nights in Los Angeles. I might consider staying out in San Bernardino and busing in every night, but that’s not likely to happen.

The good news: the Thunder is 8-6 in road games since January 11. OKC lost 15 of its 20 road games but has been quite competitive since.

“I love playing on the road,” Daigneault said. “It’s a great test of your team. It strips away everything except your team. It’s just you. And I actually think road trips and road games, wins and losses, builds a lot of chemistry. Because it limits a lot of distractions.”

Good news on the home/road front: Gilgeous-Alexander's production is about the same on the road as it is at home. In particular, SGA averages 10.6 foul shots per game on the road, 10.9 at home.

As a team, the Thunder shoots better at home — .482, as opposed to .452 on the road, a significant difference — and that’s the best clue on why OKC is eight games under .500 away from Paycom.

“Like I said, we love being at home,” Daigneault said. “But the core of your team gets built on the road, and it’s going to be a great test this week.”

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Jennie Baranczyk sad about Cowgirls

OSU led Miami 37-20 at halftime Saturday in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. The Hurricanes rallied for a 62-61 victory in Bloomington, Indiana.

And that made OU coach Jennie Baranczyk sad.

Baranczyk’s Sooners beat Portland 85-63 later Saturday night in Los Angeles. OU plays UCLA at 9 p.m. Monday, with the winner advancing to the Sweet 16 in Seattle.

OU and Baylor helped stave off a Big 12 meltdown. OSU, West Virginia and Iowa State all lost first-round games before the Big 12 registered a victory.

But Baylor rallied from 17 points down to beat Alabama, then Texas beat East Carolina and OU beat Portland.

The Sooners are SEC bound, but until then, Baranczyk flies the Big 12 flag.

“I'm sad because our Big 12, we were good,” Baranczyk said. “We were cheering for Oklahoma State, and people in Oklahoma (OU) don't really say that, but we wanted them to win.

“So we all wanted that. We wanted West Virginia to win. We were thrilled that Baylor came back. We were sad that Iowa State lost because Iowa State is a very good basketball team. When you get to this point, you're all about your conference and you want to cheer everybody on.”

It’s possible that the Cowgirls served as an instructive lesson for teams playing later in the tournament. OU led Portland 39-34 at halftime, but the Cowgirls had that huge lead. If OSU’s lead over Miami wasn’t safe, no lead was safe.

"You know, I don't know if it's a good lesson or not,” Baranczyk said. “I think we learned a lesson a year ago when we were a 4-seed playing a really good (13)-seed.”

In Norman last March, OU survived IUPUI 78-72.

“We didn't come in this thinking, ‘oh, our seed is higher, so therefore, we look over anything,’” Baranczyk said. “We came in excited to play basketball today.

“And it didn't matter who you're playing against, you have to show up and you have to play. It doesn't necessarily teach you lessons of oh, because Purdue men lost last night, now all of a sudden you have to wake up.

“No, you have to wake up regardless of who you play, when you play; it's March. You've got to play and you get to play.”

The women’s side of March Madness is scant different than the men’s. The bracket is full of teams with unimpressive seeds, teams that have spent the season playing outside the spotlight, but teams that are capable against all but the elite of the sport.

Most of that goes away in the second round. UCLA is a big name. Portland is not. But the Sooners survived the latter and now get to play the former.

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Mailbag: OU facilities

In the Sunday Oklahoman, I wrote about OU’s plans to build a $175 million football headquarters. I wondered if that money might be better spent on name, image and likeness money. And I heard from a reader who last year toured Georgia’s football facilities.

Tom: “I saw your article this weekend on the $175 million infrastructure build planned at OU, where I’ve been a fan since growing up in OKC in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I buy, grow and then sell companies for a living. Last fall, (we) toured (the Bulldogs’) football facility. As you might imagine, it was unbelievable. I could go on about how special the place was for athletes, coaches, and administrative staff. As referenced, the guy giving us the tour ran football operations. As we walked through all the meeting, locker, training, and treatment rooms, indoor field, dining hall, etc., he stopped and said something to the effect of, all of this mattered when we hired Kirby (Smart, head coach) seven years ago, but none of it matters that much today. I asked why. He said what matters today is NIL and what you can do to help them establish, and then promote, their personal brand. He said don’t get me wrong, you have to be at parity with Bama, etc., facilities, but only so you don’t lose a tie, but you aren’t in the conversation today unless you can compete on the new recruiting fronts.”

Tramel: Interesting. It seems clear. Players care more about their NIL potential.

But with that said, Brent Venables is in tune with that. Venables talked about that a few weeks ago, saying he believes in building players’ brands. Heck, that’s why Venables trotted out all his new players a month ago. Coaches historically have kept their young players – and some old players – under wraps.

That’s a losing play these days. And Venables knows it. That’s a positive for the Sooners.

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The List: Conference NCAA records

No season is so dominated by its playoffs as is college basketball. So conference superiority is most determined by success in the NCAA Tournament.

Through two rounds of March Madness, here are the records of each conference with more than one team competing, ranked by winning percentage:

1. Big East 7-2: Connecticut, Xavier and Creighton are in the Sweet 16. And Marquette, the highest-seeded Big East team, got one win.

2. West Coast 3-1: Gonzaga made the Sweet 16; St. Mary’s got a win.

3. American 2-1: Houston made the Sweet 16, but Memphis was beaten in the first round.

4. SEC 9-5: Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee made the Sweet 16; Kentucky, Missouri and Auburn also won games.

5. Big 12 7-5: Kansas State and Texas reached the Sweet 16; TCU, Kansas and Baylor won games.

6. ACC 5-4: Miami reached the Sweet 16; Pittsburgh won two games (counting the First Four); and Duke won a game.

7. Pac-12 3-3: UCLA reached the Sweet 16 and Arizona State won a First Four game.

8. Big Ten 6-7: Michigan State reached the Sweet 16; Indiana, Maryland, Penn State and Northwestern won games.

9. Mountain West 2-3: San Diego State made the Sweet 16.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Houston's Kelvin Sampson big winner in NCAA Tournament's first weekend