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Breaking down the 16 teams that could play in the Elite Eight at TD Garden
TD Garden will host the East regional on March 28 and 30, a conference with three of last year’s Final Four teams.
Sixteen NCAA men’s basketball teams now have Boston on their minds.
TD Garden will host the East regional on March 28 and 30, and a quarter of the bracket has visions of Causeway Street as part of their potential road to the Final Four.
It’s an East region that includes three of last year’s Final Four teams, and one heavy favorite.
It wouldn’t surprise anyone if UConn steamrolled its way from the Hub to the desert. The No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, the Huskies (31-3) could be the first repeat NCAA champion since Florida in 2007.
“We’ve been the best team in college basketball,” fiery coach Dan Hurley said after Saturday’s 73-57 win over Marquette in the Big East final. “Obviously, March Madness next week, who knows what goes on there, but we’ve clearly been the best program in the country this year.”
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It is difficult to argue. UConn can play fast, slow, or in-between. They’re big, athletic, and poised. They will start in Brooklyn, against 16-seed Stetson (22-12). Jaylen Blackmon delivered the Hatters’ first-ever NCAA bid with a career-high 43 points in the Atlantic Sun championship.
The other East-bracket game in Brooklyn is between two fast-paced bubble teams. Eighth-seeded Florida Atlantic (25-8) is back for more. The Owls, a year after falling to San Diego State on a buzzer-beater in the Final Four, meets ninth-seeded Northwestern (21-11).
It’s hard to expect another FAU-SDSU matchup in the Sweet 16 — UConn, remember? — but the Aztecs (24-10) are hoping to hold up their end of things. They’ll be the fifth seed in Spokane, Wash., against 12-seed UAB (23-11). The Blazers, American Athletic Conference champs for the first time, have been a bit lucky, but they have enough offense to make SDSU sweat.
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Fourth-seeded Auburn (27-7), the SEC champ, looks like it will get to Boston for the East regional. They’ll start with 13th-seeded Yale (22-9), who slipped by Brown in a one-point Ivy League final.
The bottom of the East bracket, contested in Omaha, Neb., features a team that had a 1-seed’s resume. Second-seeded Iowa State (27-7) may not have the strongest non-conference schedule — it was ranked 351st in the country by KenPom.com — but the Cyclones should easily handle 15th-seeded South Dakota State (22-12), the Summit League champs.
In Omaha, expect a well-played game between two fundamentally sound squads, seventh-seeded Washington State (24-9) and 10th-seeded Drake (28-6). This is the first appearance for Wazzu since 2008, the final year of Pac-12 hoops.
Sixth-seeded BYU (23-10), which upset Kansas in its first year in the Big 12, draws a relative newcomer: 11th-seeded Duquesne (24-11), which won the Atlantic-10 to secure its first spot in the dance since 1977.
It’s all about defense for third-seeded Illinois (26-8). When the Illini defend, they look like a team that can win it all. They did enough in the Big Ten championship, with Terrence Shannon Jr. (34 points) taking over in a win over Wisconsin. The Illini will start against Morehead State and 6-foot-7-inch guard Riley Minix, who is a double-double threat.
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No team looks more threatening than UConn, which is an easy pick to carry their flag into — and possibly out of — Boston.
The Big East is back and so are the Huskies, who won their first conference crown since Kemba Walker’s electric run to the national championship in 2011. Of course, they won it all last year, too, and Big East tourney MVP Tristen Newton looks like he wants to take over in the way Walker, Shabazz Napier (2014), and Adama Sanogo (2023) did in prior UConn title runs.
The 6-5 guard, who was a zero-star recruit coming out of Burges High in El Paso, Texas, has shown the country he is a star. He posted a double-double (13 points, 10 assists, 5 rebounds) in 38 minutes at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
Center Donovan Clingan, who stepped out of Sanogo’s considerable shadow, was a force at both ends in the Big East tourney. He put up 22 points and 16 rebounds in the final, which sparked memories of Patrick Ewing putting up 27 and 16 in the 1984 final. Clingan, a 7-2, 280-pound sophomore, is a projected top-10 draft pick.
To offset the departed stalwarts of last year’s title team — Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins, and Andre Jackson — Hurley brought in five-star Stephon Castle as part of the nation’s sixth-ranked recruiting class, and landed sharpshooter Cam Spencer (Rutgers) as an impact transfer. The resulting blend has landed UConn back in the championship mix.
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Newton, a fifth-year senior, has taken his game to new heights (15.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game) alongside Spencer, who is hitting 44.4 percent of his threes, and Castle, who plays game-altering defense and chips in 10.8 points. If the perimeter game is off, they can lean on Clingan (12.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.9 blocks) and Southborough-bred Alex Karaban, a 6-8 forward with an inside-outside game (13.9 points, 39.5 percent from deep).
The bench includes 6-10 big Samson Johnson and perimeter defenders Hassan Diara (6-2), Solomon Ball (6-3) and Stewart (6-7), a freshman who hit three triples in a three-minute stretch in the second half against Marquette, all but sealing UConn’s Big East title.
The last time Boston hosted a regional (2018), Jalen Brunson and Villanova went wire-to-wire, looking like a No. 1 seed as they romped over Texas Tech in the Elite Eight. They crushed Kansas and Michigan in the Final Four, cutting down the nets in the Alamodome in San Antonio.
In 2012, Boston saw a thriller of an Elite Eight matchup, with Jared Sullinger and second-seeded Ohio State taking down top-seeded Syracuse. The Buckeyes misplaced their four-leaf clover on the way to the Superdome in New Orleans, losing a 9-point halftime lead to Kansas and falling by 2 in the Final Four.
The Garden also hosted the 2009 East regional, and first- and second-round games in 1999 and 2003.
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