UWIRE Basketball: March Madness 2009

From Lute Olson to Kevin O’Neill to Lute Olson to Russ Pennell, the Arizona Wildcats have lived a soap opera the past two years. Right now, they’re working on a happy ending, improbably keeping alive their NCAA tournament streak before beating Utah and Cleveland State to set up a Sweet Sixteen date with Louisville, the overall No. 1 seed.

Bryan Roy of the Arizona Daily Wildcat fills us in on Chase Budinger, Nic Wise and the Cats.

Syracuse surges into a Sweet Sixteen meeting with Oklahoma having won nine of its past 10 games, losing only the Big East tournament final against Louisville after a memorable run that included the second-longest game in Division I history. Can Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris keep it going?

Daily Orange sports editor Kyle Austin helps us break it down.

You might have heard of this Blake Griffin fellow. He’s quite a ballplayer. Seemingly a shoo-in for NBA stardom, the 6-foot-10 forward leads Oklahoma into the Sweet Sixteen on Friday, but he’ll need help. As Eric Dama of the Oklahoma Daily explains, the Sooners rely on Willie Warren, Austin Johnson and others to hit outside shots to keep Griffin from becoming a one-man show.

Seeded first in the West Region, Connecticut will face Purdue tonight in the first game of the Sweet Sixteen. As the Huskies get ready and Jim Calhoun dodges questions about his recruiting practices, we caught up with Kevin Duffy, the sports editor of the Daily Campus, to discuss Hasheem Thabeet’s defensive prowess, Stanley Robinson’s uncanny athletic ability and A.J. Price’s place among the great guards in UConn history.

Derrick Rose isn’t walking through that door, and neither is Joey Dorsey or Chris Douglas-Roberts. Yet even without the stars who led them to the national title game last year, the Memphis Tigers are again one of the top teams in the nation.

Joseph Russell of the Daily Helmsman explains how they’re doing it.

With DeJuan Blair wrecking opponents underneath the hoop, Pitt is often seen as a team that wins solely with defense and rebounding.

But as Mike Gladysz of the Pitt News explains, Levance Fields, Sam Young and the Panthers can do a lot more, including turn up the tempo when needed.

They’re not all the way back just yet, but the Blue Devils are looking a lot more dangerous than they did the past few years, with Gerald Henderson and Jon Scheyer coming into their own as standouts alongside Kyle Singler.

We got all the details from Ben Cohen, the sports editor at the Duke Chronicle.

After a hellacious end to the Quin Snyder, Missouri is back in the Sweet Sixteen under third-year coach Mike Anderson.

We spoke with Lenny Goldman, sports editor at the Maneater, to find out how the Tigers have done it.

Can you name a single player on this Xavier team? (No, David West is long gone.) Yet here they are, one step from a second straight Elite Eight appearance.

To learn a little more about Sean Miller and this anonymous bunch of Musketeers, we caught up with Doug Tifft, who has covered the team the past two seasons for the Xavier Newswire.