ATLANTA (AP) – Say this about the Atlanta Regional: These guys know a thing or two about winning at crunch time.
Led by No. 1-seeded Duke, the top five teams in the 16-team NCAA regional captured either the regular-season title or the conference tournament in their respective leagues (the Blue Devils, of course, did both in the Atlantic Coast Conference).
That doesn’t even include George Washington, which swept through the Atlantic 10 with a 16-0 record but was blown out by Temple in the quarterfinals of the league tournament. The Colonials were heavily punished for that misstep by the NCAA selection committee, which dropped them all the way to an eighth seed.
Duke (30-3) was an obvious choice at the head of the pack.
The Blue Devils rolled through the regular season with a 14-2 mark in conference play – two games clear of the field – then tacked on an ACC tournament championship by beating Boston College 78-76 on Sunday.
“You always want to go into March, the most important part of the season, with a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence,” sophomore guard DeMarcus Nelson said.
Duke will return to the Greensboro Coliseum, site of the ACC tournament and not far from its Durham campus, for a first-round game against Southern University (19-12) on Thursday. If the Blue Devils can win two games in their home state, it’s on to the Georgia Dome for the round of 16.
By winning the ACC tournament, Duke showed that its two-game stumble at the end of the regular season was probably just an aberration. The Blue Devils were a perfect 14-0 in the ACC before a shocking loss at Florida State, and they finished off the regular season by falling to rival North Carolina at home.
“There’s always going to be some doubt about things,” Duke star guard J.J. Redick said. “We had lost a couple of games in a row, but we used last week to get refreshed. We had a great week of practice. We got better during the week, and came in very prepared and rested for this weekend. For our team, I think we answered any doubts this weekend.”
But Duke isn’t the only team in this regional with a championship on its resume:
– Second-seeded Texas (27-6) won the Big 12 regular season title before losing to Kansas on Sunday in the final of the conference tourney. Like Duke, the Longhorns were rewarded with a short trip to start the NCAAs – they’ll take on Ivy League champ Pennsylvania (20-8) Friday in Dallas.
– No. 3 seed Iowa (25-8) won the Big Ten tourney on Sunday, knocking off regular-season champ Ohio State 67-60 and perhaps costing the Buckeyes a top seed. The Hawkeyes will begin the NCAAs in suburban Detroit against Northwestern State (25-7) on Friday.
– No. 4 LSU (23-8) won the Southeastern Conference championship, though the Tigers stumbled in the league tournament with a semifinal loss to Florida. They’ll open Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla., against Iona (23-7).
– No. 5 Syracuse (23-11) might just be the hottest team of all, winning the Big East tournament with an unprecedented four wins in four days. The Orange went from a bubble team to an automatic entry, and they could pose more problems in the NCAAs if they get by a dangerous first-round matchup against 12th-seeded Texas A&M (21-8) on Thursday.
Those kind of credentials should come in handy in the pressure-packed atmosphere of the one loss-and-done NCAAs.
Then there’s George Washington (26-2), which was ranked sixth in last week’s Associated Press rankings. The Colonials are two spots lower than that in the Atlanta Regional, facing one of those dreaded 8-9 matchups against North Carolina-Wilmington (25-7) at Greensboro on Thursday.
No one took a bigger fall for a late-season stumble.
George Washington was only the fourth team to make it through the A-10 regular season without a loss, a high-scoring team that rolled into its conference tourney on an 18-game winning streak and hoping for a high seed in the NCAAs.
That all fell apart against Temple, which totally stymied the Colonials in a 68-53 stunner. Also hurting George Washington at selection time: a weak non-conference schedule and an injury to senior forward Pops Mensah-Bonsu, who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and missed the last four games. His status for the NCAA tournament has not been decided.
If the Colonials get by the first round, they’ll likely face the No. 1 seed in what essentially will be a Duke home game.
“It’s more of a surprise. Disappointment? No,” George Washington coach Karl Hobbs said. “We won the league last year and we were a 12th seed, so we’ve improved.”