Villanova's Donte DiVincenzo (10) takes a 3-point shot over Alabama's Dazon Ingram during the first half Saturday. DiVincenzo made the basket and finished the game with 18 points.PITTSBURGH - Villanova men's basketball coach Jay Wright had some late-night restlessness Friday because he could not turn off the TV as long as Virginia and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County were still playing. He reconvened with his team Saturday morning, and at the breakfast tables the Wildcats were buzzing over the biggest upset in NCAA tournament history.
The reverberation from the first 16-over-1 stunner was felt by another top seed.
"There was a lot of attention with that," Villanova guard Donte DiVincenzo said. "We're a 1 seed, so it was more attention for us."
In the March spotlight, his team showed how a No. 1 seed takes cares of business.
Mikal Bridges hit five 3s, scored 23 points and helped Villanova put the field on notice that it's the team to beat with an 81-58 win over ninth-seeded Alabama in the East Region on Saturday afternoon.
The Wildcats (32-4) are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since they won the 2016 national championship. Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Phil Booth - and yes, The Big Ragu (DiVincenzo) - look every bit the favorite to make it two in three years.
Villanova plays Friday in Boston against the winner of today's matchup between 13th-seeded Marshall (25-10) and fifth-seeded West Virginia (25-10).
"My good vibes are coming from how this team's playing, how unselfishly they play," Wright said.
Alabama (20-16) was unable to deliver a second No. 1 knockout to the bracket. After a tense first half in a round that has given the program fits, the Wildcats hit their first six 3s in the second and put on a thrashing up there among the most dominant under Wright.
Bridges, who averaged 17.9 points and played his way into a likely NBA draft lottery pick, scored one point and missed all five shots in the first half. He found his groove once the second half tipped.
Bridges scored the first 5 points of the half and then finished a thunderous alley-oop on a pass from Booth that made it 41-27 and sent the Wildcats wildly waving their arms in celebration headed into a timeout. He hit his first three 3s in succession to cap an 18-1 run, and a Sweet 16 berth was in sight.
"I just had to play aggressive, play tougher," he said
Brunson added a 3 - one of a school-tournament record 17 3s - to make it 56-31, and the rest of the half was simply a countdown to Boston.
The Crimson Tide, who beat Virginia Tech for their first NCAA tournament win in 12 years, matched their worst loss in tournament history.
"There are a lot of teams that would have loved to have been in our shoes to play an incredible game like we did in the first round and advance to the second round," Alabama coach Avery Johnson said.
-Duke 87, Rhode Island 62
PITTSBURGH - Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski might want to stop worrying about his team's inexperience. The loaded if young Blue Devils hardly seem intimidated by the tourney's bright lights - if anything, they're thriving under them.
Marvin Bagley III scored 22 points to go with nine rebounds, fellow freshman big man Wendell Carter Jr. added 13 points and second-seeded Duke rolled by seventh-seeded Rhode Island to earn the program's 26th trip to the Sweet 16.
Freshmen guards Gary Trent Jr. and Trevon Duval combined for 29 points and 11 assists for the Blue Devils (28-7), who will play Michigan State or Syracuse in the Midwest Region semifinals Friday in Omaha, Neb. The victory gave Krzyzewski 1,098 wins during his Hall of Fame career, breaking a tie with Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt for the most ever by an NCAA basketball coach.
The Rams (26-8) and their senior-laden roster never threatened after the opening 10 minutes. E.C. Matthews led Rhode Island with 23 points, but the Rams were never really in it after the Blue Devils revved it up midway through the first half.
-Kansas 83, Seton Hall 79
WICHITA, Kan. - Malik Newman scored 28 points, Udoka Azubuike stood toe to toe with Seton Hall's bruising Angel Delgado, and No. 1 seed Kansas held off the plucky Pirates to reach the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row.
Svi Mykhailiuk added 16 points and Lagerald Vick had 13 for the Jayhawks (29-7), who converted on every crucial play down the stretch to advance to the Midwest Region semifinals, where they'll take on the winner of today's game between Auburn and Clemson.
Delgado finished with 24 points and 23 rebounds in a virtuoso effort for the eighth-seeded Pirates (22-11), who had snapped a four-game NCAA tournament skid in the opening round.
Azubuike played just three minutes in the Jayhawks' opener because of a lingering knee injury, but he came up big against Delgado. The 7-foot, 280-pound sophomore played 22 minutes, including some tough defense on his bruising counterpart, rendering Seton Hall's star far less effective than when Mitch Lightfoot and Silvio De Sousa were trying to guard him.
-Gonzaga 90, Ohio State 84
BOISE, Idaho - Zach Norvell Jr. scored 28 points and Rui Hachimura added 25 to help send fourth-seeded Gonzaga past the fifth-seeded Buckeyes and back to the Sweet 16 in the West Region.
Norvell - the confident freshman who hit the late tiebreaking 3-pointer against UNC Greensboro in the opening round - was 6-for-11 from behind the arc to lead Gonzaga (32-4).
The Zags are in the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight season, and two wins from a return trip to the Final Four.
Keita Bates-Diop had 28 points and Kam Williams 19 for Ohio State (25-9), which rallied from an abysmal start and an 11-point halftime deficit to take a brief second-half lead before Gonzaga went on an 11-0 run to snatch it back.