Creighton’s headed back to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year, beginning their Road To The Final Four (or less ambitiously, Road To The Second Weekend) in Charlotte against Kansas State. There’s a plethora of storylines with this matchup, from the Wildcats coach — former SIU rival Bruce Weber — to the fact that Bluejay star Marcus Foster began his career there. Not to mention, the game’s in Charlotte, the hometown of Davion Mintz.
Should the Bluejays win, #1 seed Virginia looms on Sunday. Seeded 8th, the Bluejays will make their fifth tourney appearance in Greg McDermott’s eight seasons as head coach, 12th appearance in the last 20 years, and 21st overall. The Big East earned six bids, including two #1 seeds in Villanova and Xavier.
Kansas State was 22-11 and 10-8 in the Big XII, and were eliminated by eventual #1 seed Kansas 83-67 in the semifinals of the conference tournament on Friday. Weber’s team features three players who average in double figures: 6’8″, 225-pound junior Dean Wade (16.5 points, 6.3 rebounds), 6’3″ guard Barry Brown (16.0 points, 3.4 assists) and 6’5″ Xavier Sneed (10.8 points, 4.8 rebounds). Wade is likely to be the toughest matchup, as his size and physicality resemble an awful lot of players the Bluejays struggled to defend this year.
WBR will have much more on this matchup on Monday. For now, here’s some quick tweets after the announcement:
https://twitter.com/barstooljays/status/972957976121266176
