KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The euphoria of reaching the Elite Eight for the first time in 33 years had already worn off and Auburn coach Bruce Pearl was left to arrange his bravest smile on his face.
His trigger-happy Tigers were moving on in the NCAA Tournament.
They were doing it without their most versatile player.
Behind yet another 3-point barrage, No. 5 seed Auburn overcame a slow start to roar past top-seeded North Carolina 97-80 in the Midwest Region semifinals Friday night. But the victory came only after sophomore forward Chuma Okeke, who already had scored a game-high 20 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, sustained a gruesome injury to his left knee in the closing minutes of the game.
“It’s a bittersweet accomplishment because of Chuma getting hurt,” Pearl conceded. “In a game full of guys that have a chance to play at the next level, I thought he was the best player.”
Yet he didn’t do it alone. And that should give the Tigers (29-9), who matched the 1998-99 team for most wins in school history, some confidence as they aim for their first Final Four.
Malik Dunbar finished with 13 points, Bryce Brown and Danjel Purifoy scored 12 apiece, and Jared Harper scored nine while dishing out 11 assists in Auburn’s latest takedown of college hoops royalty.
It was Kansas last week. It was North Carolina on Friday night. It could be Kentucky next, after the Wildcats survived Houston’s comeback bid for a 62-58 victory in the second semifinal.
That trio represents the three winningest programs in Division I history.
“Three games away. That’s the bottom line,” said Brown, the catalyst of a team that rained in 17 3-pointers against the Tar Heels. “I want to lead my guys to a national championship.”
The Tar Heels’ own title aspirations may have been brought down by the flu bug.
Leading scorer Cameron Johnson spiked a fever Thursday night, and he wound up going 4 of 11 from the floor and scoring 15 points. Top bench player Nassir Little didn’t practice all week with the same symptoms, and he wound up scoring four points in just 12 minutes.
“Nassir didn’t have the same lift and Cam wasn’t the same person on the court, but those are just excuses,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose team was the first No. 1 seed to go down.
Auburn-Carolina was the track meet everyone anticipated from the opening tip, the only difference that the Tar Heels preferred to go to the basket while the Tigers kept pulling up for 3s.
Early on, they didn’t make nearly enough.
Yet they managed to track down all the long boards, allowing Pearl’s team to hang tough on the glass against the team with the nation’s No. 1 rebounding differential. That in turn gave them second and third chances down floor, and allowed Auburn to take a 41-39 lead into the break.
The Tigers’ run eventually reached 14-0 spanning halftime, giving them the first double-digit lead of the game. Williams finally relented and called timeout, and the genteel North Carolina coach with the aw-shucks disposition spent most of it savagely ripping into his bench.
The Tar Heels responded, at least for a while. But even when Maye and Johnson managed to trim their deficit to 60-54 with 13 minutes left, and a building solidly packed with Carolina blue began to stir, a brazen bunch of Tigers answered by rejecting a pair of dunks and knocking down a 3.
Or two or three of them.
In fact, they knocked down five straight 3s at one point. Purifoy had two, prompting Williams to ask, “Who has No. 3!?” The answer was nobody: Purifoy knocked down another for good measure.
“I’ll never use that halftime talk again,” Williams said, “because it sure as dickens didn’t work.”
DUKE 75,
VIRGINIA TECH 73
Zion Williamson scored 23 points, RJ Barrett had 18 and a career-high 11 assists, and Tre Jones added 22 points and eight assists, helping No. 1 overall seed Duke avoid an NCAA Tournament upset and edge No. 4-seeded Virginia Tech 75-73.
The Hokies had their chances in the closing seconds, the final one coming on an inbounds play with 1.1 seconds left. The ball went to Ahmed Hill as he jumped to the basket wide open, but his attempt to tie it fell short. Hill dropped to the court on his back as Zion Williamson — fittingly — grabbed the basketball and smiled broadly. It was similar to the way two last-gasp shots went off the rim for Duke’s second-round opponent, UCF.
Before that final miss, both Hill and Ty Outlaw airballed 3-point attempts that would have put Virginia Tech ahead.
But Duke got through, even though it trailed much of the evening, including 38-34 at halftime.
KENTUCKY 62,
HOUSTON 58
Tyler Herro hit a 3-pointer with 25.8 seconds left to give Kentucky the lead after Houston had erased a double-digit lead, and the Wildcats escaped their NCAA Midwest regional semifinal with a 62-58 win over Houston.
Herro’s huge basket gave the Wildcats a 60-58 lead and came after Houston’s Corey Davis Jr. had his driving shot swatted away by PJ Washington, who was making his return after missing the first two tournament games with a left foot injury.
Davis missed what would have been a tying layup before Herro hit two more free throws to secure the win and send the second-seeded Wildcats to the Elite Eight for the seventh time in 10 years, Kentucky will face Southeastern Conference rival Auburn for a trip to the Final Four.
Herro led the Wildcats (30-6) with 19 points and Washington added 16.
MICHIGAN STATE 80, LSU 63
Aaron Henry scored a career-best 20 and fellow frosh Gabe Brown had 15 as second-seeded Michigan State beat third-seeded LSU 80-63 on Friday night to move on to the NCAA Tournament’s East Region final.
Coach Tom Izzo’s upperclassmen-heavy team is one victory away from its first Final Four appearance since 2015.
Michigan State took it to LSU on the glass, outrebounding the Tigers 34-20. At halftime, Michigan State had as many offensive rebounds as LSU had total boards, at times making it look like 5-on-4 when the ball came off the rim.
Michigan State had five 3s in the first 10 minutes alone, and LSU never adjusted defensively.
Tremont Waters scored 10 points during a 13-0 LSU run spanning the first half into the second to cut the deficit to four. Then Michigan State blew the game wide open with 3-pointers. The Spartans hit four of their first five 3-point attempts out of halftime.