N.C.A.A. Men’s Tournament: What to Watch as the Sweet 16 Continues

PHILADELPHIA — After four teams were eliminated on Thursday, four more will be ousted on Friday, trimming the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament field to eight.

By Sunday night, only four teams will remain. The Final Four is set for April 2 in New Orleans with the final scheduled for April 4.

On Friday, Kansas, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region, meets fourth-seeded Providence (7:29 p.m., TBS). Here’s what else to watch for.

All times are Eastern.

First-year coaches are making runs.

Of the 16 coaches who remained in the tournament entering Thursday, four were in their first year on the job: Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger, North Carolina’s Hubert Davis and Texas Tech’s Mark Adams. Some aren’t exactly household names. On ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” this week, one of the hosts, Tony Kornheiser, referred to Otzelberger as “T.J. Axelburger.” “They brought in a guy, T.J. Axelburger, who I wouldn’t know if he came into the house and said, ‘Hi, I’m T.J. Axelburger,’ and all of a sudden they’re a good team.”

Whatever you call him, Otzelberger has turned around his Big 12 program. After the Cyclones finished last season 2-22 overall and 0-18 in the Big 12, the university fired Coach Steve Prohm and hired Otzelberger away from Nevada-Las Vegas. The team is now 22-12, including a win over third-seeded Wisconsin in the second round of the tournament. The Cyclones face Miami, a No. 10 seed, on Friday (9:59 p.m., TBS) in Chicago.

“Man, I don’t know, it’s crazy,” guard Izaiah Brockington, who transferred from Penn State and now leads the Cyclones in scoring at 17.1 points per game and in rebounding at 6.8 per game, said when asked what making the round of 16 said about his team. “I couldn’t say mission accomplished. We’re still on a mission.”

Davis is a former North Carolina star who played for 12 years in the N.B.A. and served for nine years as an assistant under Roy Williams, who retired last April after leading his alma mater to three N.C.A.A. titles. Williams, 71, planned to travel to Philadelphia to watch his protégé.

“I don’t think anybody loved the North Carolina basketball program like Roy Williams did, but if I was going to pick a guy that did, it would be Hubert Davis,” Williams said.

North Carolina is in familiar territory.

Speaking of Hubert Davis, eighth-seeded North Carolina will be on familiar ground when it faces fourth-seeded U.C.L.A. on Friday in Philadelphia (9:39 p.m., CBS). On the Tar Heels’ march to the 2016 N.C.A.A. championship game, where they lost to Villanova on Kris Jenkins’s game-winning 3-pointer, they beat Indiana and Notre Dame in Philadelphia to reach the Final Four.

Of course, none of the current players were on that team, and only one, the senior guard Leaky Black, has been to the round of 16.

“To see not just the determination and the fight and the will and the want-to, but also the excitement and enjoyment of being in a stage that they’ve never experienced before brings joy to me,” Davis said.

North Carolina had its 98th practice of the season on Thursday, and the junior forward Armando Bacot told Davis he wanted to get to at least 100.

“OK,” Davis told him, “that means, then, we’ve got to practice on Saturday, and then that means we’ve got to go practice back at home. So our guys are excited. They’re motivated. They accept the challenge of playing a great team.”

The Peacocks power into Philadelphia.

Fifteenth-seeded St. Peter’s is a 12½-point underdog against third-seeded Purdue on Friday (7:09 p.m., CBS). Truth is, Texas, which lost to Purdue in the second round, would probably have been a better matchup for Coach Shaheen Holloway’s group. Purdue, led by its 7-foot-4 center, Zach Edey, may have too much size for the Jersey City, N.J., university.

Still, nobody picked St. Peter’s to beat second-seeded Kentucky in the first round, either, and it was also an underdog against seventh-seeded Murray State. Of the three No. 15 seeds to reach the round of 16 in the history of the men’s tournament, St. Peter’s has the best defensive efficiency rating, according to Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. It ranks 28th nationally, while Oral Roberts last year was ranked 219th and Florida Gulf Coast in 2013 was ranked 98th. The Peacocks are hoping to become the first team seeded 13th or lower to reach the final eight, and they should have strong fan support down the New Jersey Turnpike in Philadelphia.

Purdue Coach Matt Painter said his team was not worried about “numbers or underdogs or Cinderellas or whatever.” He said: “Just focus in on St. Peter’s and just how good of a team they are because if you don’t, they’re going to beat you. I think they’ve proven that.”

St. Peter’s guard Doug Edert said of all the attention surrounding the team: “The only thing that matters is beating Purdue and moving on.”

It’s a big weekend for the Ivey family.

One day after Purdue guard Jaden Ivey and the Boilermakers take on St. Peter’s, his mother, Niele, will coach the Notre Dame women’s team (24-8) in a round-of-16 matchup against North Carolina State in Bridgeport, Conn.

“I’m not nervous at all,” said Ivey, a projected N.B.A. lottery pick averaging 17.6 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game. “I’ve put a lot of work in to get here, to be on a great team like this, and I’m not nervous.

“My mom has been in the same situation. She’s been in a lot of tournament games where she’s lost, and she’s won a tournament game. She’s won a national championship. I don’t think she’s nervous at all, either.”

Niele Ivey scored 12 points in the 2001 women’s championship game when Notre Dame beat Purdue, 68-66, to capture the first of its two titles under Muffet McGraw.

Under Painter, the Boilermakers’ coach since 2005, Purdue has been to the round of 16 four times in the last five tournaments, but advanced to the round of 8 only once (2019) and never to the Final Four.

“Obviously, it’s a goal of ours to continue to win and hopefully get to a Final Four,” Painter said.