Miami beats No. 1 seed Houston; all four top NCAA seeds out

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Knocking No. 1 seedHouston out of the NCAA Tournament made Jim Larrañaga feel likedancing.

Much to his players’ delight, the 73-year-old Miami coach bustedmoves straight out of the disco era in the locker room Friday nightto celebrate an 89-75 Sweet 16 victory that left the tournamentwithout a No. 1 seed among its final eight teams for the first timesince seeding began in 1979.

Larrañaga is known to dance in the locker room after his biggestwins, and this one in the Big Dance surely qualified.

“We were all hyped up,” Jordan Miller said. “We love when CoachL dances. That’s probably the best celebration we could lookforward to.”

Nijel Pack and Miami (28-7) hit shots from near and far againstthe stingiest defense in the country as the Hurricanes became onlythe fifth team this season to score at least 70 points againstHouston (33-4).

“We just wanted it really bad,” Miller said. “We came into thisgame as the underdogs. We had a lead throughout the whole game. Iwouldn’t say a comfortable lead, but a lead, and we just didn’twant to let up.”

The fifth-seeded Hurricanes made their second straight EliteEight and will play second-seeded Texas in the Midwest Regionfinal. Larrañaga is seeking his first Final Four with Miami andsecond overall — he took George Mason there as an 11 seed in2006.

About 30 minutes before Houston’s loss, top overall seed Alabamafell to San Diego State in Louisville, Kentucky. Fellow No. 1 seedsPurdue and Kansas lost during the tournament’s first weekend.

The Cougars simply couldn’t stop a multifaceted Miami offenseled by Pack’s 3-point shooting. He had season highs of seven3-pointers on 10 attempts and 26 points.

Isaiah Wong’s mid-range game helped get the ’Canes out to a faststart, and he finished with 20 points. Miller hurt the Cougars withhis penetration and had 13 points, and Norchad Omier was his usualrugged self under the basket while recording his 16th double-doublewith 12 points and 13 rebounds.

“We emphasized moving the ball and finding the open man, and theguys did such a fantastic job from start to finish,” Larrañagasaid. “We only ended up with six turnovers. So that’s the name ofthe game. And we tied them in rebounding. A great performance byour guys.”

It was Pack who hit big shot after big shot, some from near thelogo. He was comfortable inside T-Mobile Arena, where he playedfive games during his two seasons at nearby Kansas State.

“It’s a blessing to be back in this arena for sure,” Pack said.“My teammates found me early and kept me going. They instilledconfidence in me from the jump ball. They kept feeding me andtelling me to shoot the ball, and I shot it with a lot ofconfidence, and they were able to go in.”

Houston was in the Sweet 16 for a fourth straight time, had won15 of its last 16 games and had the season-long goal of playing innext week’s Final Four in its home city.

“Unfortunately, one off-night and you go home in thistournament,” Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson said. “We just nevercould get a foothold. We kept climbing, and we’d get ahead of them,and then we just couldn’t put stops together.”

Miami used a 16-5 run spanning the halves to go up by doubledigits, with Omier’s three-point play and Miller’s short bank-inwith the left hand making it 47-36 and prompting Sampson to calltimeout less than two minutes into the second half.

Houston battled back to make it a two-point game, but then Packmade three 3s and Miller and Wooga Poplar hit one each to fuel a16-2 run that put the Canes ahead 70-53. The lead grew to as muchas 17 points, and Houston never got closer than 11 the rest of theway.

Walker led the Cougars with 16 points. Jamal Shead added 15 andAll-American Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark had 14 apiece for theCougars, who shot just 37% overall and 29% from distance.

“It was an amazing run,” Sasser said. “Came up short, but thetime that we got to spend throughout these months, I couldn’t haveasked for nothing better.”

Houston — which came into the game as a 7.5-point favorite,according to FanDuel Sportsbook — found itself behind at half forthe second straight game after the Hurricanes played their sharpesthalf of the tournament.

Miami turned the ball over just once the first 20 minutes,converted Miami’s six turnovers into 15 points and shot 6 of 14from distance against the second-best 3-point defense in thecountry.

Pack made four of them, and all were timely. His first threegave Miami leads and his fourth broke a 31-all tie.

“The Pack kid, some of the shots he made were shots you hope hetakes,” Sampson said. “The problem was he made them. Some of thosewere Howitzers.”

Oh, about that dance Larrañaga did. He said it was to theCommodores’ 1985 song “Nightshift.”

Miller gave his coach’s moves a grade of A.

“Not an A-plus — it was a little stiff,” Miller said. “But he’sstill very mobile for his age.”

BIG DAY FOR THE U

The Hurricanes reached the regional final just a few hours afterMiami’s ninth-seeded women’s team hung on to beat Villanova andadvance to the Elite Eight for the first time. Miami and UConn arethe only schools with teams remaining in both tournaments.