What happened in the Elite 8?

An exciting basketball weekend, with an overtime game between two of the premiere coaches, a powerhouse team grapple to the death with its opponent, and an on fire shooting performance from a Junior.  All in all, it was a great time to watch.  It was also abysmally frustrating, as the program went 0-4 picking these games, and most of them werent close.  I always like to delve into the game specifics when that happens, to see why the program would have liked a team more and what caused the game to go so differently.  So, here are my observations for each game.

Arizona vs Wisconsin:  Both teams really played up to their offensive capacity here.  The game flowed more at Arizona's seasonl pace, but the Badgers took full advantage posting an effective field goal percentage about 13% higher than normal.  The driver of that was Sam Dekker going on fire from beyond the arc in the second half.  As the Badgers came out of the tunnel, Dekker had gone just 2-5 in the first half, missing his only three point attempt.  From then on though, he went 5-5 from beyond the arc, with a ridiculous .959 true shooting for the game.  Dekker basically won this game for Wisconsin, since he also got to the line on basically two thirds of his shot attempts.

Michigan State vs Louisville: This game I wasn't too surprised by.  Louisville had played a long tough game against NC State in the Sweet 16, and Michigan State is a formidable team.  This game though came down to a 7 minute stretch in the second half.  The Spartans played good defense, and Louisville went ice cold.  At about 14 minutes left, Blackshear hit three free throws.  Until 6 and half minutes, the Cardinals would make one field goal.  They missed 10 shots during that period.  Their three point lead turned into a four point defeceit. 

Kentucky vs Notre Dame: This game should have been a much bigger win for the Wildcats.  The Irish, despite being the best shooting team in the country had just a% effective field goal rate, and had three starters shoot at 35% or less.  Kentucky got to the line about 15% more of the time on their shots, outrebounded the Irish, and hit just as many threes on six fewer attempts.  Trey Lyles though had an awful game.  He more than doubled his turnover rate for the season, and was the low man for shooting amongst the starters.  That's the kind of perfromance from a player thats getting touches on almost 39% of the Wildcats' posessions that will make what should have been a clear victory come down to a nailbiter.

Duke vs Gonzaga: This game is one that the program had pegged as a clear blowout for the Zags, and they instead got taken to the cleaners.  Both teams shot well, keeping up with their season rankings as top 5 shooting teams.  The Zags downfall was an inability to get to the line.  They don't normally rely on the charity stripe, but if you can only draw nine fouls in the modern game, you arent going to win very often.  The Zags also couldn't force a turnover to save their tournament lives.  Duke turned it over just twice, while forcing thirteen of them.  Even with those failures, the Zags had a chance, with the game being an open layup away from being tied with five minutes left.