Sweet shooting propels Michigan

MILWAUKEE - Nik Stauskas and Michigan figured out the best way to overcome Texas’ advantage inside.

One sweet shooting performance.

Stauskas made four of Michigan’s 14 three-pointers, and the Wolverines beat the Longhorns 79-65 on Saturday to advance to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the second consecutive year.

“Huge win for us,” Coach John Beilein said. “These guys believe and they did a great job.”

Stauskas had 17 points and matched a career high with eight assists as Michigan (27-8) moved on to next week’s Midwest Regional semifinals in Indianapolis. The second-seeded Wolverines will face the winner of today’s Mercer-Tennessee game.

Michigan lost to Louisville in the national championship game a year ago. But the Wolverines are rolling again, thanks to strong outside shooting and Jordan Morgan’s work inside.

“What I do like about this team is they’ve never lost two in a row. They’ve been resilient,” Beilein said. “They get better in both victory and defeat.”

Isiah Taylor scored 22 points for the seventh-seeded Longhorns on 8-for-22 shooting. Texas (24-11) out rebounded Michigan 41-30, including 21 on the offensive glass, but the Longhorns gotoff to a slow start and never recovered.

Michigan shot 14 for 28 from three-point range and 17 for 21 at the free throw line in its ninth win in the last 10 games. Morgan had 15 points and 10 rebounds, and Caris LeVert and Glenn Robinson III had 14 points apiece.

“It wasn’t the 14 threes that beat us. It wasn’t,” Texas Coach Rick Barnes said. “It was not finishing a couple times defensively and the shots in close that we didn’t get to go down.”

Texas trailed by 18 points early in the second half, but used its defense and rebounding to get back in the game. Martez Walker hit two free throws and Taylor had a jumper to trim Michigan’s lead to 58-52 with 8 minutes left.

That’s when Robinson stepped up for the Wolverines, driving inside for a score. After Connor Lammert turned it over for the Longhorns, Robinson hit a three-pointer to make it 63-52 with 6:43 remaining.

LOUISVILLE 66, SAINT LOUIS 51

ORLANDO, Fla. - Louisville didn’t need a big game from Russ Smith to get back to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

Luke Hancock scored 21 points and the defending national champions shrugged off a cold shooting performance to beat Saint Louis and advance to the round of 16 for the third consecutive year.

The fourth-seeded Cardinals (31-5) shot under 45 percent, had 19 turnovers and only got 11 points from Smith, their star. It didn’t matter with the fifth-seeded Billikens (27-7) going 0 for 15 from three-point range and struggling to take care of the basketball.

Louisville advances to the Midwest Regional semifinals in Indianapolis against either No. 1 seed Wichita State or No. 8 seed Kentucky.

The unbeaten Shockers and Wildcats meet today in St. Louis.

Saint Louis, which has never been to the Sweet 16, lost in the third round for the third consecutive year. Dwayne Evans led the Billikens with 16 points and Atlantic 10 player of the year Jordair Jett finished with 15.

Chris Jones made a couple of huge shots and scored 11 points for Louisville. Montrezl Harrell put a punctuation mark on the victory with a dunk that enabled him to finish with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

Louisville Coach Rick Pitino improved to 50-16 in the NCAA Tournament, including 41-6 when his team is the higher seed.

The Cardinals are in the round of 16 for the 20th time, matching Kansas and trailing only North Carolina (25), Kentucky (24) and Duke (23).