WEST REGIONAL

Creighton can’t take sixth seed

SAN ANTONIO - Too big. Too strong. Too fast.

Baylor was too much of just about everything for Creighton and Doug McDermott to handle.

And because of it, the sixth-seeded Bears are rolling out of Texas toward California and the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 after an impressive 85-55 victory Sunday night in the West Regional.

Isaiah Austin and Brady Heslip each scored 17 points and Baylor used suffocating defense to shut down McDermott, ending the career of one of college basketball’s most prolific scorers.

“We did a good job making it tough on him,” Bears Coach Scott Drew said.

McDermott, who averaged 27 points this season, finished with 15 but had just three in the first half as Baylor built a 20-point lead. McDermott ranks fifth on the NCAA career scoring list with 3,150 points.

Baylor (26-11) had five players score 10 or more points and shot 64 percent in one of the dominant performances of the tournament.

The rest of the West bracket may want to pay attention to this one. A team that looked like a wreck six weeks ago with a 2-8 start in the Big 12 is brimming with confidence to match all that muscle in the lineup.

“We take pride in people hating on us, and we love proving people wrong,” Austin said. “Everybody has bought into the one goal that we have in mind and that is winning a national championship.”

Baylor plays No. 2 seed Wisconsin on Thursday in Anaheim. In Baylor’s two previous trips to the Sweet 16, it fell one game short of the Final Four.

McDermott carried the Bluejays back to the round of 32 for the third year in a row, and had done it in spectacular style, leading the nation in scoring with a sublime shooting touch and uncanny knack to slither his way through defenders for layups and putback baskets. He spurned the chance to turn pro after last season, and this was the year the Bluejays and their senior-laden lineup were expected to drive Creighton farther into the NCAA tournament than any Bluejays team before them.

When McDermott left the game with 2:31 to play, he hugged his father, Creighton Coach Greg McDermott, before retreating to the bench and burying his face in a towel.

“I’m not sure it was Baylor being that good or us being that bad,” Greg McDermott said. “Over the course of the season you’re going to have a few clunkers. We had one at the wrong time.”ARIZONA 84, GONZAGA 61

SAN DIEGO - Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scored 18 points each, and Arizona looked every bit the No. 1 seed in the West while blowing out Gonzaga.

After four days of upsets and buzzer beaters, Arizona (32-4) closed out the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend with a display of domination.

The Wildcats harassed the eighth-seeded Bulldogs (29-7) into 21 turnovers - 15 on steals - that led to 31 points.

Arizona led by 21 in the first half and continued to work over Gonzaga to earn its third trip to the Sweet 16 in four years.

Up next for the Wildcats is a trip up the coast to Anaheim, where they’ll meet San Diego State, a team they beat in this same arena early in the season.

Przemek Karnowski scored 14 points and Kevin Pangos added 12 for Gonzaga.

Sports, Pages 16 on 03/24/2014

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