A Sports Filled Weekend

Those Cinderella teams, they come and go. Sometimes too quickly.

Stephen F. Austin, Yale and especially Middle Tennessee State made fast impressions but flamed out in second round games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. SFA’s exit was particularly painful, as the Lumberjacks lost to Notre Dame on a last-second tip-in by a player who hadn’t yet scored in the game. It was SFA that burned everyone’s brackets with its first-round upset of No. 2 seed Michigan State on Friday.

There were dramatic finishes all over on Sunday. Wisconsin came from 12 down in the final 22 seconds against Xavier to win on Bronson Koenig’s three-pointer. Texas A&M, trailing by 12 with 44 seconds, forced double overtime to beat Northern Iowa.

So there are 16 teams left, including the four No. 1 seeds.

In the women’s tournament, Syracuse beat Albany to earn its first trip to the Sweet 16. Kelsey Mitchell scored 45 points, fourth best in the tournament’s history, to move Ohio State past West Virginia and into the Sweet 16. Connecticut, the odds-on favorite, plays Duquesne on Monday night.

NBA

The New Orleans Pelicans are shutting down center Anthony Davis for the season. He’ll have surgery on his shoulder and knee and will probably not be able to play for the United States Olympic team this summer. … The San Antonio Spurs remained unbeaten at home, downing the Golden State Warriors 87-79 on Saturday night. The Spurs have won 44 in a row at home. … Dirk Nowitzki scored 40 points for the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday in a 132-120 win over the Portland Trailblazers.

Elsewhere

Jason Day won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando by one stroke, despite making bogeys on three of his first six holes on Sunday. … Jimmie Johnson outdueled Kevin Harvick in overtime to win NASCAR’s Auto Club 400 at Fontana, California. … Barack Obama, the first American president to visit Cuba since 1928, arrived with a baseball-heavy contingent that included Commissioner Rob Manfred, Derek Jeter, Luis Tiant and others. The Tampa Bay Rays play the Cuban National Team on Tuesday in Havana as part of the thawing of relations between the countries.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman