Joe Mazzulla was two assists from joining some elite company.
The reserve point guard had 13 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists in West Virginia’s 73-67 victory over Duke on Saturday. Two more assists and it would have been the 10th triple-double in NCAA Tournament history.
What makes his stat line even more impressive is to compare it to his regular-season numbers. The 6-foot-2 sophomore played 31 minutes against the second-seeded Blue Devils, 14 more than his average. He came in averaging 5.5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists. His season highs don’t even match what he did in the second-round game: 15 points, six rebounds and six assists.
“The real story is Mazzulla. That kid was fabulous,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He looked like a mini-Jason Kidd out there, getting rebounds and assists and points and toughness, not to overshadow other kids on their team, but the star on that court today was No. 3. I told him that when we shook hands. To see a kid who doesn’t start give that kind of performance in the NCAA Tournament is remarkable. That’s what makes the tournament so good, too, you get to see these kids do that.”
Krzyzewski saw plenty of Kidd in the NCAA Tournament.
As a freshman in 1993, Kidd had 11 points, eight rebounds and 14 assists in California’s 82-77 second-round victory over two-time defending national champion Duke.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins knew the Mountaineers would need Mazzulla against the Blue Devils but he didn’t see this kind of performance coming.
“I think Duke does as good a job of putting pressure on the ball as anybody does. They try to take you out of what you want to run. Joe’s our best guy at just straight lining, driving the ball to the goal,” Huggins said. “So I didn’t know he would play as well as he played, but I thought that he had a chance to relieve some of the pressure and drive it at the basket just because of his style of play.”
The last triple-double in the tournament was by Marquette’s Dwyane Wade in 2003. Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson each had two triple-doubles in the tournament.

Sweet eight

The Pac-10 had three teams playing in the second round Saturday — UCLA, Stanford and Washington State — and they all won to give the league the early lead in the Sweet 16. That’s all the teams the Pac-10 can get, however, since the other three teams it had in the field lost in the first round.
The Big East had four teams going Saturday but only West Virginia moved on with the upset of Duke as Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Marquette all lost. The conference, which tied its own record with eight teams in the field, has three teams going today as does the Southeastern Conference.
Only the Big 12, which had Kansas win Saturday, can also get three in the round of 16 as Texas and Oklahoma play today.

Two bad

Duke’s 73-67 loss to West Virginia meant that for the 12th straight year all four No. 2 seeds failed to advance to the third round.
The other three 2s — Tennessee, Georgetown and Texas — play today.
The last time all the second-seeded teams moved on to the regional semifinals was 1996. Since then three moved on three times, including last season, two went six times and only one advanced to the third round in 1999 and 2000.
The last time the four No. 1s failed to advance to the third round was 2004 when Saint Joseph’s and Duke moved on and Kentucky and Stanford didn’t.

Lone win

Stanford’s Trent Johnson was different in one big way from other coaches who have been ejected from an NCAA Tournament game over the past 17 years: His team won.
Johnson received his second technical foul and was ejected with 3:36 left in the first half of the second-round game against Marquette. The Cardinal, run by assistant Doug Oliver, went on to beat the Golden Eagles 82-81 in overtime.
Others who were run since 1991 included Huggins of Cincinnati against Gonzaga in the first round in 2003; Larry Eustahcy of Iowa State against Michigan State in the regional finals in 2000; Mike Deane of Marquette against Providence in the first round in 1997; and Dean Smith of North Carolina in the national semifinals against Kansas in 1991. All of their teams lost.
Smith was ejected with 35 seconds to play and the Tar Heels trailing by five points when he walked on the court to ask a question after Rick Fox had fouled out and was assessed his second technical of the game. It was Smith’s first ejection since 1977 and he made sure after the game to let people know he wasn’t tossed for profanity.
“I have every bad habit in the world, but I don’t swear,” Smith said.
 

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