Late-season woes and all, Kansas lived up to the experts’ No. 4 seed projection when the NCAA tournament picture revealed No. 13 seed Samford as the Jayhawks’ first-round opponent in the Midwest Region bracket on Thursday.
The game will take place at 8:55 p.m. Central Time at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, with a TV broadcast on TBS.
Samford (29-5) automatically
earned its first seat in the tourney since 2000 — its third berth all-time — with a six-point win over East Tennessee State in the SoCon tournament.
“On paper, looking at it and not knowing all their personnel the way that we will here shortly, I’d say that it’s an extremely difficult matchup,” KU coach Bill Self said Sunday.
Led by Anton Foy Coach of the Year Bucky McMillan, the Bulldogs engineered the nation’s
fifth-highest-producing offense (86.0 ppg). The Bulldogs maintain nearly 50% production from the field (11th), compared to KU at 48.8% (17th).
Melbourne, Australia, native Achor Achor (15.8 points per game, 6.1 rebounds) is a key fixture of “Bucky Ball.” The 6-foot-9 first-team All-Southern forward is shooting just under 60% after transferring from Chipola College for the 2022-23 season. Achor is complemented on the block by
senior Jermaine Marshall (10.9 ppg, 5.1 reb).
While Samford can claim security in the lane, ball security is another matter. The Bulldogs give up 16.6 turnovers per game (357th in the nation), paired with 35.6 rebounds lost per game (234th).
Two more All-Southern names, Jaden Campbell (11.1 ppg) and SoCon Newcomer of the Year Rylan Jones (9.4 ppg), are 30-minute-per-game mainstays on the Samford roster. Senior guard A.J.
For much of the season, Kansas looked set to play its first weekend of the NCAA Tournament at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, the site where it launched some of its most memorable postseasons, including the 2008 national championship run and now-vacated 2018 charge to the Final Four.
Instead, the bracket has placed it at the recently renamed Delta Center in Salt Lake City, home of the Utah Jazz and the site of one undistinguished weekend of postseason play five years ago.
The 2018-19 Kansas team, which like this year’s squad spent an unusually high proportion of conference play ranked in the double digits nationally, breezed past Northeastern by a 34-point margin behind a 25-point, 11-rebound double-double by Dedric Lawson.
In a reversal of fortunes two days later, the Jayhawks
trailed by 26 at halftime against Auburn in Salt Lake City and ended up the Tigers’ second victim on their way to a first-ever Final Four appearance. While several KU players have gone on to play in that arena as members of the Jazz in recent seasons, KU itself has not made another trip to Salt Lake City at any point. However, the Jayhawks did lose to nowconference-foe BYU 80-70 in nearby Provo on Dec. 20, 1960, then beat Utah State 67-61 in Logan exactly eight years later.
The next weekend
If the Jayhawks win twice, they will head to a less familiar destination, Detroit, to play at least one second-weekend game at the Little Caesars Arena, home of the Pistons. Their selection for the Midwest Region, however, might be a good omen, as they won the national championship two of the previous three times they played postseason games in the Detroit area: 1988 and 2008. (Besides one regular-season win at Detroit Mercy in 1986, and a neutral-site
victory over Virginia in Auburn Hills, it’s been all tournament action for KU in the Motor City.)
In 1988, “Danny and the Miracles,” technically playing in nearby Pontiac at the Silverdome, beat Vanderbilt and rival Kansas State by 13 points each on their way to the Final Four.
In 2008, Detroit brought a little more drama, as, playing before one of the biggest crowds ever to watch a Kansas men’s basketball game, KU escaped Davidson with a 59-57 win after young Stephen Curry was unable to take a shot on the Wildcats’ final possession and Jason Richards’ last-ditch effort was off the mark. That came after a fairly routine victory over Villanova in the Sweet 16.
The only other trip to the Detroit area didn’t go as well. KU’s second consecutive first-round exit came at the Palace of Auburn Hills in 2006 when it lost to 13th-seeded Bradley, 77-73.
Seeding history
KU is a No. 4 seed this season after some lackluster losses in conference play. That’s a relatively
uncommon position for the Jayhawks under Bill Self, as they had prior to this year spent as many years as a No. 1 seed (10) as Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds combined (nine). Their prior years as a No. 4 seed were 2003-04, 2005-06 and the aforementioned 2018-19 campaign. KU found itself on this particular seed line twice in Self’s first three seasons, with drastically different results. The 2003-04 team, a veteran group inherited from Roy Williams, made some significant noise in the tournament, thanks in part to a favorable draw that saw it facing No. 12 and No. 9 seeds in the second and third rounds, both of whom it beat soundly. However, it did lose in the Elite Eight to Georgia Tech in overtime as Jarrett Jack scored 29 points. The 2005-06 trip was far more ignominious, as it saw the Jayhawks sustain their second consecutive first-round exit when they lost 77-73 to Bradley. Thirteen years later, KU only had slightly more success in that second-round exit to Auburn in Salt Lake City.
Staton-McCray (11.6 ppg) has picked up sporadic minutes off the bench through his last five appearances. Campbell, Jones and StatonMcCray all shoot 38% or higher from beyond the arc. Across the board, Samford is the seventhbest 3-point shooting team in the country. Conversely, the Bulldogs allow 23.6 (276th) attempts per game from 3-point range.
If Kansas can make it out of Salt Lake City and progress past the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament to get to Detroit, there are a few familiar faces from this season in Kansas’ quarter of the bracket. The good news for the Jayhawks is that they’ve beaten them all — the Midwest Region includes No. 2 Tennessee, No. 7 Texas and No. 9 TCU.
KU beat Tennessee 69-60 on the final day of the Maui Invitational, just 13 hours after the Jayhawks had lost their first game of the season to Marquette. Despite the minimal rest, they held the Volunteers to 31.0% shooting on the day in Honolulu while center Hunter Dickinson turned in a 17-point, 20-rebound performance.
ATexas and TCU were two of the conference opponents that KU got only at home; it did not have to travel to Austin or Fort Worth this season. The Jayhawks’ victories nearly bookended conference play. The Horned Frogs were threatening to pull off a second straight victory in Allen Fieldhouse, up two with a minute left, on Jan. 6 when former Jayhawk Ernest Udeh Jr. appeared to have a steal on an entry pass. But upon review he was ruled to have committed a flagrant foul against Dickinson by hitting him with his elbow. Dickinson made two free throws and, by the end of the game, a game-winning contested layup. The Texas game was never that close, as KU, despite playing without Kevin McCullar Jr., led by 20 at halftime and cruised to an 86-67 victory.
By Henry Greenstein l hgreenstein@ljworld.com
ansas freshman Johnny Furphy, against Texas on Feb. 24, turned in the sort of 16-point, eight-rebound performance that had become almost routine for him as a first-year college athlete — just two years after the Australian Centre of Excellence discovered him playing for his state’s second-team under-20 squad, and about six months after he had first moved to the United States to play for the Jayhawks — and got asked postgame what he thought about being KU’s latest fan favorite.
“It’s pretty cool to have a bit of attention, but I think it’s just because people think I’m weird, from a different country,” he said sheepishly, as teammate KJ Adams tried and failed to stifle a laugh at the microphone next to him.
... I think I’m enjoying it. I think I’m liking the shots I’m taking.”— Freshman Johnny Furphy
“I don’t think many people know much about Australia.” The unassuming freshman may have begun that way, just a lanky, fresh-faced stranger from across the world, but quickly proved himself far more than a novelty. Early on, Furphy showed flashes of the above-the-rim offense combined with shooting acumen that had made him the hottest of hot commodities at the NBA Academy Games over the summer — back when he was still planning to wait another year to go to college — but didn’t fully come into his own until he entered the starting lineup on Jan. 13.
It took just three weeks to the day before KU coach Bill Self was on postgame radio after a win over Houston, calling Furphy “one of the best players in our league.”
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By Henry Greenstein l l l hgreenstein@ljworld.com
faithful will have a hard time forgetting more ignominious moments like Keshon Gilbert’s dagger 3 at Hilton Coliseum, Tylor Perry’s acrobatic late-clock layup for Kansas State past a flat-footed defense or Bill Self’s first-ever KU ejection against Texas Tech.
But in 1,245 minutes of basketball played in the regular season alone, some things were bound to slip through the cracks.
Here are a few plays worth remembering that — even if it might not have felt that way at the time — shaped the course of the KU basketball season.
Nov. 14 vs. Kentucky: Jamari McDowell draws on “cookie jar” to seal Harris helped KU erase the Wildcats’ lead as he shot 5-for-6 from beyond the arc and scored eight points in 58 seconds to tie the game with 2:35 to go. But it was McDowell who had to lock down Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves, and McDowell who got fouled after rebounding a potential game-tying 3 by Reed Sheppard.
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And after another month, particularly with injuries wearing down some of KU’s veterans, the freshman may be the key to a tournament run for the embattled Jayhawks.
How did it happen?
At first he was a 3-point specialist for a team desperate to space the floor and create some room for Adams and Hunter Dickinson, particularly with Nick Timberlake underperforming. In the first eight games of his career, 26 of the 33 shots he attempted were from beyond the arc.
“It’s definitely been a new role for me, definitely haven’t been that kind of player in my career so far,” he said in early December. “But I think I’m enjoying it. I think I’m liking the shots I’m taking.”
Self suggested that day that the niche Furphy had found was more a product of the time it would take for him to settle in.
“He doesn’t have a shooter’s role and not a ‘be aggressive’ role too,” he said, “but he’ll probably be more aggressive as he gets more comfortable.”
The very next day after those comments, it felt like Furphy revealed another portion of his game to the world when he scored twice in transition in the final minutes of a win over Kansas City.
That is in fact how it’s felt all year and particularly since he entered the starting lineup: The first-year player, who started out months behind his teammates when he arrived in August and had his progress hampered even further by recurring, severe shin splints, started to unlock new attributes on a daily basis, like a player-created character in a video game.
First came the rebounding. In his second start of conference play Furphy grabbed seven rebounds at Oklahoma State, which he quickly followed with seven more at
West Virginia — a game in which he had six in the first half and no one else grabbed more than one. The freshman became more and more adept at putting his 6-foot-9 length and straight-line speed to good use and finding good angles at which to crash the boards. Two days later, as his parents took in Allen Fieldhouse for the first time, he practically put the Jayhawks on his back with a 23-point, 11-rebound double-double against Cincinnati, one of the nation’s best rebounding teams.
“I think he’s a much better rebounder than what I envisioned him being, and I think he’s a much better loose-ball guy than I envisioned him being,” Self said. Then came a bit of a defensive uptick. For much of the winter, opposing guards looking to create their own shot would look for one-onone matchups against Furphy, either hoping to win some space from the freshman for a 3-pointer or blow by him for a straight-line drive. Against Baylor, though, he was the aggressor, making it hard for the Bears to even get the ball anywhere in the first place; he had six steals after 12 combined the rest of the season.
And in perhaps the most comical bit of quick development yet, three days after Texas coach Rodney Terry said of Furphy, “He’s a young player — you got to try to make him put it on the deck a little bit,” the freshman was voluntarily driving to the basket and attempting to draw contact against BYU — even if it didn’t always work.
Indeed, to be clear, it hasn’t always been a linear upward trajectory for Furphy. While his defense has generally gotten better, he was so ineffective on that side of the ball at Baylor in March — facing the same team he had victimized weeks earlier — that he had to spend most of the second half on the bench.
And in a frustrating road loss at Kansas State on Feb. 5, the freshman was held to four points on 2-for-7 shooting, one of the first signs that, as Self noted postgame, “people will get a book on everybody, and with all the success that he’s had, obviously his book’s grown”; in fact, Furphy really didn’t have his shot for much of the month of February as he went 8-for-28 from deep after 16-for-45 the previous month.
But part of what has truly been so impressive about him is that those setbacks haven’t
erased his production completely. He still averaged 12.3 points per game in February, in part because he was dunking on people and getting to the free-throw line. Against Texas — the game that prompted him to say people liked him because they thought it was weird that he was from Australia — he had 16 points on just three shots because he went 9-for-11 at the line. This was a player who attempted four total free throws in the first 10 games of his career.
It all prompts the question: What will he do next?
There may come a time in March when Furphy needs to take over a game. That’s a big ask for a freshman playing in a starting lineup with two national champions and a pair of All-American candidates.
And to some extent Furphy is ideal as a complementary piece for those guys, particularly Adams. It seems to me there’s a reason, or a multitude of reasons, Self paired the two together when he implemented his hockeystyle line changes in late February. Not just that they had more stamina and could stay in the game longer through the first substitutions, but also because — to an outside observer — Furphy can shoot while Adams makes teams pack the paint, Furphy isn’t strong yet and Adams is as strong as it gets, Furphy defends opponents smaller than he is and Adams defends taller players, Furphy rebounds better than you would expect for his size and Adams worse and Furphy is at least outwardly collected while Adams is openly and unapologetically emotional. That’s the sort of synergy you look for.
But while much of the discussion this year has been about what Furphy does for his teammates (spacing the floor out for Dickinson, cutting to receive Dajuan Harris Jr.’s pinpoint passes and so on), and indeed the affection his teammates have for him is part of why he got in the starting lineup, if KU is
to make a run, there will be a game in March where the script will flip and the freshman will become the focal point. Maybe it’ll be like Cincinnati in that he’ll need to crash the boards to contest an aggressive rebounding team and in turn find himself constantly around the rim. Maybe he’ll regain his hot shooting stroke from January and make more than three 3s in a game for the first time in his career. (Just once in conference play did a KU player make more than three 3s in a game; opposing players did it eight times.)
Or perhaps Furphy will again unlock some as-yet unrevealed skill, just in time for it to make the difference in a winner-take-all game. However that might manifest, it would hardly be a surprise at this point.
A postscript: The elephant in the room
The closer to transcendence Furphy is, the less likely he will be in Lawrence next season. Even with his lackluster conclusion to the regular season, his youth and quite clearly sky-high potential have made him shoot up draft boards in what seems to be universally regarded as a weak NBA draft class and emerge as an unlikely one-and-done prospect. Some mock drafts even placed him in the lottery.
While doing well for a prominent program like KU has already made him a shiny object for NBA evaluators, doing well for a prominent program like KU in the NCAA Tournament could rocket him into the stratosphere.
It is one of the essential paradoxes of high-level college basketball. The best way to ensure KU returns a capable wing on an otherwise virtually wingless post-Kevin McCullar Jr. 2024-25 roster would be for Furphy to be a nonfactor in the postseason. That would also be the best way to ensure that the 202324 season, already a bumpy ride, ends in disappointing fashion.
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and it led to a season-high 27 minutes for McDowell later that month against Tennessee in the Maui Invitational.
Nov. 28 vs. Eastern Illinois: Dajuan Harris Jr. knocks away a post entry pass to finally put away the Panthers
In what could have gone down as the letdown of all letdowns, KU returned from Honolulu and struggled against an Eastern Illinois team that had never beaten a ranked team in its history and entered Allen Fieldhouse as a 38.5-point underdog.
The Panthers made run after run to keep up with the Jayhawks and got as close as 59-58 with five minutes to go before a three-point play by Dickinson.
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The Jayhawks will have the seeding advantage in their tournament opener when they take on the Wolverines in the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
The date and time of the game hadn’t been announced as of late Sunday evening.
After winning nine of their last 10 games of the year, including their first victory in the Big 12 Tournament in five years, the Jayhawks boosted their resume enough to get off the bubble and secure a spot in the L.A. region.
But EIU remained within two possessions until a tremendous individual effort by Harris with just under two minutes to go. While defending a post player 5 inches taller, Kooper Jacobi, Harris was able to leap and deflect a pass by Sincere Malone that could have resulted in an easy bucket.
Adams corralled the deflection and tossed a pass downcourt for McCullar, who finished a transition dunk and consigned the game to the dustbin of history, preventing it from becoming one of the worst losses of Self’s tenure.
Jan. 20 at West Virginia: Elmarko Jackson gets called for foul on backcourt swipe Big 12 Conference tournament seeding was decided by the narrowest of margins and when KU ultimately fell short of the top four it was easy to look back on some of the Jayhawks’ more preventable losses early in the new year.
KU had already lost at UCF by the time it went to Morgantown, West Virginia, and found itself on the receiving end of WVU’s improbable 16-for-27 (9-for-14 from deep) first-half shooting performance. The Jayhawks actually kept pace with some highly efficient offense of their own but conceded late offensive rebounds that allowed the Mountaineers to claim a 91-85 upset win.
Except the Jayhawks still might
When asked about the team’s best qualities, Schneider said, “I think of resilience.” He added, “We obviously didn’t get off to the start we wanted in Big 12 play and had a tough January, but I thought we finished the season as one of the hotter teams in the country.”
have won if not for one memorable foul call.
Elmarko Jackson and Johnny Furphy had WVU’s Noah Farrakhan and Kerr Kriisa blanketed in the backcourt with KU down 85-83 and the shot clock turned off. Both players charged over to Farrakhan as Adams came back from midcourt to help on Kriisa, with the Jayhawks about three seconds from forcing a 10-second violation. As Kriisa wound up to fling a pass across the time line, Jackson reached with two hands to poke the ball away from behind and Kriisa tumbled to the ground.
Jackson was assessed a foul, the KU bench was enraged, Kriisa made both free throws and the Jayhawks lost. After the game, Self said he didn’t think it was a foul but that KU should never have been in that position to begin with.
Feb. 3 vs. Houston: Parker Braun, of all people, hits a key 3-pointer
After his team lost to KU in Lawrence, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson expressed disbelief that any team could be favored over the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse.
KU played a near-perfect game, particularly in terms of its shooting, to take down the Cougars. But there was one point in the second half when it looked like UH might have a slim chance of proving the oddsmakers right.
LJ Cryer scored 13 points in a span of less than six minutes as the Cougars cut their 20-point deficit nearly in half.
“In the second half we had it to 10, needed a stop, we’re still fighting, still some hope,” Sampson said postgame. “The cynics are usually outside the huddle, not in the huddle, so in the huddle, we said we’d get it down to … and then good old Parker Braun steps up and knocks down a 3, and next thing you know ...”
Braun, the backup center, was 2-for-6 from beyond the arc on the season. That was before Harris got Emanuel Sharp leaping with a shot fake, dribbled to the edge of the key and then dished the ball back out to Braun, who without hesitation drained the 3-pointer that pushed KU’s lead back to 15.
A few minutes later, his brother Christian posted on X just his name: “Parker Braun.”
It was a memorable moment for a player whose role has been largely to blend in.
Feb. 5 at Kansas State: McCullar misses free throw in overtime
Much like Jackson’s non-steal at WVU, this was a moment that had a chance to make up for all of KU’s previous struggles on the night.
Two nights after routing Houston, KU found itself on
the ropes on the road at rival KState. The exhausted Jayhawks had to battle just to reach overtime on a game-tying dunk by Adams. In the extra period, after a pair of heroic shots by Perry, the Jayhawks trailed 7268 but forced a turnover to set up a pair of free throws by Harris. Then Cam Carter missed a stepback jumper and McCullar snagged a rebound but was immediately fouled by Arthur Kaluma.
KU was in the bonus, which allowed the Jayhawks to skip setting up an offensive possession altogether and sent McCullar to the line with a chance to tie, but the graduate senior — who had entered the game shooting 83.9% on free throws — missed the front end of a one-and-one to cap off a 1-for-5 night. He jumped up and down in frustration as Adams was called for an inadvertent, immediate foul on Kaluma, who sealed the game with free throws of his own.
Also like at WVU, there was an officiating quibble, as Self thought the Wildcats should have gotten called for a lane violation on McCullar’s miss.
“I thought it was so obvious that they stepped in a full second early at least,” he said on his postgame radio interview. “... They acted like I was from Mars, on another planet. They didn’t even respond to me.”
The Wolverines, like the Jayhawks, made it past the first round in the 2022 tournament, advancing all the way to an Elite Eight matchup against No. 1 Louisville. After this, Michigan made it to the second round of the Big Dance in 2023, where it lost to eventual champion LSU.
This season, the Wolverines do not have the prestige that they have had in recent seasons — they were seeded No. 6 and No. 3 in 2023 and 2022, respectively — but they do have a trio of double-digit scorers who have led them into the round of 64.
If it can overcome Michigan, Kansas could face the No. 1-seeded USC Trojans, who hold a 26-5 record with freshman phenom JuJu Watkins leading the way. The 20-13 Wolverines finished seventh in Big Ten play and upset No. 3 Indiana in the first round of the conference tournament before losing 95-68 to the eventual Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes. Michigan also upset then-No. 17 Ohio State before finishing even in Big Ten play.
Junior Laila Phelia leads Michigan with 17.2 points per game, while fellow guards Lauren Hansen and Jordan Hobbs tack on 12 and 11 points per game. Phelia scored a season-high 30 points in the Wolverines’ 17-point comeback win against Indiana in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, earning her a spot on the All-Big Ten tournament team and First-Team Big Ten for the regular season. While Kansas boasts a strong post presence in 6-foot-6 center Taiyanna Jackson, Michigan doesn’t have a single center listed on its roster, with the 6-foot-3 Hobbs getting most of the starts down low.
The Jayhawks will have a couple of electric guards of their own in the first-round matchup. S’Mya Nichols ranks first for the Jayhawks in points per game with 15.2, and Zakiyah Franklin and Holly Kersgieter rank third with 11.7 each. Along with these good matchups for Michigan’s top-scoring guard trio, Kansas should have an upper hand down low with Jackson, who is averaging 12.6 points per game and made the all-conference and Big 12 alldefensive teams.
Jackson’s nearly 10 rebounds per game are also more than double any Michigan player’s individual rebound average.
> WOMEN, 12AA
The Jayhawks held Texas stars Max Abmas and Dylan Disu to five and eight points, respectively, and sent the Longhorns out of the Big 12 in dominant fashion. Several Jayhawks have experience with the other teams in the region. The top seed in this year’s region, Purdue, was a frequent nemesis of Dickinson’s during his Michigan tenure, as he played the Boilermakers four times and at
times dueled with their decorated big man Zach Edey. KU played and lost to No. 5 Gonzaga in the first game of Dajuan Harris Jr.’s freshman season, 2020-21, McCullar also played against them during his tenure at Texas Tech and Parker Braun had them as a conference foe at
Santa Clara. Harris and the Jayhawks also beat Creighton (a No. 3 seed in the region) in 2020-21 at Allen Fieldhouse and on their way to the 2021-22 national title.
Other history includes, but is not limited to, McCullar’s Red Raiders taking on Utah State (a No. 8 seed facing TCU) during
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the 2020-21 season and Grambling and Montana State (both potential No. 16 seeds competing in the First Four) in 2021-22, and Braun’s Missouri team facing conference foe South Carolina (a No. 6 seed) in 2019-20 and both the Gamecocks and Oregon (a No. 11 seed) in 2020-21.
before Selection Sunday, the Jayhawks should be pleasantly surprised with a No. 8 selection that acknowledges their tough strength of schedule.
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With some pretty even guard play on both sides, Kansas’ chances definitely hinge on Jackson’s monster presence in the post. After only scoring 14 points in the Jayhawks’ two Big 12 Tournament games, Jackson will be looking at an easier matchup against the smaller Wolverines than she faced against either Lauren Gustin or a tall Texas roster. Kansas will hope she can once again show up in a big game as she has all year, and power the Jayhawks to the chance to face a No. 1 seed in the second round.
“It’s different too with the long break,” Schneider said about this year’s preparation. “It’s been challenging for our players and our coaches, just kind of how should we be operating. Because you’re in the middle of our routine of playing games, and then there’s potentially a twoweek break.”
After being projected mostly as a No. 9 or 10 seed, and usually in the Columbia, South Carolina, region,
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“What have we labored with the most this year?”
Self said. “It’s teams that shoot a ton of 3s and then
“I’m excited to be in the tournament. I think oftentimes, 7 through 10, there can be a lot of shuffling just within those seeds,” Schneider said. He also noted Kansas’ high finishes in both overall and nonconference strength of schedule, as the Jayhawks appeared in the Cayman Islands Classic in late November, taking on then-No. 9 Virginia Tech and No. 6 UConn and losing both games by a combined nine points.
“We won 11 Big 12 games prior to the conference tournament,” he said, “so we all felt like we had challenged ourselves enough and won enough to be included.”
Following a snub from the Big Dance last season, Kansas went on to win the Women’s National Invitation Tournament championship before putting together a solid resume in both pre-conference and conference play to ensure a spot in this year’s tournament after a year of hard work.
we have a hard time making up the difference.”
Additionally, Samford’s bench ranks in the upper decks with 33.38 ppg (fifth).
The winner of the KUSamford matchup will be paired with either Gonzaga or McNeese State in the second round.