Some names and numbers from the opening day of the NCAA regional semifinals

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Names and numbers from the regional semifinals

Tennessee and Butler will both be making their first appearance in a regional final.

The sixth-seeded Volunteers moved on Friday night with a 76-73 victory over No. 2 seed Ohio State in the Midwest Regional semifinals.

“I’m just proud of my teammates and proud of the whole university,” senior guard J.P. Prince said. “We fought hard. We’ve been through a lot of adversity, and I just thought — I think we’ve done a great job of actually deserving victory. We’ve worked hard. … We’re excited. We know it’s not over. We still have another game to play. We just enjoy tonight, but tomorrow we’ll be right back, and it will be all business from that point on.”

Butler, a No. 5 seed, moved on Thursday with a 63-59 win over top-seeded Syracuse in the West Regional.

Northern Iowa also had a chance at a first-time trip to the round of eight, but the ninth-seeded Panthers lost 59-52 to No. 5 Michigan State on Friday night.

Two schools earned their first regional final berth in a long time.

Baylor beat Saint Mary’s 72-49 on Friday night for its first run to the round of eight since 1950, when there were only eight teams in the field. Kansas State moved on to the round for the first time since 1964 with a 101-96 double-overtime victory over Xavier on Thursday night.

DUKE’S BACK: Duke’s 70-57 victory over Purdue sent the Blue Devils on to the regional finals for the first time since 2004. They had lost three of their last five regional semifinal games. They improved their record in round-of-16 games to 12-7 since 1986.

INSIDE OUT: There was an easy explanation for Baylor’s dominating 72-49 over Saint Mary’s. The Bears were the best they have been from the outside and they were tenacious inside on defense.

Baylor was a tournament-best 8 of 17 from 3-point range and guards LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter had their best games from long range. Dunn, who shoots 42 percent from 3, was 1 of 4 in the opener against Sam Houston State and 4 of 11 in the second round against Old Dominion. He was 4 of 7 in the blowout of Saint Mary’s.

Carter, a 38.5 percent 3-point shooter, was 3 of 6 in the first two games and he matched that effort on Friday night.

“We come out and just play, you know, with the coach that we have that allows us to come out and be ourselves,” Carter said. “It really helps you relax and know that you can make those shots and take them with confidence, not just take them to be taking them. But I always want to come out aggressive. I always want to come out aggressive and try to set the tone early and win the first meeting. I think we did a good job coming out and staying within ourselves, but also being aggressive.”

Saint Mary’s center Omar Samhan came into the Baylor game with a 29-point, 12-rebound effort against Richmond and a 32-point, seven-rebound performance against Villanova. In the two games he shot 75 percent from the field (24 of 32).

Against Baylor, Samhan started 1 of 8 from the field and finished 7 of 17 with 15 points and nine rebounds.

That record took a quick hit Thursday when Syracuse lost 63-59 to fifth-seeded Butler in the West Regional, but Kentucky got the win right back with a 62-45 victory over Cornell in the East Regional.

The top seeds have one more chance to bring the winning percentage up with Duke going against Purdue on Friday in the South.

This tournament is the eighth with two No. 1s being gone before the game that leads to the Final Four. Overall No. 1 Kansas lost to Northern Iowa in the second round and Syracuse fell to Butler in the regional semifinals. Top-seeded Kentucky reached the East Regional final by beating Cornell on Thursday.

Two No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four last year — Connecticut and North Carolina — and the record was set a year before that when all four No. 1s made it to San Antonio.

The last time two No. 1s were out before the last eight teams was 2005 when Washington was beaten by Louisville, and Duke was defeated by Michigan State.

The No. 1 seeds have a record of 75-16 in the regional semifinals.

Two No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four last year — Connecticut and champion North Carolina — and the record was set a year before that when all four No. 1s made it to San Antonio.

INJURY UPDATE: The latest on the rash of injuries affecting teams in the regional semifinals:

Michigan State, despite not having starting point guard Kalin Lucas, who ruptured his Achilles’ tendon last week, and getting limited minutes from 3-point specialist Chris Allen (foot) and forward Delvon Roe (knee), managed to beat Northern Iowa 59-52 to advance to the regional finals for the second straight year.

Korie Lucious stepped in for Lucas, the 2008-09 Big Ten Player of the Year, by playing all but one minute and finishing with 10 points, six rebounds and four assists.

Allen had five points in 22 minutes, while Roe had six points in 27 minutes.

On Thursday, West Virginia was able to beat Washington 69-56 in its first game since point guard Darryl “Truck” Bryant broke his foot in practice. Redshirt junior Joe Mazzulla handled most of Bryant’s minutes and provided an energy burst for the Mountaineers.

West Virginia could have been looking at a much bigger loss when Butler, its leading scorer, landed hard after he was fouled and hurt his right (shooting) hand. He stayed down on the court for about a minute, then played the rest of the game.

“Once I stood up, the one thing that was pretty numb was my hand, and I said, ‘All right, I’ll be fine,’” said Butler, who said he will be ready for Saturday’s regional final against Kentucky.

Teammate Kevin Jones said what all the West Virginia players and fans were thinking.

“That was a very big sense of relief,” Jones said. “Something would really have to be wrong if he didn’t get up. Luckily, it wasn’t that. He got up and showed how tough he was.”

Syracuse played its third game without center Arinze Onuaku, who injured his knee in the Big East tournament and has not practiced since.

“I don’t care what it looks like, he’s going to win. He’ll do something. And it seems as though to me he has a way that their team respects him and really wants him out there. They want him out there, because they don’t want to do the stuff that he does,” Calipari said. “Here’s a kid, he probably should have had shoulder surgery, and decides I’m going to wait for his team. And guess what? It played out. They needed him to wait. So good for him. Everybody that talks to me about him says he’s a great kid. Terrific player, playing a little bit beat up.”

CONFERENCE CALL: The Southeastern Conference (Kentucky, Tennessee) and the Big 12 (Kansas State, Baylor) are the only conferences with more than one team in the regional finals.

The Big Ten started Friday’s games with a chance at advancing three teams to the round of eight, but only Michigan State moved on as Ohio State lost to Tennessee and Purdue lost to Duke.

The other conferences with one team still alive for the national championship are the Big East (West Virginia), Horizon League (Butler) and Atlantic Coast Conference (Duke).

BAD HALF: Saint Mary’s first half against Baylor wasn’t the worst of this tournament but it was only one point away.

The Gaels trailed 46-17 after 20 minutes and Baylor went on to a 72-49 victory in the South Regional semifinal.

CAL EXPLAINS: Kentucky coach John Calipari explained how his top-seeded Wildcats, who start three freshmen, were able to beat 12th-seeded Cornell 62-45 despite allowing the Big Red to get within six points in the second half.

“I was really pleased with the defense we played today. The guys really worked hard to make it hard for them. We fouled some at the end. Our goal in the game was to guard the 3-point line and then to also not foul them because they’re a great free-throw shooting team, also, and at the end we fouled them a little bit.

“But the discipline it takes to play that way, the focus that it takes for a group of young people like this, you know, in their first NCAA tournament run was tremendous,” he said. “Now, I thought the second half we kind of backed up and tried to just get out of the gym, and you can’t play that way in the NCAA tournament, but that’s OK. We learned a great lesson. We gave them a chance to maybe clip us. But we did good.”

EXTRA WORK: The last time a game in the round of 16 went to overtime, Xavier was in it just like Thursday night, when the Musketeers lost 101-96 to Kansas State in double overtime.

Xavier beat West Virginia 79-75 in one overtime in 2008 to advance to the regional finals, where it lost to UCLA.

The last time a game in the round of 16 went to double overtime was 1997 when Minnesota needed 10 extra minutes to beat Clemson 90-84. That year, two other regional semifinal games went to overtime: Utah over Stanford and UCLA over Iowa State.

ZONED OUT: Butler was ready for Syracuse’s zone defense, even if the Bulldogs’ 6-of-24 effort from 3-point range didn’t make it look that way.

There were three first-round games when one team didn’t reach 20 points: Ohio State led UC Santa Barbara 30-17 on the way to a 68-51 win; Gonzaga led Florida State 35-19 on the way to a 67-60 victory; and Wisconsin led Wofford 27-19 on the way to a 53-49 win.

Especially the one that brought the Bulldogs within 54-53 with 3:13 left and ended a scoring drought of almost 8 minutes.

“That shot, I knew we needed it. I knew they were going to call the play where I was going to have to catch it. I wasn’t going to pass it. I knew I was going to step in and knock it in,” he said.

Nored said the shooting percentage didn’t matter as long as Butler played defense.

“I don’t think the focus was really making 3s,” he said. “I think we guarded. I think that’s what we do. Whether we shot 60 percent from the arc, whether we shot 30 percent, it was our defense that was going to carry us. I think it did that. We made tough plays down the stretch and some of our 3s went in.”

MORE THAN A DUNK: Jordan Crawford became an over-the-summer sensation when he dunked over LeBron James at the NBA superstar’s summer camp.

Now there are a lot of other reasons to know Crawford’s name.

The 6-foot-4 sophomore guard transferred to Xavier from Indiana and he led the Musketeers in scoring this season with a 20.2 average. He blew that number away with three stellar performances in the NCAA tournament.

Crawford had 28 points in the opening win over Minnesota, then 27 in the second-round win over Pittsburgh.

On Thursday night, he had 32 points as the Musketeers lost 101-96 in double overtime to Kansas State. He hit a 35-footer to tie the game at the end of the first overtime.

ORANGE AID: When Syracuse fell behind Butler 10-1 in their West Regional semifinal in Salt Lake City, their fans, almost 2,000 miles away in the Carrier Dome, were stunned to say the least.

As the Orange cut into the lead and finally pulled ahead, there was one corner in the Carrier Dome that let out a cheer every time they scored, and especially when they hit a 3-pointer.

Even as the West Virginia-Washington game was going on, you could hear the one group cheer at an inappropriate time in the live game.

The long-distance cheering wasn’t enough, as Butler beat Syracuse 63-59.