Just 24 hours after UNC blew past San Diego State in an absolute laugher, Xavier and Texas combined to give us a far more compelling First Four matchup in Dayton.
Behind Tramon Mark and future NBA lottery pick Tre Johnson, the Longhorns led for much of the night, up by double-digits as late as the under-12 media timeout in the second half. But the Musketeers caught fire down the stretch, getting big 3s from Marcus Foster, Jerome Hunter and even big man John Hugley IV to pull out an 86-80 win in front of a raucous pro-X crowd.
Texas now heads home, and could be looking for a new head coach after the embattled Rodney Terry laid quite the egg in Dayton. Xavier, meanwhile, is moving on, advancing to the field of 64 for the second time in three years in Sean Miller's second stint at the helm in Cincy. The Musketeers reached the second weekend back in 2023, but do they have another run in them this time? Here's how Xavier's tournament path is shaping up after Wednesday's win.
Who does Xavier play next? Updated NCAA Tournament bracket after win over Texas
With the victory over Texas, Xavier now advances to a matchup against the 6-seed Illinois in the first round of the Midwest region. Here's a look at the updated bracket, which also reflects 16-seed Mount St. Mary's impressive win over American in the first game of Wednesday's doubleheader.
It's a remarkable turnaround for a team that most didn't even expect to make the tournament at all. The Musketeers looked left for dead back in early February, and while they closed the regular season with seven straight wins, most of them came against the underbelly of a relatively weak Big East. Xavier went out in their first game of the Big East Tournament to Marquette, falling to just 1-9 in Quad 1 games on the season.
And yet, much as they did with North Carolina, the selection committee opted to overlook the lack of quality wins and send the Musketeers to the Big Dance anyway. Now they'll get the chance to knock off an Illinois team that, while long on raw talent headlined by potential lottery pick Kasparas Jakucionis, has been maddeningly inconsistent this season.
The Illini have exactly one M.O. offensively: Get up as many 3s as possible, and then crash the glass to clean up your miss. Few teams fire from deep as frequently, and yet Brad Underwood's team shoots just 31.1 percent from beyond the arc. Elite offensive rebounding can often make up for that lack of efficiency, but Xavier will present a unique test, with the winner advancing to face either 3-seed Kentucky or 14-seed Troy this weekend.
Xavier-Illinois matchup history
Two of the Midwest's more storied programs have only met four times ever, splitting the all-time series two games apiece. The first of those meetings came back in December of 1961, with Illinois earning a 12-point win.
The teams wouldn't meet again for over 40 years, when the No. 12-ranked Illini eked out a three-point win over Sean Miller's Musketeers at the United Center in December of 2005. Xavier finally notched its first win over Illinois a year later, and also emerged victorious in a 2018 meeting at the Maui Invitational.