LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Creighton's players watched in disbelief last weekend as North Carolina State and Baylor pulled out oxygen masks in Denver's high altitude.

The Bluejays were in such good condition they didn't even need them to catch their breath.

Now coach Greg McDermott will find out if his fast, sometimes frenetic offense can hold up against March's newest darling, 15th-seeded Princeton, as Creighton vies for its first-ever Elite Eight trip.

“The guys playing a bunch of minutes are doing a good job off the floor to manage their bodies,” McDermott said Thursday before revisiting the Denver scene. “I think our guys kind of looked at that with a chuckle like, ‘Really, they’ve got an oxygen mask and we're the ones playing faster?'”

Playing with pace is Creighton's trademark.

It's one reason McDermott's son, Doug, left campus ranked No. 6 on the Division I career scoring list and how the elder McDermott took Northern Iowa to three straight NCAA Tournaments before earning eight more bids with Creighton.

Among the teams left in the South Region, Creighton (23-12) is the exception. The physical group includes the two top rebounding teams and the fourth-best scoring defense in the Sweet 16.

The Bluejays' roster features the fewest players listed at 6-foot-8 or taller, the second-lowest rebounding average (37.0) and the lowest rebounding margin (plus-3.7) in the South. And they are the only team with five players with double-figure scoring averages.

Creighton's next test, Friday against Ivy League Tournament champion Princeton (23-8), promises to be its biggest yet. The Tigers held an 11-2 edge in second-chance points when they beat No. 2 seed Arizona in the first round, and had an astounding 19-2 advantage in their win over Missouri.

McDermott didn't need a video session to notice.

“Princeton does a great job of putting their body on you on the offensive glass, so we have to put our body on them first,” he said. “It's that simple. If they get to us first and they create an angle, they create a seal, I have to hope (the ball) bounces somewhere else or they're going to go get it.”

Princeton has a more traditional style.

Its offense runs through Tosan Evbuomwan, a 6-foot-8 forward with a potential NBA future who averages 14.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists in his final season. He could be defending Creighton's mobile 7-foot-1 center, Ryan Kalkbrenner.

Tigers coach Mitch Henderson has only one complaint about his talented big man.

“I often say to him, and we've spent a lot of time together, ‘I need you to influence the game physically early, right away,'” Henderson said. “He nods and then he doesn’t do it. He absorbs the game. It's exquisite watching him play.”

After beating two higher-seeded teams last weekend in Sacramento, California, the Tigers' toughest task Friday may be staying focused.

They've spent much of this week dealing with national media attention, speaking with some New Jersey's leading political figures and getting support pretty much everywhere they go.

“I got a nice standing ovation at a restaurant back at Princeton, so that was a cool moment,” Evbuomwan said. “That was really special. I got to interact with the fans a little bit there.”

If Creighton manages to navigate its way past the Tigers, it'll face another challenging matchup against either top-seeded Southeastern Conference champion Alabama or fifth-seeded San Diego State, the Mountain West champ.

The Crimson Tide lead Division I in rebounds (44.4) and are ranked fifth in scoring (82.4 points) and eighth in rebound margin (plus-7.3).

The Aztecs rely on a muscular, experienced lineup and a stingy defense that allows 63.1 points. San Diego State held its first two tourney opponents, Charleston and Furman, to their lowest scoring totals of the season.

But, just like last week, McDermott and the Bluejays will continue playing their game, their way.

“We're in a good place. Our guys are very confident in their teammates' ability to function on the offensive end," McDermott said. “I think guys are being champions in their roles.”

March Madness: Alabama aims to avoid giant-killers in South

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Alabama was expected to be in the Sweet 16 as the overall top seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Few thought the teams standing between the Crimson Tide and a trip to the Final Four would be No. 5 seed San Diego State, sixth-seeded Creighton and 15th-seeded Princeton.

A win over Alabama (31-5) could elevate any of those schools to the status of March Madness legend. Coach Nate Oats understands the pressure his team faces when it faces San Diego State Friday night as it seeks its first Elite Eight berth since 2004.

“We’ve taken enough losses against good teams and some that weren’t as good to where they know what they have to do on any given night,” Oats said. “From here on out I think we’re going to be playing really good teams.”

Friday’s other semifinal in Louisville features Creighton (23-12) against Princeton (23-8), which has proven anything is possible with its wins over No. 2 seed Arizona and No. 7 seed Missouri.

The lower-seeded teams that advanced in the South hardly came out of nowhere.

San Diego State (29-6) has been ranked in the AP Top 25 most of the season and enters with 12 wins in 13 games, including the past six. The Mountain West champions Aztecs have held their own against Power Five schools, beating Stanford and Ohio State before falling to Arizona and Arkansas during a challenging November slate that helped prepare them for this stage.

They’ve averaged nearly 66 points per game during their current streak — which includes a 23-point, second-round rout of No. 13 seed Furman — while holding five of six opponents under 50 points. SDSU faces a tall task against an Alabama squad averaging 82.3 points per game.

“We’re just playing good basketball, and our opponent has always been ourselves,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said Thursday. "Our standards are to play up to whatever our capabilities are, regardless of the opponent. So if we play really good basketball, we’ll have a chance to win the game.”

Princeton has also won six straight. Beating the Pac-12 Conference Wildcats 59-55 was impressive enough for the Tigers, who went on to dominate Missouri of the Southeastern Conference 78-63, the biggest margin of victory ever by a No. 15 seed.

The Ivy League champions are in their first Sweet 16 since 1967 and embracing the underdog label, even though they feel like they belong.

“Personally, I love it,” senior guard Ryan Langborg said. “It allows us to play with a confidence not only amongst ourselves, but amongst our fans and allows us to get the crowd involved. Which I think always helps with momentum.”

Princeton will meet a Creighton squad in its second Sweet 16 in three years. The Bluejays went 2-4 against Power Five schools during the regular season but regrouped in the NCAA Tournament to beat North Carolina State and No. 3 seed Baylor, the 2021 national champion.

BRAND EXPANSION

Alabama’s status as the No. 1 overall seed has expanded its athletic profile beyond the powerhouse football program. Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban was at practice this week.

“I feel like we have a winning school,” All-America freshman forward Brandon Miller said. “It’s just not about the football team at Alabama. I feel like there’s Alabama basketball, Alabama football, Alabama track. All the organizations there, I feel like it’s just a winning program.”

Football still loomed over the news conference, with TVs in the media room showing Alabama’s pro day as basketball players arrived to answer questions.

COURSE LOAD MANAGEMENT

Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said his seniors had received welcome extensions to hand in their theses on heavy subjects, such as this offering from Keeshawn Kellman:

“My thesis is on how professional sports performance in a season can affect social behaviors in a community,” said Kellman, a sociology major. “Like, crime rates, voter turnout, things like that. It's been a lot trying to balance this along with the tournament, but we're going to get it done.”

OMEN FOR SUCCESS

The winner of this regional can feel pretty good about its national title prospects.

The last two times the KFC Yum! Center hosted Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games, the eventual national champion played there. Virginia beat Purdue 80-75 in overtime for the South Region title in 2019 on the way to its first NCAA crown. Second-seeded Villanova did so three years earlier, topping No. 1 seed Kansas 64-59 during its run to a second national championship.

March Madness: Colorado's resurgence relies on grit, no fear

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Senior Jaylyn Sherrod's emotion-filled post-game interview after Colorado upset Duke reminded Buffaloes coach JR Payne of the time her point guard was interviewed after a 104-46 blowout at Oregon in Sherrod's freshman year.

Undaunted, Sherrod narrowed her eyes into the camera and delivered a message to the Ducks.

“They have to come to Boulder."

The Buffs were in no position to settle any scores back then; the Ducks rolled to a 101-53 win in the rematch at Colorado a month later.

Still, that bravado hit home with Payne, who said, "that's the mindset, you know? And I think that sort of permeates throughout our program of being respectful of everyone but not fearing anyone."

That mentality is driving the gritty Buffaloes' return to prominence for the first time since coach Ceal Barry made them a perennial power from 1983 to 2005.

The 61-53 overtime win over third-seeded Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium this week vaulted Colorado to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 20 years, giving the Buffaloes a matchup against second-seeded Iowa and Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark on Friday in Seattle.

“We're so ready,” sophomore guard Kindyll Wetta said. “This is probably the most excited we've been going into any game this season.”

Sherrod tearfully told the broadcast crew on Monday night that Colorado was the only Power Five program that offered her a scholarship coming out of high school, so never once has she thought of jumping into the transfer portal.

“This is not a place where we have a roster full of McDonald’s All-Americans,” Payne said. “We don’t need to play pretty, we don’t need to be dainty on the floor. We're tough. We’re blue-collar. We work hard.

"It’s not easy, you know, but you’ll be loved and supported and challenged and all of our players came here knowing that. So I think we’ve created an identity where we do play really hard, we are really gritty. We love who we are, we love the players that are here and it just works for us.”

One tangible connection the Buffs have to their glory days is Shelley Sheetz, the best player in the program’s history and the color analyst on Colorado’s radio broadcasts.

Sheetz played point guard at CU from 1991-95 and is the program’s only first-team All-American. She told the team in the offseason that she saw similar traits to the one she guided to a 106-21 record with two Elite Eight appearances.

“Shelley, she told us this was going to happen,” Buffs senior center Quay Miller said. “When we went to Spain (in the offseason) she was like, ‘This team is looking like the Elite Eight team that I played for.’ And I think for most people, it went in one ear and out the other.

“But I think just hearing somebody who’s been through that and having her see that we have the potential, it really ignited the fire under us and was like OK, we have potential to do what they did, and we can do this.”

The Buffs have gone from a non-tournament team three years ago to one that's won 47 games over the last two seasons.

“There are so many firsts that we've done, winning at Oregon, winning at Oregon State, winning in the NCAA tournament, going to the Sweet 16,” Payne said. "All of these things are things that every player on our team came here to help us do. And it's an emotional thing because it takes so much work.

“It's different to go somewhere where the train is already, you know, full steam ahead and there’s tons of success and momentum. It takes a lot more work and sort of emotional work to get there."

That's why Sherrod was so emotional after the thriller at Duke.

“My whole life I’ve been dreaming of moments like this,” Sherrod said, “because, like a lot of my teammates, we weren’t five-stars, we weren’t McDonald’s All-Americans. We weren’t guaranteed the NCAA tournament. We weren’t guaranteed an NIT bid.

"We believed it when nobody else did. That's just the mentality of this team ... we believe we can beat anybody in the country.”

Iowa, Louisville bring March Madness experience to Seattle

SEATTLE (AP) — While most of the Sweet 16 is filled with top seeds, the Seattle 4 Regional is the landing place for teams that pulled off NCAA Tournament upsets to advance.

Caitlin Clark's second-seeded Iowa squad is the only one of the top four teams in this region to make it all the way West. And though No. 5 Louisville, No. 6 Colorado and No. 8 Mississippi knocked off the top seeds on their home courts to reach the regional semifinals, they're all from Power Five conferences and none see themselves as underdogs.

“You aren’t advancing to this time of the year if you aren’t a good basketball team,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “Ole Miss plays in a great league against great teams, same thing as we do. ... Am I completely shocked? No.”

Clark and the Hawkeyes will face the Buffaloes in the first semifinal Friday night. The Cardinals play the Rebels in the other one. The winners will square off Sunday with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

Sweet 16 experience could be a factor in both matchups. The Cardinals are a regular in the regional semifinals, now appearing in the last six, while Ole Miss is making its first appearance since 2007. The Buffaloes advanced this far for the first time in 20 years after beating Duke in overtime. Iowa is making its third trip to the Sweet 16 in the past four tournaments.

Clark was a huge reason why Iowa didn't also lose in the second round. After being upset a year earlier in the round of 32, Clark wouldn't let that happen again in a tough game with Georgia. She either scored or assisted on 30 of Iowa’s 33 second-half points.

Now she'll try and get the team to its first regional final since 2019.

It's been a lot longer for the Buffaloes. Most of the players on the roster are too young to remember it — or weren't even born. Now they are writing their own piece of Colorado history.

“We have such a storied history of success when Ceal Berry was our coach,” Colorado coach JR Payne said. “We knew the potential was here. It had been a long time since we had been on this stage.”

The Buffaloes didn't have much time to soak in the moment because of the quick turnaround. Playing a late game at Duke on Monday night, Colorado flew home the next day before flying to Seattle on Wednesday.

“This week has been a whirlwind, we were up really late that night,” Payne said. “I was doing laundry, helping my kids with homework and get my children organized.”

Mississippi had an easier time as the Rebels stayed on the West Coast after upsetting Stanford on Sunday. The team got to explore Seattle on Wednesday, visiting the Space Needle and other local attractions.

“Yesterday we used it as a bonding experience," Mississippi guard Myah Taylor said. "That's very important. Those bonding moments outside of basketball fuel us on the court.”

SOCCER SKILLS

Clark said she grew up playing soccer and probably could have been a Division I player in the sport but gave it up in high school.

Clark was clear that her role on the pitch was “definitely not defense."

“I was the forward, I scored the goals. Soccer was the first sport I played and I actually played all the way through my sophomore year of high school,” she said. "It was really hard to give up, but in Iowa, soccer is in the spring which was when AAU basketball was, so I had to make a decision."

Clark credits her excellent passing — she led the nation in assists this season — to her soccer days.

“I’m able to anticipate a lot of things and know where I need to get my teammates the ball and on time,”" she said. “So I think understanding angles and anticipation is just like the biggest two things that help me be a good passer.”

FAR AWAY FROM HOME

Iowa is 1,500 miles from Seattle. Still, the Hawkeyes are the second-closest school of the eight teams at the regional. Colorado is 200 miles closer, earning the "most local” award here.

Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder would love to see a closer regional to Iowa.

“I would hope that Des Moines would bid for this. You look at Iowa, Iowa State and Drake, three of the four Division I schools from Iowa were invited to NCAA Tournament with the automatic bids,” Bluder said. “With how well Iowa State and us draw, it would make sense. Des Moines should try for this, they hosted a site for the men this year ... we'd sell out.”

The NCAA has already locked in regionals through 2026.