Sweet 16 Matchup- Baylor Bears vs. Xavier Musketeers

The Xavier vs. Lehigh game has just gone final and the #10 seed Xavier Musketeers have won the right to face the #3 seed Baylor Bears in a Sweet 16 matchup Friday night at 6:15 in Atlanta, Georgia. The other pairing from the South Region is the #1 overall seed Kentucky Wildcats taking on the #4 seed Indiana Hoosiers.

I'll go into more detail about this in the Weekend Recap tomorrow morning, but Baylor paved their way to the Sweet 16 with wins over the Jackrabbits of South Dakota State and former conference-mate Colorado Buffaloes. Xavier made it this far by beating the seventh-seeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the first round (second if you include the play-in games) and the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (that is seriously the first time I've ever looked up their mascot, to be totally honest with you).

Should Baylor win over Xavier, and they will probably be favored to do just that when lines come out tomorrow morning, their likely foe for a trip to the Final Four will be John Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats, by far the favorite to win it all at this point.

I don't want to get ahead of myself by looking to that game already. We have four, almost five, full days between us and a Sweet 16 showdown with Xavier, so we'll focus on them for now. I will say, though, that we saw last night a fully-armed and operational Baylor basketball team in the second half against Colorado, and we're going to need that team to show up again to make it any further than our program's second Elite Eight in the last 3 years. To get where you've never gone you have to do things you've never done. Beating Kentucky to make the Final Four meets that standard in every way imaginable.

Right now Xavier stands in our way.

UPDATE: In case you're not watching, there is quite a game going on right now between Purdue and Kansas. I suggest you flip that baby on if you can.

UPDATE 2: If there is anything specific you'd like to see about this Friday's game or any possible matchups after that, let me know and we'll do the best we can to give you what you ask for.