Live by the 3, Die by the 3

West Virginia learned that the hard way Thursday night as Kenton Paulino nailed a buzzer-beating three-pointer, giving Texas a 74-71 victory and advancing them to the Elite 8 Saturday against LSU. Earlier in the evening the Tigers beat Duke by pounding the glass and playing tenacious defense against probable Naismith-winner J.J. Redick and the Blue Devils.

The Mountaineers, who made only one two-point basket in the first half, relied on steady three-point shooting to keep the game close all evening and seemed poised to send the game to overtime with a three by Kevin Pittsnogle with 5 seconds remaining in the game. But UT inbound the ball, drove the length of the court and A.J. Abrams found Paulino for the game-winner. UT, led by a monster performance from LaMarcus Aldridge (24 pts., 13 rebs.), out-rebounded the Mountaineers (43-15) and overcame horrific outside shooting to advance to its second Elite 8 in four years.

The Horns will face an LSU team who beat favored Duke with tough interior defense and swarming defense on Redick. After playing two games in a row against teams that rely heavily on outside shooting, the Horns will have to focus on their post defense and using weak-side double teams to cover LSU's Glen "Big Baby" Davis.

In other games Thursday, UCLA somehow scored the last 11 points in its game to comeback and beat a crying Adam Morrison and Gonzaga; while Memphis, which has looked as strong as any team in the tournament, pulled away from underdog Bradley in the second half to move on to the Regional Finals. That gave us four-out-of-four winners in our bracket on Thursday night. But we are sure our bracket will fall apart eventually. UCONN, we're looking at you, damn it.

Congrats Horns!

*Image from AP/John Bazemore*