Orange hold on

Syracuse will be playing for a spot in the Final Four because of numbers.

C.J. Fair put up some like he hadn't in a while, and the Orange finished with offensive statistics that Wisconsin just doesn't allow in a 64-63 victory in the East Regional semifinals Thursday night at Boston that wasn't secure until the final buzzer.

"Offensively we played very, very well and we had to play very, very well," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said.

Fair finished with 15 points - five fewer than he had in the last six games combined - on 7-of-9 shooting. The Orange scored 11 more than the Badgers allowed on average in leading Division I.

Syracuse shot 55 percent from the field, well above the 38.5 percent Wisconsin gave up this season, and the Orange were 5 of 9 from 3-point range, much better than the 28.8 percent the Badgers allowed.

All those numbers mean the Orange (34-2) will play Ohio State in the regional final Saturday with a trip to New Orleans at stake.

"I can't tell you how good it feels to win a game like this," Boeheim said. "This was a great, great game."

And it wasn't decided until Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor missed a 3-pointer with 3 seconds left. Josh Gasser corralled the rebound but his toss toward the basket was off at the buzzer.

"It was on line, and I felt like I got my legs into it," Taylor said. "I knew it was a deep 3, but it felt good, and then to see it kind of come up short was kind of heartbreaking.”

Kris Joseph, a 75 percent free throw shooter, had missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 18 seconds to go with Syracuse up by a point, giving the Badgers (26-10) a chance at the victory.

Passing the ball around the perimeter of the zone but not creating much space, Wisconsin had to settle for Taylor’s shot.

“We were just trying to get an open shot and try and make them rotate in the zone,” Taylor said. “We did a little bit, but they did a good job of recovering to open guys there. They used the length that they have and kind of forced us into a tough shot, and it obviously didn’t go down. So it was tough. Hats off to them.”

The Badgers finished 14 of 27 from 3-point range but couldn’t make one over the final 6 minutes after a stretch in the second half when they made six straight in as many possessions.

“I think we naturally tried to move out,” Boeheim said, referring to Syracuse’s famed 2-3 zone. “But you’ve got to get them off their spots. We didn’t do that for a stretch out there. But they have terrific ball movement, and they have five guys that can shoot. There aren’t that many teams like that.”

Scoop Jardine had 14 points for Syracuse, while Dion Waiters had 13 and Brandon Triche 11.

But it was Fair who made the difference after not being a factor late in the season.

The 6-foot-8 sophomore forward, the Orange’s fifth-leading scorer at 8.3 points per game, was 7 for 27 from the field over a six-game stretch. The Orange had been struggling offensively as well, failing to reach 60 points three times in their last seven games.

“Sometimes you just need to see the ball go in the rim,” Fair said.

Jared Berggren and Taylor both had 17 points for Wisconsin, which came in allowing 52.9 points per game.

Syracuse reached that many points with 9 minutes to play, but there were two lead changes and two ties still to come.

“It was a nailbiter, but we made some plays down the stretch and got a couple of stops,” Fair said.

Ohio State 81, Cincinnati 66: At Boston, Deshaun Thomas scored 26 points and Jared Sullinger had 23 points and 11 rebounds to lead second-seeded Ohio State to a victory over No. 6 seed Cincinnati (26-11), putting the Buckeyes in the East Regional finals.

Aaron Craft added 11 points — all in the second half — with five assists and six steals, taking charge during a 17-1 second-half run that turned a four-point deficit into a double-digit lead.

Cashmere Wright scored 18 and Sean Kilpatrick had 15 for the Bearcats.

It’s the first trip to the regional finals for Ohio State (30-7) since 2007, when it lost in the national championship game to Florida.

Louisville 57, Michigan State 44: At Phoenix, Louisville figured its game against Michigan State (29-8) to be low-scoring, a natural expectation with two of the nation’s best defenses butting heads.

The Cardinals had one big advantage: Gorgui Dieng.

Dominating inside, Dieng blocked seven shots and altered several others to anchor a stifling defense that helped Louisville knock off top-seeded Michigan State in the West Regional semifinals.

“’He was very disruptive,” Michigan State’s Draymond Green said. “We’re not going to back down from anyone. We took it at him. He pulled off some great blocked shots. That’s what he does. That’s his strength.”

The Cardinals (29-9) relied on 3-point shooting in the first half and moved inside in the second to befuddle the Spartans.

Their defense gave Michigan State fits all night.

Instead of trapping like it normally does, Louisville played a bait-and-switch game with the Spartans and Green, their multitalented forward. The idea was to jump out on screens and to make the Spartans work on every possession and, hopefully, wear them out.

It worked, in large part because Dieng was in the back to clean things up.

Tent-pole thin when he arrived at Louisville, the Senegalese center worked hard on his body and his game, developing into the one player the Cardinals had to have on the floor during his sophomore season. When he got in foul trouble, Louisville labored, so one of the key parts of coach Rick Pitino’s game plan was to make sure the Cardinals protected him.

They did and he protected the rim in return, getting five of his blocked shots in the second half to prevent Michigan State from mounting any kind of rally. The Cardinals move on to the West final Saturday against Florida and coach Billy Donovan, who played under Pitino at Providence.

“When we came here, we know (what) we’re going to face,” said Dieng, who also had five points, nine rebounds and three steals while matching the school record for blocked shots in an NCAA tournament game. “We knew we were going to come to a war. We need to be tougher than them to win this game.”

Florida 68, Marquette 58: At Phoenix, Bradley Beal scored 21 points to lift Florida past Marquette.

The seventh-seeded Gators (26-10) expanded a six-point halftime lead to double digits, then held off third-seeded Marquette (27-8) to take their second straight trip to the regional final.

Beal, a freshman who has NBA written all over him, shot 8 for 10 and had six rebounds and four assists.

Beal also added two blocked shots, including one on Marquette’s Jae Crowder while the Golden Eagles were desperately traying to claw back in after trailing by 14.

Marquette got 15 points from Crowder and 14 from fellow senior Darius Johnson-Odom, but the Golden Eagles exited the tournament in the round of 16 for the second straight year.

• NOTES

Marshall’s status unclear: North Carolina point guard Kendall Marshall said his broken right wrist is improving each day, but he’s still not sure if he’ll be able to play tonight against Ohio in the Midwest Regional semifinals.

Groce mum on future: Ohio’s John Groce isn’t saying whether he’s interested in filling any of the high-profile coaching vacancies out there.

Groce’s name has been connected to the Nebraska and Illinois openings.

Groce said he would withhold comment on his future until after the Bobcats’ season.

Oregon coach Dana Altman, who grew up in Nebraska and coached at Creighton in Omaha, said through a spokesman that he wouldn’t discuss the Huskers’ job and that he was recruiting for the Ducks this week.

McDermott staying in college: Creighton sophomore star Doug McDermott said he’s not considering declaring for the NBA draft this year.

McDermott is the nation’s third-leading scorer, at 22.9 points game. The Missouri Valley Conference player of the year led the Bluejays to a school record-tying 29 wins and to a win over Alabama in the NCAA tournament.