Sweet 16 fresh: Culver at home, Z-Smith a 360 for Texas Tech

DALLAS (AP) — Jarrett Culver grew up close to the Texas Tech campus with basketball dreams to play somewhere else.

"I had dreams about going other places, and bigger places, stuff like that," Culver said.

Now he is going to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament as a freshman guard on his hometown team.

Culver and Zhaire Smith, whose 360-degree alley-oop dunk is already one of the highlights of this year's tourney, are the highest-scoring freshman duo in Texas Tech history.

"On the first day or the second day he got the job, he offered me, so I felt like that spoke volumes to me," Culver said of second-year coach Chris Beard. "Even though I'm a homegrown Lubbock person, he just recruited me hard and stayed on me, and wanted me bad.