NCAA Tournament Day 1

The tournament got off to a tremendous start in the First Four. We had a team with a losing record win, we had Dyshawn Pierre’s pants fall down, we had huge comebacks, we had a game in the 90s, and we even had one of the coaches making a call to Jesus.

But that was nothing compared to what we saw on Thursday. Five games were decided by a single point which is an NCAA record. One game was decided by two points. Two games were decided by three points. One game was decided by four points. One game was decided by six points. One game was decided by seven points. And two of those contests were decided in OT.

#14 Georgia St. defeated #3 Baylor

My immediate reaction: “That should not have happened.” The ending of this game was preposterous.

I had my game story written. In the first 27 minutes of the game, Baylor had 15 turnovers and Georgia St. took a 41-40. But then Georgia St. ran out of gas. Georgia St.’s second best player, Kentucky transfer Ryan Harrow, was unable to play due to injury. Georgia St.’s best player, RJ Hunter, was 1 of 8 from the floor. And ultimately, a Baylor team that had earned a 3-seed in the top conference in the country put Georgia St. away. Baylor led by 10 with 100 seconds left in the game. It was over.

I should add at this point that Georgia St. did not play a perfect game in the final 100 seconds. They missed a shot in that stretch. They missed the front end of a one-and-one, and missed another free throw too. They left three free points on the board. Those three points looked like they were going to be the difference in the game. Georgia St. was going to lose.

But this is why we love March. This is why we sit through the end-of-game timeouts and fouls. This is why we don’t flip away. We watch for endings like this.

With 100 seconds left down 10, RJ Hunter broke his 1 for 8 slump and hit a three. Georgia St. tied up the in-bounds pass, and since they had the possession arrow, that was as good as a steal. Georgia St.’s Hunter got a lay-up on the inbounds pass. Georgia St. stole the next inbounds pass and got another lay-up. The lead was down to three. But the game was far from over.

Georgia St. couldn’t get another steal so they had to play defense. And play defense they did. Baylor had to force a shot at the end of the shot-clock, and it didn’t hit the rim, meaning Georgia St. forced a shot-clock violation.

After Georgia St. missed the front-end of a one-and-one, it should have been over. But Baylor threw a home run pass to beat the press, and Rico Gathers missed the dunk. “Pull it out! Work the clock! If you don’t have a wide open dunk, you can’t attack the basket there.”

Georgia St. missed on the other end, and made only 1 of 2 free throws. The lead was down to 2 points, but with Kenny Chery heading to the line, it was as good as over. Chery made 88% of his free throws last year and 83% this year.

Somehow, Chery missed the front end of the one-and-one. Georgia St. had to attack. They had to get a good shot. But time was winding down. They were taking too long to set up offensively. And Georgia St. didn’t have a timeout to set up a play.

If you watched the end of the Notre Dame vs Northeastern game a short while earlier, it seemed like we were headed for the same ending. Down two, Northeastern couldn’t get a good shot up in the final seconds, turned it over, and the game was over.

RJ Hunter had the ball, but he wasn’t attacking. He passed the ball away, then moved to the center of the court, a good 5 or 6 feet beyond the top of three point circle. His teammate got the ball back to him. Hunter lifted up. “Terrible shot!” was all I could think. Why would a comeback end like this, with such a low probability chance?

But this is March Madness. The shot went in. And RJ Hunter’s dad, the team’s coach Ron Hunter, who tore his ACL celebrating when the team clinched an NCAA tournament bid, fell off his chair. The image of Ron Hunter rolling on the floor may very well be the most memorable moment of this entire NCAA tournament.

Somehow, Georgia St. went on a 13-0 run to win an NCAA tournament game. This is why we watch.

#14 UAB defeated #3 Iowa St.

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. UAB was a good offensive rebounding team. And while Iowa St.’s defensive rebounding was a team strength, they had struggled in that area at times. Oklahoma grabbed 44% of the offensive boards in the Big 12 tournament against Iowa St. TCU grabbed 40% of the offensive boards against Iowa St. in the regular season finale. But those were exception on a season where Iowa St. usually did a pretty good job rebounding the ball.

And after Iowa St. won a number of close games late in the season, you can certainly say they were due to lose a close one. You had to figure at some point, their suspect defense would let them down.

But this game didn’t really fit the expected script at all. Iowa St. didn’t have a terrible day defensively. UAB had a miserable 37% eFG% in the game. It was Iowa St.’s third best performance at forcing missed shots all year. And given that the best two efforts came against Texas Tech and Mississippi Valley St., it was probably the most impressive. The offensive rebounds that UAB got were costly, but the game wasn’t lost on the defensive end.

Iowa St. lost because of their offense. Since mid-January, Iowa St. had failed to score under 1 point per possession only 1 time, at Kansas. To make it through virtually the entire Big 12 slate, with over 1 point per possession would be phenomenal in any year. But in a year in which the Big 12 was, by basically every metric, consider the best conference in the country, it was proof that Iowa St.’s offense was truly dominant. If Iowa St. was going to lose in the tournament, it was going to be because of their defense, not their offense.

The announcers made a big point of the fact that UAB had a relatively tall team. And that was true, by NCAA standards. But UAB didn’t have taller players than Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas. And UAB did not have a particularly dominant season defensively. Prior to Thursday’s game, UAB didn’t have a Top 100 defense.

But for reasons unexplained, the heart and soul of Iowa St.’s offense, Georges Niang, had one of the worst games of the season. In the first half, he was in foul trouble and sat for 9 minutes.  But Matt Thomas bailed Iowa St. out with a couple of huge threes, and it seemed like the Cyclones would weather the storm.

And then in the second half, Niang could seemingly do nothing right. He finished 3 of 12 inside the arc and 1 of 3 outside the arc. He turned the ball over 3 times with just 2 assists. He grabbed just one offensive board. And Niang had his worst offensive performance in over 2 months.

And when William Lee broke Niang’s ankles, and pulled up for a tough jumper to give UAB the late lead, it seemed only appropriate. When Niang fought through a double team to put up a bad shot in the final minute, it summed it up perfectly. It is very hard to win in the tournament when your best player plays poorly.

Niang had a 21% assist rate, made 80% of his free throws, 49% of his twos, and 40% of his threes on the year, while using a strong 27% of his team’s possessions. He was rightfully a first-team All-Big 12 player. But on Thursday, his ORtg was a paltry 67.

Give UAB credit. Coach Jerod Haase is a former Roy Williams assistant. He drew up a perfect elevator play to get Robert Brown the go-ahead three pointer in the final minute. I’ve seen North Carolina run that play a lot, and Haase pulled it out at the perfect time. And Brown, who was just 2 for 6 from deep at that point, made it count. But in a bracket that looked very favorable for Iowa St. to perhaps go on a deep tournament run, this loss is going to sting for awhile.

#3 Notre Dame defeated #14 Northeastern

This game was all about Notre Dame’s Zach Auguste. Auguste is Notre Dame’s only true post-defender, as back-up Bonzie Colson is only 6’5”. I’ve been suspicious whether Notre Dame can go on a deep run in this tournament. When Auguste holds back, an opponent may have too easy a time scoring inside. We saw that with Jahlil Okafor’s 28 point performance in the ACC tournament. But if Auguste plays aggressively, and gets in foul trouble, that’s a disaster too. In the first half against Northeastern, Auguste went to the bench with two fouls and Northeastern went on a run to take a 22-20 lead.

Mike Brey was smart enough not to leave Auguste on the bench the entire first half. And Auguste had two big baskets late in the half to help Notre Dame hold a lead. Then he started the second half on fire, and ended up with 25 points, the second highest point total of his career.

Auguste was never quite in the right place at the end of the game. First, he was nowhere to be seen as Northeastern’s 6’3” PG TJ Williams miraculously grabbed an offensive rebound among 5 taller players in traffic and cut the lead to 4. And with Auguste hedging a screen on the outside, that allowed the offensive rebound that allowed Northeastern to cut the lead to 2 points.

But after an exchange of possessions, it was still a 2 point game in the final seconds, and Auguste still played a critical role. His two free throws sealed the win for the Fighting Irish.

If Texas had advanced to the Round of 32, I would have been very worried about Notre Dame’s ability to match-up with Texas’ front line. But Notre Dame caught a huge break when Butler advanced (and with the news that Roosevelt Jones injured his knee.) Auguste is more likely to be able to hold his own against Butler and possibly Wichita St. in the subsequent round. And thus a deep run is now looking a lot more likely for the Fighting Irish.

Final game note on Northeastern: I love the story of Max Plansky, a 16-year old with cerebral palsy, who is connected to the team. As the announcers said, when the team is down, they always look to Max to cheer them up. Max better be in hero form tonight, because a close loss like this is going to be hard to recover from.

#2 Arizona defeated #15 Texas Southern

There was too much action today to watch or recap blowouts!

#6 Butler defeated #11 Texas

Butler got out to an early 11 point lead, but Texas’ lone scholarship senior Holmes, looked like a player who didn’t want to see his career end. He hit a couple of big threes and had a key steal at the end of the first half. And Holmes’ three to start the second half gave Texas the lead. Then late in the game Isaiah Taylor scored 10 points in about a six minute span, and really seemed to be giving Texas the key push it needed.

For those two players to lead a comeback would be a redemption of Texas’ season. The Longhorns  were a preseason Top 10 team that struggled to win in the Big 12. The Longhorns record against quality teams was puzzling, but you could always say they might have won a game or two more if Holmes and Taylor had not missed games due to injury. And with those two playing well, things were finally coming together for Texas.

But it turned out the game wasn’t about Texas redemption from injury, it was about Butler’s Roosevelt Jones fighting through injury. Jones badly hurt his knee in the second half, went to the locker-room, and came back with a big knee brace. And yet somehow, he re-entered the game and still managed to drive on Texas center Cameron Ridley and get a lay-up.

And Butler as usual made all the right plays. There was the play where Kellen Dunham kicked his leg out and drew a Reggie Miller-esque foul on a three point attempt. Of course the Bulldogs played fabulous defense. Even though they went over 10 minutes without a FG, making just two free throws and going 0-15 from the floor, Butler was still only down 2 points. And in the end, the over-achieving Butler team beat the under-achieving Texas team.

At one point the announcers discussed a conversation they had with Texas head coach Rick Barnes before the game. Barnes noted that he views the NCAA tournament as a player’s game. He doesn’t think it is about scouting or preparation. I strongly disagree with that statement. Frequently we see star players get shut down in the tournament by teams that are disciplined and run detailed scouting reports. The fact that Barnes put winning in the NCAA tournament on the weight of his players, shows exactly why he may soon be out of a job.

#11 UCLA defeated #6 SMU

UCLA is now the “Lucky Horseshoe” team of 2015. Somehow the committee miraculously managed to overlook their unimpressive resume and put them in the field. And then they won a game on a goal-tend on a three point try that most people seem to think was a bad call. Almost certainly, the shot was not going to go in if Yanick Moreira did not touch the ball on the way down. But the official out near half-court thought it had a chance, and awarded 3 points to the Bruins anyhow.

The NCAA director of officials defended the call by saying that we can’t know how the ball was going to bounce off the edge of the rim, it might have bounced up and in. And I think it is fair to say that from the angle of the official, it may have very well looked like it had a chance. Without replay, you have to live with what the officials see.

And it really was a mistake for Moreira to touch the ball on the way down. If you don’t know it is off the rim, you can’t touch a ball on the way down.

But this is one of those circumstances where no one is going to walk away happy. For UCLA fans, to let SMU go on a late 19-0 run, to make so many bone-headed plays like Norman Powell bouncing the ball off his own foot for a turnover, the win via controversy is hardly satisfying. And for SMU fans, who felt they were screwed by the NCAA selection committee last year, to be knocked out of the tournament on such an odd rule – let’s just say that no one in the NCAA offices is going to be getting a Christmas card from Dallas this year.

It is too bad for the player’s sake that the ending was so controversial. Bryce Alford had made a miraculous 8 of 10 threes before that final shot. He should be getting a lot of love on TV. But all anyone is going to be talking about is the ending.

#10 Ohio St. defeated #7 VCU

I know it will hardly seem like consolation, but I think this game showed how far Shaka Smart has come as a head coach. I’ve said in recent NCAA tournaments that Smart has to learn how to win games even when his team isn’t forcing turnovers. And in many ways, Ohio St. was the worst possible match-up for VCU. The Buckeyes almost never turned the ball over this year. VCU wasn’t going to be able to win with their HAVOC defense.

And yet Shaka Smart’s team found new ways to be competitive. VCU played small-ball so effectively that Ohio St. had to abandon its man-to-man defense and play zone. VCU won the offensive and defensive rebounding battle despite having no one who could really match up with Amir Williams. 

Ohio St. is a team with a Top 25 margin-of-victory. The Buckeyes had a young team, so they played a ridiculously easy non-conference schedule and only earned a 10-seed in the NCAA tournament. But they were not a pushover. And a VCU team playing without one of its best players, Briante Weber, battled Ohio St. until the end of OT.

Of course for Ohio St., the story was their fabulous freshmen. D’Angelo Russell kept the Buckeyes in the game with his outstanding shooting when nothing else was falling. And Keita Bates-Diop hit a pair of huge threes late in the game.

But maybe the most impressive thing wasn’t Russell’s shooting, but his ball-handling. When you play a team like VCU that is so good at creating ball-pressure, it really revealed Russell’s hand-eye coordination and calmness under pressure.

The image of Russell with blood running down his face after a VCU flagrant foul will probably headline many newspapers in Columbus. Their freshmen hero will fight through anything. And he’ll have to when he faces fellow-freshman phenom Stanley Johnson and Arizona on Saturday.

#6 Xavier defeated #11 Mississippi

After Mississippi came back from 17 down in the First Four game, and given that Xavier can have scoring droughts, this game was perhaps more compelling than the final score indicated. But I’m not recapping blowouts today.

#1 Villanova defeated #16 Lafayette

No recaps for blowouts.

#8 Cincinnati defeated #9 Purdue

Have you ever felt sorry for a kid who punched someone else in the face? Cincinnati’s Octavius Ellis committed a nonsensical foul when he swung in a punching motion at Purdue center AJ Hammons chin. And he was kicked out of the game. But Hammons seemed as confused as anyone, given how unprovoked the move seemed to be. The two had simply been battling in the paint, and Ellis lost his cool. Truly a bizarre moment.

That made me start to think the story of the game might be AJ Hammons maturity. Hammons has had his own problems with staying on the floor. When elite center prospect Isaac Hass joining Purdue as Hammons backup this year, there were times when it seemed like Hammons might just lose his position and lose his cool. But over the final stretch of the season Hammons became much more consistent, and much less likely to get in foul trouble.

And Hammons played great for stretches of this game. Other than a bizarre basketball off the face near the end of regulation, he ran the give-and-go well, he caught passes in the paint for easy baskets. His 17 point and 10 rebound performance was more than solid against a Cincinnati team that is never going to get man-handled.

But then Troy Caupain showed that this game was really about his redemption. Caupain stole the ball with 1:06 left on the clock, trailing by 5, and missed a point blank lay-up. Down 1 with 8 seconds left, Caupain drove baseline and threw the ball out-of-bounds. It would have been easy for him to give up. But he never did. And as time was running down and his team down two points, Caupain drove the lane and banked in the game-tying shot to send the game to OT.

In OT, we had one of the ugliest periods of basketball imaginable, with tons of near misses, and at least one bad airball. With the score 64-63, Purdue missed shots on five straight trips (including two free throws) and Cincinnati missed four straight shots. It was actually a perfect summary of what we expected when we saw this match-up on paper. These were two physical teams that sometimes struggled to score. Ultimately in OT, Cincinnati hung on to win when Purdue missed an open three at the buzzer. The Boilermakers finished 4 of 26 from deep.

#4 North Carolina defeated #13 Harvard

This was not the same quality Harvard team that won games in the last two NCAA tournaments. They didn’t have the shooters to spread the floor. Zena Edosomwan was supposed to be the highest ranked recruit in Harvard history, but he’s often looked lost, even as a sophomore.  With Jonah Travis struggling against North Carolina’s size and Corbin Miller unable to hit from deep, it seemed like Harvard’s season might end with a whimper.

But Harvard has won in the NCAA tournament the last two years, and they still have a few players that have been there before. Down 54-45, senior Kenyatta Smith made a two pointer. Then Wesley Saunders and Siyani Chambers, the two veteran guards who have logged far too many minutes this year, made jump shots of their own. Then somehow in the final stretch, Chambers hit a three and drew a foul on Marcus Paige. It looked like perhaps there was one more miracle tournament ending for Tommy Amaker’s squad.

But a Harvard miss on a long three led to a North Carolina run-out. Say what you will about the Tar Heels personnel this year. They have too few shooters, and they don’t rebound as well as they should given their size. But having the mentality to attack in transition often matters. And in the games’ final minute, that leak-out in transition led to a Justin Jackson dunk that put North Carolina ahead. And though they had to survive three huge three point attempts in the final minute, North Carolina moved on.

#5 Utah defeated #12 Stephen F Austin

They say in basketball the great equalizer is the three point shot. But I think we are learning that the real equalizer is the steal and the turnover.  Utah shot the ball great and defended relatively well, but they kept being sloppy with the ball and giving Stephen F Austin a chance.

But sometimes the thing that stops the little guy from competing is literally size. Utah has a 7 foot freshman surprise at center name Jakob Poeltl and Stephen F Austin had no answer. On the day Poeltl was 7 for 7 from the floor.  In a second half where Utah really struggled to score, he had 14 points. He grabbed a number of key rebounds down the stretch. And even though he shoots less than 50% from the line, when the game was tight late, Poeltl made both his free throw attempts.

#8 NC State defeated #9 LSU

I love what NC State head coach Mark Gottfried apparently said at half-time. “You guys can’t stand around and watch them dunk on us.”

It seemed a little odd that this game had a 16 point margin. After all, 8/9 matchups are usually close. And on this particular day, almost every game seemed close. But late in the second half NC State went on a 10-0 run punctuated by Kyle Washington. By punctuated I could mean Kyle Washington’s big slam dunk. But what I actually mean is, Kyle Washington had made six threes all year, and he just made a three!!!

And then of course it seemed to come down to Ralston Turner. Turner went to LSU and transferred to NC State. So of course with his team down three, Turner had to take the wide open shot for the tie. With 2 minutes left, his shot was up and no good. Somehow though, LSU kept missing free throws. And Turner had another chance. Down three, the transfer had a shot to tie the game again. Again it rimmed out. Transfer karma was putting a lid on the basket. You can go play somewhere else, but if you think you are going to hit the big shot to beat your former team, life just doesn’t work out that way.

But NC State’s Beejay Anya didn’t care. He put in the tip-back anyhow. And then I thought we saw some terrible strategy from NC State head coach Mark Gottfried. LSU had been struggling mightily at the free throw line. Extending the game seemed like the sanest strategy. Make LSU shoot as many more free throws as possible.

But Gottfried did the math and disagreed. NC State was down one point with a 10 second differential between the game clock and shot clock. I’ve seen this script so many times. So many times the team with the lead either hits a big shot here or gets an offensive rebound. And with no time left on the clock, the game is over.

But this time playing defense worked. LSU missed. NC State had the ball with 15 seconds left. NC State’s Trevor Lacey drove into the lane and went airborn. But LSU’s Tim Quarterman went airborn too. And Lacey couldn’t get a clean look.

He made an emergency pass to Beejay Anya. Steve Smith channeling Anya’s brain at this point. “Wait, you want me to take the shot? OK.” The shot is up on the rim; it drops with 0.1 seconds left. NC State advances by 1 point!

#1 Kentucky defeated #16 Hampton

If you find yourself compelled to watch Kentucky games in this tournament, I suggest you find something to cheer for other than the final score. Perhaps a player fantasy draft of Kentucky players? When I joined RealGM podcast host Daniel LeRoux this week, I suggested that and we each drafted four Kentucky players. Whoever’s squad scores more in the NCAA tournament is the winner. If you want to know why/how we picked our squads, click here.

LeRoux won a coin flip and got the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th picks, so with LeRoux leading, I’m blaming it on draft order. The again, he did seem to be arguing that Karl-Anthony Towns should be the top pick in the NBA draft, so maybe I’ll give him a little credit. Towns has been moving ahead of Jahlil Okafor because of his defense. But if Towns can pull off the post moves he used on Thursday against higher level completion, he might be giving Okafor a run for his money on that side of the ball too.

#4 Georgetown defeated #13 Eastern Washington

On a normal day, that game might be worth a long recap. But not today. A 10 point win was massive today. At least we can say this. Unless Georgetown makes it to the Elite Eight, they aren’t losing to a double digit seed this time.

#5 Arkansas defeated #12 Wofford

Here’s a nice little discussion point for you. Does Michael Qualls have unbelievable athleticism or not? On the one hand, few players in the SEC had quite as many jaw-dropping dunks as Qualls this year. And yet, I have read draft evaluations that argue that Qualls only has average athleticism. Some say he has an incredible vertical leap. But some of his dunks are all the more amazing because it looks like he barely clears the rim. Is he Zach LaVine? Or is that even a compliment given that LaVine might have the worst plus/minus in the NBA this year?

All I know is that when Michael Qualls dunks, he brings an energy into the arena that really makes Arkansas work. On Thursday, he was 8 of 9 from the floor. And his two dunks late in the second half were probably the most memorable part of Arkansas’ late scoring.

On the other hand, after his last dunk, he fell to the floor, Wofford went down in transition, and Wofford’s Jaylen Allen hit a wide open three.

Though the Georgetown game was technically the final buzzer, I saved this one until the end for some symmetry. Karl Cochran has been Wofford’s best player. He’s a tremendous defender. At 6’1” he has a shocking 36 blocks this year. He’s scored nearly 1900 points in his career at Wofford.  He had made 90 threes on the season. But against Arkansas, he was 2 of 7 inside the arc and 2 of 11 beyond the arc. He was clearly struggling.

In this sort of circumstance, you might want someone else to take the shot. But if you remember from the start of this column, Georgia St.’s RJ Hunter was ice cold and still nailed a 26 footer to win the game. So with time running down, Wofford didn’t take a quick shot. They worked and worked until finally they got Cochran the ball. Cochran got an open look from the top of the three point arc. But unlike at the start of the day, the shot was off. The day of cold shooting was not redeemed by a hero moment. And the plucky underdog from the Southern Conference was not rewarded with its first ever tournament win.

While it is a loss for Wofford, it is a win for basketball fans. UNC and Arkansas are the two fastest-paced teams left in the tournament, and they go head-to-head on Saturday. Yep, one of the greatest days of college basketball is in the books, and already we have reason to look forward to more.