Visits: 9
The scares came one after another on Thursday, paroxysms of bracket-busting possibility that stimulated hopes of buzzer-beating upsets and overtime delights, those traditional trappings of March. The scares came early and late, they hovered and they lingered, and then, alas, they faded.
Instead of a mayhem-packed opening to the N.C.A.A. tournament, what unfolded across the four venues was not quite boring but rather anticlimax. For all of the close games and potential for chaos, only two lower-seeded teams won, and one — 12th-seeded Murray State, which throttled No. 5 Marquette by 83-64 — was about as fashionable as an upset pick as a Burberry raincoat.
Another No. 12, New Mexico State, could have joined the Racers in the next round had it been able to capitalize on what could be kindly described as late incompetence by No. 5 Auburn, which escaped with a 78-77 victory in the Midwest Region. The Tigers’ coach, Bruce Pearl, might have used other choice words in private to explain how his team — which has won nine consecutive games, including the Southeastern Conference tournament — nearly bungled an 8-point lead with less than two minutes remaining.
“We obviously panicked,” Pearl said, “and made our share of mistakes which could have cost us the game.”
The Aggies, who had not lost since Jan. 3 and finished the season 30-5, drew to within 2 points with six seconds left. Then, the blooper reel unspooled. In that span, Auburn allowed A.J. Harris to reach the basket unchallenged; fouled Terrell Brown on a 3-pointer, awarding him three free throws; swatted the rebound of Brown’s last foul shot out of bounds, giving New Mexico State possession with 1.1 seconds left; and on the ensuing inbounds play failed to cover Trevelin Queen, who airballed an uncontested 3-pointer as time expired.
For his part, Harris, even though he could have tied the score with a layup, passed the ball to Brown, he said, because he was open, too.
As Brown, the Aggies’ best 3-point specialist, released the shot, Auburn’s Bryce Brown slammed into him. With Terrell Brown on the foul line, Auburn guard J’Von McCormick put his hands to his throat, making the universal symbol for choke.
“I saw in his face he was pretty scared,” McCormick said.
New Mexico State Coach Chris Jans said he hadn’t watched a replay of the final sequence yet. He was not planning to, either, on Thursday. Or even Friday. In the aftermath, Jans said he understood that Harris would be second-guessed for kicking out the ball to Brown instead of trying for a layup himself.
“Obviously at that point, it is out of your control and you have to trust your players and players make plays,” Jans said. “If he does make all three free throws or makes the three, it is an Ali Farokhmanesh moment” — Northern Iowa’s Farokhmanesh once beat Kansas, then a No. 1 seed, with a 3-pointer — “and that will be remembered forever. That’s what happens in the N.C.A.A. tournament. I trust my players. Players make plays, and it didn’t work out for us this particular time.”
Pearl said he told the Tigers afterward that no matter who they play next — that would be No. 4 Kansas, which pounded No. 13 Northeastern by 87-53 — is not better than New Mexico State, that the opponent would be just as good.
Such parity every year tends to infiltrate the tournament, minimizing the gap between mid-major darlings like Belmont and Big 10 behemoths like Maryland. No. 11 Belmont, which qualified for the tournament as an at-large team after losing in the Ohio Valley Conference final to Murray State, led at halftime, and late in the second half, before losing its East Region game, 79-77, to the sixth-seeded Terrapins.
“There’s a reason they’re the second-highest scoring team in the country,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said. “They’re almost impossible to guard.”
Almost impossible. Maryland exploited its size advantage — Jalen Smith had 19 points and 12 rebounds, while Bruno Fernando added 14 and 13 — to score the first 12 points after halftime, but Belmont drew to within a point in the closing seconds. Playing for a final shot, the Bruins tried executing a back-door play to Dylan Windler, who led the team with 34 points. Hounding the guard Grayson Murphy, Maryland’s Eric Ayala deflected the pass, and Darryl Morsell, grabbing the ball, was fouled with 2.5 seconds left.
“Coaches were screaming, ‘Back door!’” Morsell said. “I kind of knew it was coming.”
After making the first free throw, Morsell missed the second — not on purpose, he said — and Belmont corralled the rebound for one last chance, but Windler missed a desperation shot.
“Any time you’re playing a team, a Big Ten team, a team at this level, you’re worried,” Belmont Coach Rick Byrd said. “You’re worried about the difference in athleticism and you’re worried about whether you can score, you’re worried about whether you can stop them from scoring, and we had good reason to worry if we could get the rebound when they didn’t score tonight, and there’s just so many ways that they get extra points that we can’t get.”
Triple-Double for Morant
Ja Morant — the once-underrecruited high school guard who has become an N.B.A. lottery lock — had 17 points, 11 rebounds and 16 assists as Murray State, the 12th seed in the West, thumped Marquette.
Morant’s triple-double was the first in the N.C.A.A. tournament since Draymond Green, the Golden State Warriors star, did it with Michigan State in 2012. Three teammates joined him with double-digit point totals, led by the freshman Tevin Brown, who scored 19 points.
It was Morant’s effort, though, that will get the headlines, even if the victory was plainly a team effort by Murray State. Morant was the first day’s undeniable star, making passes of unsurpassed creativity — to the point that his teammates could not always handle them.
L.S.U. Holds Off Yale
In an East Region matchup of universities tainted by separate scandals in recent weeks, L.S.U. never trailed against Yale but still had to fend off a spirited second-half surge to win, 79-74. The fourth-seeded Tigers scored the game’s first nine points and led by 18 points in the second half before the No. 13 Bulldogs pared that deficit to as few 3 with less than a minute remaining.
Skylar Mays, one of four Tigers to score at least 10 points, went 4 for 4 from the foul line in the final 12 seconds to boost L.S.U., which played a third straight game without its coach, Will Wade, who is suspended after being connected to a recruiting scandal.
Uncharacteristically poor shooting doomed Yale, whose athletic department was drawn into a massive admissions fraud scandal last week. The Bulldogs entered Thursday as one of Division I’s best-shooting teams but made only 37.5 percent of its attempts and, until drilling four in the final minute, just four of their first 30 3-pointers.
Big Day for the Big Ten
Also in the East, No. 10 Minnesota recorded the tournament’s first upset by straying from its identity. The Gophers, one of Division I’s worst outside shooting teams, buried seventh-seeded Louisville, 86-76, with a barrage of 3-pointers that left the Cardinals dumbfounded.
Expecting the Gophers to feed the ball inside, Louisville struggled to adjust as Minnesota instead drilled one 3-pointer after another, 11 in all. After making his fifth, which put the Gophers up by 59-43 with under 12 minutes left, freshman Gabe Kalscheur, backpedaling, strummed his fingers as if playing guitar. “He can do whatever he wants if he hits five threes,” Minnesota Coach Richard Pitino said.
Minnesota advances to play a familiar opponent, Big Ten rival Michigan State, which trampled the Gophers by 24 points in February in the teams’ only meeting. The second-seeded Spartans needed a late surge Thursday to stifle No. 15 Bradley, 76-65. Trailing by 55-54 with about six and a half minutes left, Michigan State, fueled by a Matt McQuaid 3-pointer, scored the next nine points, and Bradley never drew closer than five.
“I’m proud of this team until I get back to the hotel and then it’s going to be dog-eat-dog until Saturday,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said.
