Some potential Cinderella’s started dancing, some big time teams rolled, and some prospects may have moved the needle on their draft status.
If you didn’t catch the excellent NCAA men’s basketball tournament primer from Zach Reynolds, you probably need to go look at it right now.
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to catch your breath after a full day of college hoops. Let’s run through the big names in the big games and recap their performances.
Midwest
Karl Anthony-Towns lived up to his big billing by posting a double-double of 21 points and 11 rebounds and flashing some nice defense as well. The Wildcats held Hampton to 28.8 percent shooting on the night and it probably had a little to do with Anthony-Towns and his three blocks. Flashing skills on both end of the court, Anthony-Towns led the Wildcats to comfortable and expected victory over little Hampton. Willie Cauley-Stein only managed one made field goal, but he did pull down 11 rebounds and will look to move his name up the board as the Wildcats run deeper into the tournament.
Notre Dame needed some last-second defense from Jerian Grant to pull out the W against Northeastern. I didn’t know there was a school named Northeastern before today. The Fighting Irish will probably remember the Huskies for a few days longer than the rest of us. Grant, who probably benefits from having a brother in NBA and a relative who wore neat goggles and won a lot with Michael Jordan and Penny Hardaway (not at the same time, of course) named Horace, had a game that basically highlighted his consistency, posting 17 points on an efficient 7-for-12 shooting night, five assists, three rebounds and two steals, one which was the game clincher mentioned above. This performance definitely solidified the perception that he can handle the big stage.
Butler took care of business and sent Texas packing. That is bad news for Longhorns center Myles Turner who shot just 1-for-5 with four fouls and four turnovers in 16 minutes of play. Turner did pull down 10 rebounds in his limited time on the court, but that is little consolation for the center trying to use the tournament to justify his position on the Big Board.
East
My goodness Villanova put a hurt on Lafayette, winning by 41 points. Daniel Ochefu shot a perfect 5-for-5 from the field and Darrun Hilliard added 12 points on 6-for-8 shooting. Both players put in good shifts, but we will need to see them against better competition before we can assess their work to this point. The blowout score allowed Nova to cruise a bit and gave their big name guys a few extra minutes of rest.
The eight-seed versus nine-seed matchups did not disappoint today, except for the teams that came up short. LSU is one such team as their scoring completely abandoned them when it was needed most. Jarell Martin fulfilled his double-double promise by scoring 16 points and claiming 11 rebounds. He also played an astonishing 40 minutes as LSU appears to run some sort of Tom Thibodeau-ian minutes regimen. While the team shot just 40 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from the free throw line, Martin was 6-for-13 and 4-for-6 in those categories respectively. His numbers from the line were the best on his team, but it wasn’t enough to get the Tigers past North Carolina State. Martin did nothing but show that he is a capable player and true combo forward, adding four assists to his scoring and rebounding numbers but only committing one turnover.
In another one-point tilt, there were five total on the night, UCLA snuck by the sixth-seeded Mustangs of SMU. There was a lot of talk about goaltending, but I was more interested in UCLA forward Kevon Looney. While it was expected that we wouldn’t get much of a look at Looney given the unlikelihood of an upset, the freshman will live to see another tournament day. Looney didn’t do much to help his touted three-point range, going 0-for-3 from distance, but he did haul down 10 rebounds to go with six points. I’m glad we will get one more game from Looney and hopefully see a little bit more of that range he supposedly has.
Utah beat Stephen F. Austin, and in doing so proved that a team is better than a single individual. Actually, Stephen F. Austin is a school, I was just joking. Though, I do believe a team is better than an individual if you are playing a team sport. Delon Wright is probably also very happy that Utah decided to play as a team tonight. Wright did little to avenge his Pac-12 Player of the Year snub, shooting 2-for-7 and committing a game-high six turnovers. Let’s hope that Wright bounces back and puts in a career game against Georgetown or all the team in the world might not be enough.
Speaking of Georgetown, they beat Eastern Washington today. The two best things about this game were the names of Eastern Washington guard Sir Washington and forward Ognjen Miljkovic. The real best thing about this game was the play of two guards, Eastern Washington’s Tyler Harvey and Georgetown’s D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. Harvey quietly rode into the tournament with a DI best 22.9 points-per-game and he put up 27 points in 40 minutes against the Hoyas. He was 3-for-3 from the line and shot 50 percent from deep, going 9-for-20 from the field in 40 minutes of play. Smith-Rivera took a different route as he scored 25, largely thanks to 9-for-13 shooting from the free throw line in 37 minutes. The shooting from Harvey was impressive, but the Hoyas, and Smith-Rivera, are the team moving forward.
West
The Arkansas Razorbacks can count their lucky starts after pulling out a win thanks to two missed shots from Wofford that could have forced overtime. Lottery hopeful Bobby Portis pulled a double-double in 34 minutes. Portis scored 15 on 5-for-12 shooting and added 13 rebounds. Portis also stayed out of foul trouble and will need to do so again next time out as Arkansas will take on North Carolina. Another high level performance against the Tar Heels should be enough to land Portis in the lottery this summer.
Georgia State stuns us all! Georgia State just sounds like the name of a school that you assume would exist, but as a mid-major you probably don’t know too much about it. I might be projecting in that statement, as I didn’t know anything about them. I probably won’t remember the school, but I will remember RJ Hunter. Hunter led the Panthers down the stretch scoring 12 points in the final three minutes of the game, including the game-winning shot with just three seconds left. If you followed Zach’s advice, you picked this upset or you just had to cross off another team on your bracket like I did.
As if an avalanche of games, a record number of one-time wins, and a goaltending call weren’t enough, how about some overtime? Virginia Commonwealth came up short against the Buckeyes of Ohio State, led by freshman sensation D’Angelo Russell. Russell has to be my favorite player that does not play for Wisconsin. He put up 28 points on 50 percent shooting, took a hard foul at one point and then let the blood run cold as he put the nail in the VCU coffin with a pair of free throws at the end of overtime. There are a few players in college who stand well above the rest and Russell is making a hard charge for that number one spot.
That’s all for the first day of games, stay tuned for daily wrap-ups of the top players and prospects throughout the tournament.
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