Yale schools Baylor; Big comeback for Little Rock over Purdue
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Ivy League has produced its share of surprise winners in the NCAA Tournament. It can add Yale to that list of bracket spoilers.
Makai Mason had a career-high 31 points, including six of Yale's final nine points, and the No. 12 seed Bulldogs held on to upset No. 5 seed Baylor 79-75 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday.
Yale (23-6) earns its first NCAA Tournament victory. It comes in its first appearance since 1962.
"This was bigger than us, and we wanted to do it for all the Yale faithful out there," said senior Justin Sears. ""It's great right now. I don't think it's really hit us how big this is yet."
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Afterward, the Bulldogs celebrated like a team that had been waiting 54 years to play in the big dance.
When the final horn sounded, coach James Jones walked across the floor with his arms raised. Stopping in front a cheering throng of Yale fans, he slammed both hands down on the scorer's table before again lifting his arms high.
Since Cornell made a Cinderella run to the Sweet 16 in 2010, Ivy League teams have gone 4-3 in first-round games. That Cornell team, coincidentally, was also a No. 12 seed. The Bulldogs advance to face fourth-seeded Duke on Saturday. Sears added 18 points. Brandon Sherrod finished with 10.
"The guys in this locker room have known," said Yale guard Nick Victor. "People outside, they always thought we couldn't win this one. We knew from the start that we could do this."
The Bulldogs controlled the game from the opening tap, and suffocated a Baylor defense with its quickness and nullified its advantage inside with methodical movement on offense.
Mason was the catalyst, connecting on nine of his 18 field goal attempts, and going a perfect 11 for 11 from the free throw line.
"I kind of just felt in the zone, I guess," Mason said. "I guess I thought if I missed it, I'm sure our coach would have screamed at me...Luckily, I was able to knock it down."
For Baylor (22-12), it is the second straight first-round exit from the tournament. The Bears lost on a last-second 3-pointer last year in a Georgia State's memorable victory.
Taurean Prince led Baylor (22-12) with 28 points. Johnathan Motley finished with 15 points and seven rebounds.
"We just got outrebounded and they played harder than us the whole 40 minutes," Prince said.
Yale played a chunk of the second half without Sears and Brandon Sherrod after both picked up their fourth fouls. Both returned with just over four minutes to play in the game.
The Bulldogs led by as many as 13 points in the second half before having its lead cut it to 76-75.
Baylor applied full court pressure on the inbounds play, but Yale got a long pass into Nick Victor, who was fouled with 6.8 seconds left.
Victor connected on the first, but air balled the second attempt. Baylor got the ball into Lester Medford. He slipped on his way to the basket, turning it over.
"I thought Yale did a great job in the second half making things tough for us to score," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "We only shot 38 percent. But I thought Mason really controlled the game. We had a difficult time matching him."
A big comeback for Little Rock, 85-83 over Purdue in 2OT
DENVER -- Little Rock looked all but finished. An underappreciated but no-longer-unknown guard named Josh Hagins wasn't quite done playing.
The 6-foot-1 senior made a 3-pointer from the edge of the half-court logo to send the game into overtime, a high looper off glass to send it into double-overtime, and kept right on scoring - 31 points in all - until his team had beaten Purdue 85-83 and grabbed a spot in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"Don't ever count the little guys out," first-year coach Chris Beard shouted toward press row as he ran off the court after his team joined Yale as the day's second No. 12 seed to beat a 5.
Hard to blame anyone who did, though.
The Trojans (30-4) were trailing by 13 and going nowhere with 3:33 left in regulation.
Suddenly, the champions of the Sun Belt Conference - yes, the same league that gave us Georgia State and coach Ron Hunter falling off his chair in last year's tournament - started making shots and injecting the madness into this March.
Trailing 68-64 with 33 seconds left, Hagins missed a 3 badly, but it rimmed sharply to the corner, and into the hands of 6-foot-11 Lis Shoshi. His 3-point attempt struck iron, bounced straight up and dropped.
Vince Edwards, who led the Boilermakers (26-9) with 24 points, hit two free throws to extend the lead back to three. Then Hagins worked the ball across half court looking only for one thing - a shot. Working against Purdue's P.J. Thompson, Hagins couldn't find room until he backed to the edge of the "March Madness" logo, about 30 or 35 feet away, and launched. It went, and the game moved to overtime, tied at 70.
On Little Rock's last possession in the first extra period, Purdue tried to stop Hagins with Rapheal Davis, but he didn't have any luck, either. Hagins drove, stopped on a dime and arched a shot that kissed off glass to tie things at 75.
In the second overtime, Hagins opened with a pull-up 12-footer that gave the Trojans a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Other Hagins highlights: A dribble drive to the baseline, then a fadeaway pull-up - a la Isaiah Thomas - for an 83-79 lead with 1:01 left. Hagins also made the game's last free throw, and after the buzzer sounded, Beard went to center court and kissed the floor.
Purdue walked off in shock. Senior A.J. Hammons finished his college career with 16 points, 15 rebounds and six blocked shots. When he hit two free throws with 3:33 left, Purdue looked as if it would be moving on.
Instead, it's Little Rock celebrating its first tournament victory since 1986 and getting ready for a Saturday meeting with Iowa State.
And it's Purdue going home, wondering what the heck just happened.
''We got complacent with our lead," Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said. "We didn't put our foot down and take control of the lead and keep it going, stay strong."
Top-seeded Kansas rolls past Austin Peay 105-79
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Kansas earned the top overall seed for the NCAA Tournament without getting much of anything from Svi Mykhailiuk.
If the Ukranian guard steps up, look out.
Mykhailiuk scored a career-high 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting and Perry Ellis had 21, leading the Jayhawks to a 105-79 victory over Austin Peay on Thursday.
Landen Lucas added 16 points for the Jayhawks (31-4), who will face Connecticut on Saturday with a chance to return to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013.
"We played pretty well in stretches. Didn't guard as well as we needed to guard to have a chance to advance past Saturday," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "So we've got to tighten that up. I do like how our bench played."
Kansas, the No. 1 seed in the South Region, jumped ahead by 20 by halftime and cruised to its 10th straight win in an NCAA Tournament opener.
Josh Robinson scored 24 points for the Governors (18-18), who learned quickly that the magic they leaned on to win four straight and the Ohio Valley title was no match for the talented Jayhawks.
"I think it's pretty clear Kansas is obviously a really talented basketball team. Great size, athletic ability," Austin Peay coach Dave Loos said.
Kansas entered this year's tournament as one of the favorites to win it all after dominating the brutal Big 12 for most the season. Self is looking for his second national championship, and the Jayhawks got off to a strong start by dismantling the overmatched Governors.
The most promising development was the play of Mykhailiuk.
Mykhailiuk, an 18-year-old reserve whose production often has failed to live up to his promise, didn't even score in wins over Baylor and West Virginia in the recent Big 12 tournament. But he hit three of his first four 3-point attempts, and his three-point play early in the second half helped put Austin Peay away after it closed to 61-44.
"It's like that all the time in practice. He didn't surprise me because I see it all the time from him," Kansas forward Jamari Traylor said. "He's just got to stay confident like this."
Kansas star Wayne Selden, who averaged a paltry 2.5 points in four previous NCAA Tournament games and was shut out in a loss to Wichita State last March, also impressed with seven points in the first 12 minutes. He finished with 14 points.
Any hope the Governors had at pulling off a monumental upset - or even staying close - was done in by a brutal start from the floor. Austin Peay hit just seven of its first 24 shots, with many of those misses from close range.
Chris Horton had 14 points and 10 rebounds in his final game for the Governors.
UVa routs Hampton 81-45 after Bennett collapses, returns
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Virginia sure got a scare in its NCAA Tournament opener.
Not from Hampton -- but from coach Tony Bennett.
The top-seeded Cavaliers beat 16th-seeded Hampton 81-45 on Thursday in the first round of the Midwest Regional after Bennett collapsed in the final seconds of the first half.
Saying he felt sick earlier in the week, Bennett blamed his collapse on dehydration.
"I've had more Powerade than I've ever had in my life right now," Bennett quipped.
Anthony Gill scored 19 points, London Perrantes had 12 points and Malcolm Brogdon finished with 11 for the top-seeded Cavaliers (28-6).
They shot 55 percent, hit 12 3-pointers - their most since November - and put this one well out of reach with a 20-3 run late in the first half. That had them well on their way to advancing to face ninth-seeded Butler (22-10) on Saturday.
Quinton Chievous scored 17 points and Reginald Johnson Jr. had 10 for 16th-seeded Hampton (20-11). Making their second straight NCAA Tournament appearance, the Pirates were just 4 of 20 from 3-point range and shot 32 percent. They never got closer than 19 in the second half.
"We talked about it. We believed it. We tried to live it," Hampton coach Edward Joyner Jr. said of the challenge of taking on a No. 1 seed as a No. 16 seed.
The biggest concern for Virginia occurred when Bennett fell to the floor with 34.1 seconds left. He sat on the bench talking to his assistants for a few moments, appearing to be in noticeable pain. Team trainers helped the 46-year-old to the locker room with 5.3 seconds left in the half and both teams still on the court.
Virginia fans gave him a loud ovation when he returned for the second half. Bennett spent the rest of the game sitting either on the bench or on a stool near the scorer's table instead of crouching on the sideline.
Gill was spotted with his head bowed in prayer while Bennett was being checked out by team medical staff, and a photo of the Virginia forward made the rounds on social media.
"I was praying just to make sure he was OK," Gill said with a straight face. "It worked. I healed him."
Everyone had a good laugh afterward at Bennett's scare, which came as the Cavaliers were putting the finishing touches on the game-deciding run.
After Hampton made it a two-point game with just under six minutes left in the half, Brogdon took over. He sandwiched two 3-pointers around a bullet pass that set up a dunk by Isaiah Wilkins.
Perrantes then hit consecutive 3s before Evan Nolte also hit from long range, and Gill's three-point play at the time Bennett collapsed made it 40-21 at halftime.
"It just started with ... getting into the paint, having our bigs be aggressive down low and just finishing down low," Perrantes said. "It opened up for us around the 3-point line."
Joyner was more succinct.
"We wanted to challenge to try to make them knock down shots," the Hampton coach said. "And they did."