N.C.A.A. Tournament: Men’s Roundup
Pac-12, a Dismissed Conference, Does Some Dismissing of Its Own
By JOHN BRANCH and BEN SHPIGEL
SAN JOSE, Calif. — First Oregon, then California. Just like that, men’s basketball in the Pacific-12 Conference does not seem so measly after all.
Handed No. 12 seeds, but sent to the same site to open the N.C.A.A. tournament, Oregon and Cal provided back-to-back upsets of fifth-seeded opponents Thursday to advance to the Round of 32.
Oregon walloped Oklahoma State, 68-55, to set up a game against fourth-seeded St. Louis on Saturday.
Cal, fueled by a partisan crowd just a short drive from its Berkeley campus, slid past Nevada-Las Vegas, 64-61. The Golden Bears will play Syracuse on Saturday.
The Pac-12 was given nothing higher than a No. 6 seed among its five representatives in the N.C.A.A. tournament. But the Ducks and the Bears looked capable of pushing further into the bracket, and sixth-seeded Arizona beat Belmont, 81-64, giving the Pac-12 a 3-0 record on Thursday.
“If we play with confidence, like we have been, we’re a scary team,” the Oregon senior forward E. J. Singler said.
Both Oregon and Cal won with strong guard play and substandard games by the opposing team’s N.B.A.-quality stars.
Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart, a muscular, do-everything guard considered among the best freshmen in the country, had 14 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists. But he and his teammates struggled to combat the speed and shooting touch of Oregon’s own dynamic freshman guards.
Damyean Dotson led Oregon with 17 points, while his backcourt partner, Dominic Artis, had 13. Arsalan Kazemi, a 6-7 senior, had 11 points and a game-high 17 rebounds, including a buzzer-beating putback that gave Oregon a 37-26 halftime lead. Oklahoma State never climbed within single digits again.
Cal had a tougher time shaking U.N.L.V., who beat the Bears by 1 in Berkeley in December. U.N.L.V.’s Anthony Bennett, a brawny 6-8 freshman who averaged 19 points during the season and had 25 against Cal in December, was held to 3 first-half points and 15 for the game.
Cal’s Allen Crabbe, a 6-6 junior, led the Bears with 19 points. Missed free throws by Cal allowed U.N.L.V. to narrow the deficit to 2 in the final 10 seconds, but the Bears made just enough to pull the upset.
ARIZONA 81, BELMONT 64 In this uneven college basketball season filled with upsets and defined by inconsistency, perennially scrappy Belmont seemed primed for its first N.C.A.A. tournament victory, primed to bust a bracket, as many have long predicted.
But not Thursday. Not against Arizona, a sixth seed in the West Region, a team near the end of its own uneven season. The Wildcats (26-7) dominated the Bruins (26-7) wire to wire in their tournament opener in Salt Lake City.
It was the sixth N.C.A.A. appearance for Belmont, the No. 11 seed, without a victory. For Arizona, a team that won its first 14 games but lost four conference games in February alone, it was a step in the right direction, into the round of 32.
The Wildcats will play Harvard, the 14th seed. The Belmont game seemed like a warm-up. Mark Lyons led Arizona with 23 points.
Belmont entered this game ranked fourth in the country in shooting percentage, at 49.4 percent. But the Bruins did not shoot well in the first half, making 7 of 27 shots from the field and only 2 of 13 attempts from 3-point range. Of those field goals, the sharpshooter Ian Clark made five.
For a team that made the third-most 3-pointers in Division I since 2006, it was a disaster, the worst-case scenario. The Wildcats, though, had something to do with that.
It was a matter of distance. Belmont took jump shots. Arizona pounded the ball inside. It scored more points in the paint (8-6) and more second-chance points (8-0) in the first half. It also outrebounded the Bruins by what looked like a misprint: 27-9. Those totals only increased as the game went on, as did Arizona’s lead.
Belmont mounted a short-lived comeback in the second half. Lyons drove the middle and threw down a thunderous dunk, and then it was onward for the Wildcats. GREG BISHOP
MEMPHIS 54, ST. MARY’S 52 Memphis would not stop going, just going, up and down the court, it seemed, until each possession ended in some spectacular crash. There were big blocks and bad turnovers, missed shots and huge dunks. The chaos did not stop, not until St. Mary’s had one last chance to end it.
The Gaels banked in a 3-pointer with 3.1 seconds left to close the gap to 2 points. Then the ensuing inbounds pass was tipped off the face of Memphis’s Joe Jackson and out of bounds. St. Mary’s had possession, on the Memphis baseline, with 1.9 seconds left.
Matthew Dellavedova, the star guard at St. Mary’s, set a screen and then made a break for the corner. He caught the inbounds pass behind the arc, turned, leapt, hung for a moment with the defender there and heaved a shot toward the basket. It missed, and he covered his face with his hands and then his jersey. His teammates consoled him.
“I had a good look,” Dellavedova said while slouched in the locker room afterward. He shook his head. His eyes were red. “It was just too long.”
Just barely did Memphis, the No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region, survive 11th-seeded St. Mary’s in Auburn Hills, Mich. Memphis Coach Josh Pastner smiled as he walked off the court and yelled to friends. He was grateful for every win, he said. This was his first N.C.A.A. tournament win in the four seasons since he took over for John Calipari.
When Dellavedova made one of two free throws with 24.2 seconds left, St. Mary’s trailed by 5. Dellavedova, in particular, had been harassed by the Tigers’ defense. He was bumped, bullied and double-teamed. He played for all 40 minutes and finished with 7 assists, 6 turnovers and 10 points, on 3-of-13 shooting.
“It was hard for him to get a good look, the way they were playing him,” St. Mary’s Coach Randy Bennett said. He added: “For him to do what he did is remarkable. Wish he hit would have hit that last shot. And so does he.” TIM ROHAN
COLORADO ST. 84, MISSOURI 72 Colorado State outmuscled and outhustled Missouri, riding 26 points from Dorian Green and a 36-18 rebounding advantage to a Midwest Region victory in Lexington, Ky. The eighth-seeded Rams led for the final 38 minutes, but they pulled away with a 17-4 second-half run to secure the program’s first N.C.A.A. tournament triumph since 1989. BEN SHPIGEL
ST. LOUIS 64, NEW MEXICO ST. 64 Dwayne Evans had 24 points, and fourth-seeded St. Louis overwhelmed 13th-seeded New Mexico State (24-11) in San Jose behind a dominating defense.
Playing with a heavy heart since Coach Rick Majerus died in December, the Billikens (28-6) eclipsed the 1988-89 team’s program record of 27 victories and are back where they were a year ago, in the round of 32.
“It was like Rick was up on top of the backboard slapping the ball out,” Aggies Coach Marvin Menzies said. (AP)
MICHIGAN 71, S. DAKOTA ST. 56 Glenn Robinson III scored 21 points and, helping fourth-seeded Michigan overcome a rough night for Trey Burke in a win over 13th-seeded South Dakota State in Auburn Hills.
Burke, the Wolverines’ star point guard, made only two field goals and left the game briefly in the second half after a hard fall under the basket. He came back after that, but he finished with 6 points and was held in single digits for the first time all season.
Michigan (27-7) will face Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday.
South Dakota State (25-10) trailed by only 4 at halftime but could not keep up. The high-scoring guard Nate Wolters was held to 10 points. (AP)
LOUISVILLE 79, N.C. A&T 48 Russ Smith scored 23 points and set a Louisville N.C.A.A. tournament record with a career-high eight steals, and the top-seeded Cardinals demolished North Carolina A&T in Lexington.
Louisville finished with a season-high 20 steals as it forced the Aggies (20-17) into 27 turnovers. It was the 11th straight win for the Cardinals (30-5), who will play Colorado State on Saturday. (AP)
MICHIGAN ST. 65, VALPARAISO 54 Derrick Nix had 23 points and a career-high 15 rebounds to help power third-seeded Michigan State past 14th-seeded Valparaiso (26-8) in Auburn Hills.
The Spartans (26-8) took control with a 26-5 run in the first half and will play Memphis on Saturday. (AP)
WICHITA ST. 73, PITTSBURGH 55 Malcolm Armstead scored 22 points, Cleanthony Early added 21, and ninth-seeded Wichita State defeated eighth-seeded Pittsburgh (24-9) in Salt Lake City.
Tray Woodall, Pitt’s leading scorer this season, who went into the game averaging 11.8 points, was held to 2 points while going 1 of 12 from the field.
The Shockers (27-8) will face No. 1-ranked Gonzaga on Saturday. (AP)
V.C.U. 88, AKRON 42 Troy Daniels had 23 points, and V.C.U. (27-8) beat Akron in Auburn Hills in the most lopsided victory by a fifth-seeded team over a No. 12 in N.C.A.A. tournament history.
The previous mark was set by Wyoming in a 35-point win over Howard in 1981 and was matched by Tennessee against Long Beach State in 2007, according to Stats.
Akron (26-7) played without the suspended point guard Alex Abreul. In addition, the starting guard Brian Walsh and the reserve center Pat Forsythe were limited by the flu, and the reserve guard Deji Ibitayo was not even in uniform because of back spasms. (AP)
SYRACUSE 81, MONTANA 34 Brandon Triche scored 20 points, C. J. Fair added 13, and fourth-seeded Syracuse shut down 13th-seeded Montana with its zone defense in San Jose.
Michael Carter-Williams chipped in 4 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists as the Orange (27-9) raced out to an early lead that grew as high as 50 points. Syracuse coasted past the Grizzlies (25-7) to its most lopsided tournament win since it beat Brown, 101-52, in the first round in 1986. (AP)
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