Happy Saint Patty’s Day at Moda for Bulldogs, Tigers, Gaels, Bruins
Saint Mary’s guard Logan Johnson drives to the basket over Indiana’s Race Thompson in Gaels’ 82-53 romp
Eight teams. Four games. Nine hours of basketball.
That’s the tale of the tape in Thursday’s first round of NCAA Tournament games at Moda Center.
Throughout the country, crazy things were happening on opening day.
In Indianapolis, No. 15 seed St. Peters shocked No. 2 seed Kentucky 83-79 in overtime. In Buffalo, the college basketball world was knocked off its axis as a pair of No. 12 seeds won. Richmond knocked off Iowa 67-63 while New Mexico State took down UConn 70-63 (Cliff Robinson is rolling over in his grave).
In the nightcap at Moda, there was an upset in the making, too, before UCLA rallied to avoid such an occasion.
No. 13 seed Akron led much of the way and was on top 49-42 with 5:15 remaining. The Bruins finished the game on a 15-4 run to pull out the win and earn a Saturday second-round matchup with Saint Mary’s.
In the early session, Gonzaga, the nation’s No. 1 seed, had 30 minutes of upset tummies before breaking loose to beat overmatched but game Georgia State. Memphis burst to a 19-point halftime lead, then held off a Boise State charge to win in a battle of No. 8 and 9 seeds.
In the other game in the late session, No. 5 Saint Mary’s took control at the 10-minute mark and breezed past weary Indiana.
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Georgia State’s Corey Allen and Gonzaga’s Andrew Nembhard battle for loose ball
GONZAGA 93, GEORGIA STATE 72: The final score doesn’t reflect the competitive nature of this one. Midway through the second half, the Bulldogs (32-3) led the Panthers (18-11) 59-57. It was anybody’s game.
By that time, though, Georgia State centers Eliel Nsoseme and Kane Williams were gone — Nsoseme to a first-half knee injury, Williams to five fouls and disqualification. Gonzaga’s bigs, 6-10 junior Drew Timme and 7-foot freshman Chet Holmgren, were simply too much. The Zags went on a 21-0 run to put it away.
“I hate it for these guys that the score really isn’t indicative of how the game was played,” Georgia State coach Rob Lanier said of his players. “We gave ourselves an opportunity, and to (the Zags’) credit, they had a burst there at the end.”
The victory gave Gonzaga a first-round NCAA Tournament victory for the 13th straight season.
“One of the hardest things to do in our sport is win in the NCAA Tournament,” said Mark Few, who has had a team in the tournament in each of his 23 season as Gonzaga’s head coach. “We don’t take that for granted. Within the program, we understand how special it is to make the NCAA Tournament, but also how hard it is to win. We certainly earned one today. Proud to keep that streak alive. Feels great to move on.”
Gonzaga had a target on its chest Thursday, as it will as far as it advances in the tournament. Nobody was giving 16th-seeded Panthers a chance to win. They had nothing to lose.
“It’s really important to be the hunter and not the hunted,” Few said. “We were trying to be that the first half. We just weren’t converting. We talked about it at halftime and got all of that out of our system. We needed to come back and be who we are in the second half. The guys did a great job of that.”
Timme finished with 32 points — 22 of them after intermission — and 13 rebounds in 27 minutes, sinking 13 of 21 shots from the field. He was 6 for 13 from the foul line. At halftime, he had 10 points and five rebounds and was 4 for 9 at the charity stripe as Gonzaga hit the locker room with only a 35-33 advantage.
“I had some jitters,” Timme said. “It’s March, you know. I was a little nervous. I was mad at myself for the free throws. That’s unacceptable.”
Timme was relentless in the second half, posting up smaller defenders time and time again.
“Credit to my teammates to tell me to keep going,” he said. “They said to just post up and get to the basket and do what you do best. It’s a confidence booster when guys have your back, especially when you’re struggling like that.”
Timme could easily have had 45 points; he missed at least five layups, and there were those seven missed foul shots.
Holmgren, meanwhile, had only five first-half points. But the 195-pound stick of dynamite exploded in the second half, finishing with 19 points, 17 rebounds, seven blocked shots and five assists in 28 minutes.
The potential No. 1 pick in the NBA draft was sensational at the defensive end, using his wingspan (7 feet, six inches), athleticism and instincts to negate much of what the Panthers tried to do inside.
He made 8 of 13 shots from the field. Two baskets stood out to me. In the first half, Holmgren took a lob pass from Timme — who by the way, sports the best pornstache in all of college basketball — and tipped it off the backboard and down with his left hand as he sprawled to the floor. Don’t try this at home, kids.
The other one was outrageous — a steal at midcourt and solo for a dunk with a defender draped on his shoulder, then making the free throw to finish a three-point play. Not bad for a giant beanpole whose body is the width of a handrail.
Timme and Holmgren have a veteran point guard to get them the ball. Andrew Nembhard, a 6-5 senior who has started 113 games in his four years at Gonzaga, finished with nine points and 11 assists. When a reporter at the postgame press conference asked Nembhard — flanked at the podium by Timme and Holmgren — how it felt to watch them dominate like they did in the second half, the big guys objected to the question.
“This guy makes it easy for me,” Holmgren said, nodding toward Nembhard.
Timme: “He’s the one who runs the ship, gets everything going in the right direction. Y’all don’t give him credit for what he does. Without him, we wouldn’t be here. I mean, 11 assists?”
Holmgren: “Eleven assists.”
Timme: “How many dudes are doing that? Come on, give him some more credit. Golly.”
Few followed up with a long list of compliments, including this: “Literally, we wouldn’t even have made the NCAA Tournament, or even been close, without him.”
I take exception to that. I respect Nembhard, who is a good player and has been instrumental in the Bulldogs’ success the past four years. I think Gonzaga would have found a way, however, to make the NCAA Tournament without him this season. Literally.
Gonzaga moves on to a second-round matchup with Memphis Saturday at Moda.
“(The Tigers) are physically imposing,” Few said. “They’re a great rebounding team. We’re going to have to rebound like we did in the second half today to give ourselves a chance. They have some guys who can really shoot it. We know we’re in for a heck of a game.”
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Memphis forward DeAndre Williams slams one down as Boise State’s Tyson Degenhart gets out of the way
MEMPHIS 64, BOISE STATE 53: The Broncos shot .315 from the field, yet somehow made it a game with a furious rally in the second half, drawing to within 58-53 with less than a minute remaining.
Memphis missed a shot and Boise State’s Tyson Degenhart rebounded, but just as he turned, Memphis point guard Alex Lomax poked the ball away. Freshman center Jalen Duren picked it up, spun and banked home a shot for a 60-53 lead. That was it for the Boise State. The Tigers secured a win in their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2014. The Broncos (27-8) are now 0-8 in NCAA Tournament history.
“Fantastic win for the program,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. “We knew the game wasn’t over at halftime. This is March Madness. We knew Boise is a great team; they were going to dig in. They’ve been in close games all year. We dug in deep and pulled out a great victory.”
Memphis won it with defense. The Tigers did a brilliant job double-teaming the player with the ball when it went to the floor, particularly Boise State’s leading scorer, forward Abu Kigab, and 6-8 point guard Emmanuel Akot. Kigab, a redshirt senior who played his first two college seasons at Oregon, was scoreless on 0 for 4 from the field at the half. As a team, the Broncos were 7 for 24, and 1 for 6 at the foul line, through the first 20 minutes.
Kigab put on a show in the second half, though, scoring 20 points and energizing a pro-Boise State crowd that had been silenced by Memphis in the first half. The Broncos used full-court pressure to limit Memphis opportunities; the Tigers went nearly nine minutes without a field goal. In the end, time ran out, and Boise State simply couldn’t generate enough offense to win.
“Great second half by our guys,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “They were in that game in the end. The hole we dug in the first half was a little too deep. These guys never disappoint me as far as (having) the heart of a lion. They always battle to the very end.”
Memphis (22-10) has won 12 of its last 14 games. DeAndre Williams, a 6-9 senior, scored 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting. Duren, a 6-11, 250-pound manchild destined to be a lottery pick in the June NBA draft, made only 4 of 11 shots but collected 10 points and 11 rebounds.
“We were in jeopardy of getting blown out by a really talented team,” Rice said. “(Memphis) is a team that’s putting it together. They started out in the top 10, and I can see why. They had a rough stretch, but they worked it out, and now they’ve got it going.
“They came out and got us on the heels with their defense, their presses. The second half ,we did much better job of being the aggressor. These guys weren’t about to go away being blown away. They went down swinging.”
Memphis had a scare late in the first half when Lomax went down hard after a shot and was on the floor for a couple of anxious moments with an ankle injury. He sat out the rest of the half, but shook it off and played most of the second half, contributing nine points, five rebounds and five assists.
“It was painful,” said Lomax, a Memphis native who was coached by Hardaway in high school and has worked with him since sixth grade. “I landed on the foot and felt a couple of pops in the ankle. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, though. I was able to finish the game.”
“That’s who he is,” Hardaway said. “If he can walk, he’s going to be out there. That’s the heart and soul of this team. He’s a winner. To see him gut through it is what I’m used to.”
Lomax was asked if he thought he would be able to play in Saturday’s second round matchup with No. 1-ranked Gonzaga.
“A lot of adrenaline is rushing right now,” he said. “I’ll be good to go.”
On Saturday, Hardaway will be facing Gonzaga’s Holmgren, whom he tried hard to recruit out of high school in Minneapolis. And Timme, whom Hardaway recruited, too, out of Richardson, Texas.
“I love Chet,” Hardaway said. “I talked to him three times a week for four or five months. We got really close. Such a terrific player.
“I watched Drew play an entire summer in Texas. Watching his fundamentals, I was thinking, ‘Who is this kid? I got to know who this is.’ ”
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UCLA’s Tyger Campbell takes it to the hole against Akron’s Xavier Castaneda. Campbell’s late flurry keyed the Bruins’ 57-53 comeback win
UCLA 57, AKRON 53: It was close all the way, with neither team leading by more than eight points. But the Zips led for more than 27 minutes and had the upper hand most of the way.
Then point guard Tyger Campbell came to the rescue, scoring eight points in the span of 90 seconds, as the Bruins won on a night in which they couldn’t hit a stage with a banjo.
“I wanted to make a play,” said Campbell, who scored a team-high 16 points with five assists. “I went to execute on them and the shots went in.”
UCLA had the ball leading 52-51 with 2:06 to go. With the shot clock ticking down to zero, Campbell bombed in a 25-foot 3 that made it 55-51. Akron (24-10) never recovered.
“Jaime (Jacquez) tossed the ball to me,” Campbell said. “I looked up at the shot clock and knew I had to let it go. When I shot it, it looked good.”
It was. The Bruins needed it on a night when they made only 19 of 54 shots from the field (.352).
Cronin, in his third season at UCLA after 13 years art Cincinnati, credited Akron’s defense.
“That’s the most well-coached, best defensive team we’ve played all year,” said Cronin, lightly slapping the faces of the Arizona Wildcats. “All their guys are so tough. We couldn’t get the ball inside. It wasn’t a battle because we weren’t ready.
“We only turned it over twice in the second half, which allowed us to get enough shots where we finally started making some. It reminded me of Big East games. It was a rock fight.”
UCLA faces Saint Mary’s at 4:10 p.m. Saturday in a second-round matchup at Moda. Cronin will go against Gaels guard Logan Johnson, who played for Cronin as a freshman at Cincinnati, then transferred when Cronin moved to UCLA.
“Logan’s my guy,” Cronin said. “Love him dearly. Couldn’t be more happy for the way his career has evolved. One of the best athletes you’ll ever see play college basketball. He impacts the game in every possible way.”
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SAINT MARY’S 82, INDIANA 53: For about 10 minutes, the Hoosiers — playing their fifth game in eight days — hung in. Then Saint Mary’s (26-7) began to pull away and gave the West Coast Conference its second victory of the day in Portland.
The Gaels shot .517 from the field and .476 from 3-point range while the Hoosiers, who had beaten Wyoming in a play-in game on Tuesday, could hardly hit a shot. Indiana (21-14) shot .340 from the field and made only 2 of 10 attempts from beyond the arc.
“We played well,” said Randy Bennett, in his 21st season at the Saint Mary’s helm. “We shot it well. After the first 10 minutes, we defended well. I think we wore them down. All the factors then came into play, but I don’t want to negate the fact our guys played well. We beat a really good program and are moving on to the second round.”
Bennett later expounded on “the “factors.”
“These two teams are more even than tonight’s game showed,” he said. “I know Indiana won’t use this as an excuse, but (the Hoosiers) didn’t have any chance to prepare for us. They played Tuesday night, they’re flying Wednesday to get here. It’s hard to guard us if you can’t get prep on us, and we got prep on them.
“There’s no question it’s an advantage to be rested. We still have to go out and (win the game). There’s a lot of pressure in the first game of the NCAA Tournament. But you could see it on their faces. They were gassed — probably at halftime — and got in too big a hole.”
Saint Mary’s has eight international players on its 15-man roster, including three starters in Bennett’s three-guard lineup. No. 2 scorer Mattias Tass, a 6-10 senior center, is from Estonia. Alex Ducas, a 6-7 junior starting guard, and Kyle Bowen, a 6-8 starting forward, are from Australia. Reserve guard Augustas Marciulionis, a 6-4 freshman from Lithuania, is the son of ex-NBA guard Sarunas Marciulionis.
But perhaps the Gaels’ two most important players are not imports: 6-2 seniors Johnson and Tommy Kuhse. Johnson, from Mountain View, Calif., scored 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting. Kuhse, from Mesa, Ariz., added 19 points with six assists.
“We’ve bumped up another level as a team, and it’s 100 percent because of these two guys,” Bennett said. “Logan’s leadership is tremendous. We don’t have to tell him what to say. He knows what to say.”
Asked about Indiana’s physical nature, Johnson smiled.
“You should see our practices if you want to see physicality,” he said. “We’re a gritty, not pretty team.”
Before we finish, let’s mention a couple of other moments of excitement during the Saint Mary’s-Indiana encounter.
Early in the second half, the game ball got stuck atop the backboard below the shot clock standard. Players — the big guys — couldn’t jump up high enough to get it. They were reluctant to stand on a folding chair to try to grab it. The fans booed. The players shrugged. Then a male cheerleader put a female cheerleader up on his hands to retrieve the ball. Mission accomplished. The crowd gave its approval with a thunderous roar.
Later, during a timeout with a Saint Mary’s victory assured wrapped up, the Jumbotron flipped to the Kentucky-St. Peters game, which was in overtime. Fans turned their attention to the potential upset. As play resumed, the giant monitor switched to live action in Moda. The fans booed loudly.
So much fun. And the basketball inside the arena wasn’t bad, either.
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