The Wildest Day in NCAA Tournament History Is Over
By Jason Lisk
Did you see that coming? In case you were visiting from another universe, while we may call this March Madness, it’s not usually that crazy.
The day started with Notre Dame being taken to the wire by Northeastern, who had a chance to win or tie but turned the ball over with 3 seconds left. Notre Dame made two final free throws and that one ended as a 4-point margin. As it turns out, that doesn’t even rate in the upper half of endings from this day.
There may be more memorable individual shots in past tournaments, but no day provided the steady barrage of drama and close calls.
Five games were decided by only 1 point; a total of eight were decided by 3 points or less. That’s the most ever on a given tournament day in both categories (going back to 1985). In fact, since the field expanded to 64 or more, only three tournaments have seen an entire opening round with 9 close games decided by 3 or less (1998, 2001, 2003). We are almost there with a day to go. The average for Thursday and Friday combined is 5.4 close games. That’s over the course of 32 games.
Here’s a recap in case you’ve forgotten in all the madness.
- #3 seed Iowa State lost by a point to UAB, and had a chance to tie it with a three before the tip-in effectively ended the game.
- Baylor lost to Georgia State after having a 10 point lead late, leading to the moment of the tournament when head coach Ron Hunter fell off his scooter when his son R.J. hit the go-ahead three point shot.
- UCLA beat SMU in a wild one that included the rare goaltending game-winner on a 3-point shot;
- Ohio State beat VCU in overtime by 3 after playing Twister;
- North Carolina survived against Harvard when a game-winning shot hit off the back iron;
- Cincinnati came back to beat Purdue after being down 7 late, hitting a tying buzzer beater to send it to overtime
- BeeJay Anya hit a game winner to beat LSU
- Wofford had two three point shots go off the rim in the final seconds that would have tied it against Arkansas.
Get to bed. Who knows what tomorrow brings.