It had been a tough day for St. Joe’s Head Coach Phil Martelli, who received some bad news early that day.
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St. Joseph’s and Cincinnati played a classic 8-9 matchup in the final game of the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night. Cincinnati appeared to tie the game as time expired in regulation, only for the Bearcats’ buzzer-beating dunk to be overturned to no basket.
“I like to include them in what’s gone on, a guy like John Williamson, those kind of guys”, Cronin said. The Hawks quickly answered with buckets by Bembry and Miles and a falling-down 3-pointer by Brown to retake the lead, 75-71 with 2:33 to play. UC actually played a very good game schematically and came with a lot of effort, which I really hoped to see from this team.
The Hawks now advance to the NCAA Second Round game against top-seeded OR on Sunday evening at 9:40 p.m. ET (6:40 p.m. local time) on TBS.
The NCAA released a statement after the game saying Ellis’ dunk was “disallowed because the ball was on his fingertips when the clock hit 0.0”.
“I feel awful for my team”, Cronin said. You could tell from the get go that this was the plan all along, to air it out, but after UC cooled off, they were not prepared to drive to the rim, as you could see the players became gassed midway through the 2nd half. In somewhat controversial fashion, one of the nation’s most underrated teams from a high-major gets a chance to play at least one more game.
One week earlier, the Bearcats saw UConn’s Jalen Adams hit a miracle 70-foot shot at the end of a third overtime of a quarterfinal game in the American Athletic Conference tournament and ultimately fell to the Huskies in the fourth overtime. Isaiah Miles is averaging 18.4 points and 8.1 rebounds while DeAndre Bembry is averaging 17.3 points and 4.5 assists.
The ninth-seeded Bearcats (22-11) chose to push the ball up the court with Troy Caupain penetrating and wrapping a pass around a defender to Octavius Ellis under the basket for a dunk that was too close to call.
“Saint Joseph’s is 14-6 ATS in its last 20 games “.
Cincinnati fought back and Ellis’ basket cut the lead to 66-62 with eight minutes left. St. Joe’s senior Isaiah Miles continued his stellar season with a three-pointer with nine seconds left.
Back came the Hawks. When the Bearcats’ Cobb hit a 3-pointer with 2:40 to play in the half, Cincinnati had turned a 27-19 deficit into a 36-33 lead.
Saint Joseph’s: Cincinnati leads the series 3-2…
Cincinnati shot 51 percent and was 10 of 24 behind the arc; St. Joe’s shot 48 percent, making 9 of 24 threes.
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The Hawks are now 28-7, for the second most wins in school history, and will tie the school record for games in a season on Sunday when they play their 36th, matching the 2004-05 team which reached the NIT Championship game. This is UC’s sixth straight NCAA appearance, following a five-year drought as Cronin rebuilt the program after the Bob Huggins-Andy Kennedy coaching departures.
