The 6-foot-1 senior finished with 31 points, including six in the second overtime.
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Pay special attention to Arkansas-Little Rock vs. Iowa State, 6:10 p.m. on TNT.
The Yale Bulldogs held on in the final seconds to knock off the higher-seeded Baylor Bears, 79-75 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
If Yale proved one thing early in its first NCAA Tournament game since 1962 Thursday afternoon, it’s that it wouldn’t beat itself.
Baylor suffered its second straight first-round exit.
Brandon Sherrod led the 12th-seeded Bulldogs with 22 points. The Bears lost on a last-second three-pointer a year ago in Georgia State’s memorable victory.
One reporter posed that question to Baylor forward Taurean Prince, though not in that exact fashion, but his bewilderment was obvious, as if he tried to italicize the two school’s names with his voice to drive the point home.
Johnathan Motley was the only other Bear to score in double-figures, finishing with 15 points and seven boards on a 5-10 clip. In that game, Yale led with less than a minute remaining in the first half but faded after a couple of players got into foul trouble.
Duke (24-10), seeded fourth in the West, will next play Yale or Baylor. The difference in the outcome will center on the rest of the rotations where we like some combination of Marshall Plumlee, Luke Kennard, Matt Jones, and Derryck Thornton to out-pace their Bulldog counterparts to send Duke on to the Sweet 16. Yale, though, scored the first nine points of that game and maintained the lead for much of the first half. Freshman star Brandon Ingram scored 20 points and had nine rebounds. Chris Flemmings had 18, Denzel Ingram 17 and C.J. Bryce 16.
Anthony Gill scored 19 points, London Perrantes had 12 points and Malcolm Brogdon finished with 11 for the top-seeded Cavaliers (28-6). To put that in perspective, UConn’s Daniel Hamilton notched just 12 points when he visited the Mustangs, and Michigan’s Caris LeVert couldn’t even manage a basket until the final minutes of garbage time during his Wolverines’ visit to Moody Coliseum.
“We go hard, I blow the whistle, make ’em run to the free throw line, and we do that throughout practice”, Ollie said Thursday, adding, “So in the midst of that practice or running and sprints, you have to really calm yourself down, you’ve got to take the tension out”.
A layup by Sears and two free throws by Mason helped the lead back to 72-65, before Prince gave the Bears some life with a three-pointer.
Here are a few of our favorite moments from Thursday’s games – and a few of them involve actual basketball, too. Sears added 18 points. Duke connected on four of its final five free-throws to close out the game.
This game went down to the wire.
There’s a first time for everything.
No. 12 Little Rock 85, No. 5 Purdue 83 (2OT): In Denver, Little Rock is advancing thanks to an out-of-nowhere comeback that led to a win over Purdue. Baylor was one of the best rebounding teams in the country coming into the tournament, but Yale simply outworked them.
CT 74, Colorado 67 – Rodney Purvis, Daniel Hamilton and a stifling defense carried the Huskies back from an 11-point first-half deficit in Des Moines, giving CT enough for a victory over the Buffaloes that kept coach Kevin Ollie unbeaten in the NCAA tournament. And, as usual, the No. 1 seeds have so far assured themselves a spot in the second round.
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Josh Scott had 23 points and 11 rebounds for the No. 8 Buffaloes (22-12), finishing 0-3 in the NCAATournament in his career.
