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Recap of Day 1's March Madness Action in the NCAA Tournament
Sixteen of the 32 second round games in this year’s NCAA Tournament are complete. Here are a few notes from Thursday.
- Kentucky, No. 1 overall and in the Midwest Region, moved to 35-0 on the season with a rout of No. 16 Hampton, 79-56. However, Hampton did lead – once – with a score of 4-3, and the game was tied 9-9 before Kentucky pulled away.
- Eight games were decided by three points or less; five games were decided by one point (three in Louisville alone). The average margin of victory in Thursday’s 16 games was 9.75 points.
- The largest difference in victory margin was No. 1 Villanova’s 41-point (93-52) win over No. 16 Lafayette in the East Region in Pittsburgh.
- Villanova and Arizona each scored 93 points, tied for the most of any team Thursday. Only seven teams scored more than 70 points, four of which came in two games.
- Texas entered Thursday tied with the state of Indiana with most teams in this year’s tournament – five. All five lost. Meanwhile, Indiana’s teams won two of its three games (only loss came from Purdue in overtime); two other schools play Friday.
- Speaking of Indiana, at least one team will advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Butler and Notre Dame square off Saturday after winning their Thursday games.
- The state of Ohio is 4-0 in this year’s tournament. Cincinnati, Xavier and Ohio State all won Thursday. Dayton advanced out of the “First Four” Wednesday with a victory in their home arena. Dayton will play again Friday against Providence in Columbus, Ohio.
- Two games went into overtime. No. 10 Ohio State defeated No. 7 VCU in the West Region and No. 8 Cincinnati beat No. 9 Purdue in the Midwest Region.
- Purdue was a woeful 4-for-27 from the perimeter, and at one point missed 13 consecutive 3-point field goal attempts.
- The lower-seeded teams won only four of the 16 games. The No. 14 seeded teams won two of its three games Thursday (first time since 1995 two No. 14 seeds advanced to the round of 32), with UAB beating No. 3 Iowa State and Georgia State beating No. 3 Baylor. Combined, those four victories were by six points.
- In terms of conferences, the Big East went 4-0, with victories from Villanova, Butler, Xavier and Georgetown. The ACC went 3-0, with Notre Dame, North Carolina and North Carolina State all squeezing out close victories.
- No. 13 Harvard and No. 4 North Carolina were tied 65-65 as late as 24 seconds remaining in the game, before a North Carolina dunk put the game away.
- Leading all players in scoring was D’Angelo Russell from Ohio State, with 28 points.
- The last year that No. 5 seeds won all four games against No. 12 seeds was 2007. Both No. 5 seeds won Thursday’s games – Utah over Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas over Wofford. Two other No. 5-No. 12 matchups are scheduled Friday.
- One of the oddest stoppages of play came in the Arkansas-Wofford game. An Arkansas player kicked one of his shoes into the crowd, and a teammate through a shoe onto the court. Instead of issuing a technical foul, officials charged Arkansas with a delay of game warning.
- No. 13 Eastern Washington’s Tyler Harvey, the nation’s leading scorer with 22.9 ppg, scored 27 points in his team’s loss against No. 3 Georgetown. Georgetown also snapped a five-game losing streak to double-digit seeds, which started in the 2008 Tournament.
- In the East Region, No. 9 LSU scored only five points in the final 10 minutes of its game against No. 8 North Carolina State, and lost on a hook shot by NCSU in the final seconds. During that same period, LSU missed all 12 of its field goal attempts.
