Cam Heide hits late dagger to advance 11-seed Texas to the Sweet 16
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Cam Heide only scored 3 points all night in Texas‘s second-round showdown against mighty Gonzaga, but they just happened to be the most important 3 points of the game.
The junior forward took a feed from Tramon Mark in the right corner and buried that 3-pointer that gave the 11th-seeded Longhorns a 4-point cushion with 14.7 seconds left in Saturday night’s West Region thriller in Portland. It was the shot of the game and the moment of the night, and the 3rd-seeded Bulldogs had nothing left in the final seconds, misfiring at the other end after Heide’s heroics as Texas ran off with a 74-68 victory that put the Longhorns into the Sweet 16.
Yes, the same Longhorns who had to trudge up to Dayton, Ohio, on Tuesday night for a First Four game against NC State. Texas survived that opening battle, with none other than Mark hitting a last-second shot in that 68-66 victory, sending the Longhorns out to Portland for a first-round matchup against No. 6 seed BYU.
The Cougars couldn’t contain the surging Horns on Thursday night, with Texas winning comfortably this time, 79-71, to get a crack at Gonzaga in the second round. The March Madness magic continued on Saturday night against the favored Bulldogs, the perennial power from the West Coast Conference, and now the Longhorns are headed for a Sweet 16 matchup against either No. 2 seed Purdue or No. 7 seed Miami.
The Boilermakers and Hurricanes will do battle on Sunday afternoon in St. Louis, and Texas will surely be watching to see who it’ll face next Thursday night in the regional semifinals in San Jose, Calif. The Longhorns, who limped into the NCAA Tournament at just 18-14, are suddenly 21-14 and playing with house money as a double-digit seed in the Sweet 16.
They can thank a lot of people for that, with Heide at the top of the list after his late, clutch shot buried Gonzaga.
Gonzaga was 31-3 coming into Saturday’s second-round matchup, but that didn’t matter to Sean Miller’s gritty team. Heide only played 13 minutes, with him finishing with as many fouls (3) as points (3), but that didn’t matter either after he saved his best for last.
Texas clicked on offense, shooting 52% from the field, and it shared the ball so well as a team, finishing with 20 assists and just 5 turnovers.
The Longhorns had 4 players in double figures, led by Matas Vokietaitis and Jordan Pope, who each scored 17 points, with Vokietaitis adding 9 rebounds. Dailyn Swain stuffed the stat sheet on Saturday night, finishing with 11 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists, while Nic Codie chipped in 12 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists off the bench.
Meanwhile, Gonzaga got 25 points in 39 minutes from Graham Ike, but Texas shut down everybody else, with Jalen Warley being the only other Bulldog in double figures with 10 points.
Gonzaga only made 4 3-pointers all night, as the Horns kept the Bulldogs’ offense at bay just enough to escape at the end with the victory and a most stunning trip to the Sweet 16 in Miller’s first season in Austin.
With Texas alive and well after its journey from the First Four, here is what the Kalshi market currently sees for the top teams in the mix to get all the way to the Final Four:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
