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After months of waiting, March Madness arrived in earnest on Thursday when Louisville and Creighton tipped in Lexington. An afternoon session of lopsided affairs gave way to an improved evening session that brought upsets, statement wins, and plenty of late game drama. Here are 3 shining moments from Day 1 of the Madness — with the bonus — before we do it all again on Friday, beginning with Baylor and Mississippi State in East Regional action at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh.
Yes, the ACC was that bad this season
Clemson’s most lopsided 2-point loss in basketball history to McNeese State was stunning in multiple ways, the rare first round exit by a starting 5 littered with players full of winning experience in March.
Clemson was a team SDS was high on entering the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers had good balance in the frontcourt and backcourt, a dynamic point guard in Chase Hunter, impressive physicality with Ian Schieffelin and Viktor Lahkin dominant on the glass, and the experience of the Elite Eight run last season. The bracket set up nicely too, or so we thought, with a McNeese team that plays a similar style but has less talent than the Tigers and then a potential second round game against a smaller Purdue team susceptible to teams that can control the offensive glass and shoot the triple. Credit McNeese for seizing the game by the throat early, but for Clemson’s veteran group to lay that big an egg in the first half, scoring just 13 points and digging an insurmountable hole? That was pathetic.
Louisville’s loss to Creighton in Lexington, with Rupp Arena filled to the rafters with Louisville faithful, was less surprising, as the Cardinals ran into an under-seeded Bluejays team led by an All-American in Ryan Kalkbrenner and a head coach in Greg McDermott who has taken his program to at least the Round of 32 in the last 5 NCAA Tournaments. Pat Kelsey still has a hot wife and healthy kids and the job he did at Louisville in Year 1 was remarkable, regardless of an 89-75 defeat to a quality Creighton team in the first round.
But the conclusion to draw from Clemson and Louisville’s defeats is unmistakable. Yes, the ACC was miserable this season. Clemson and Louisville went 18-2 in the ACC this year and promptly trailed by a combined 33 points at halftime in their opening round NCAA Tournament games. Ouch. And while Duke passes both the eye test and the predictive metrics test as a “great team,” the reality is the Blue Devils clearly have not been pushed much for the past 2 months. That’s not their fault, but when the best your league can produce outside of Durham are Clemson and Louisville teams that get run out of the gym in the Round of 64, it’s okay to preserve a little cynicism.
Judging a league by its March results is almost always a fool’s errand. But given the way the ACC and its leadership have puffed out their chest about deep runs in March over the past few years, it’s entirely fair game to flip the narrative. The ACC was bad this season, and only blue-bloods Duke and North Carolina remain, with the Tar Heels season potentially over as soon as Friday.
Drake ends Missouri’s season in a Ben McCollum masterclass
Dennis Gates built a Missouri team that was brutally difficult to play against this season due to their 10-11 man depth, ability to score in transition, and disruptive, frenetic switching defenses. Ben McCollum, who won 4 Division II national titles before taking over as head coach at Drake this season, negated all of those strengths in a 67-57 upset of No. 6 Mizzou on Thursday night in Wichita.
Missouri’s depth didn’t matter because Drake controlled the tempo, playing a 65-possession game that was the fewest for a Missouri game since a 63-possession game in a win over Georgia in February. Drake minimized Missouri’s transition opportunities thanks to their unflappable point guard, Bennett Stirtz, who scored 21 points, dished out 4 assists, and committed only 4 turnovers in the Bulldogs’ win. Stirtz answered the bell every time it seemed like the Tigers were poised to make a push, too, hitting shots like this one to help Drake snuff out a Missouri rally.
Finally, Drake limited transition opportunities by controlling the glass. The Bulldogs out-rebounded Missouri 31-26, with Tavion Banks collecting a game-high 9 rebounds and playing fantastic defense on Mark Mitchell, who never got going and finished with just 8 points on 2-8 shooting. Missouri, a top 10 offense in America, too often settled for jump shots in the first half as Drake built a lead. By the time Gates and Missouri adjusted, the hole was too large.
Drake fans reveled in the win, chanting “S-E-C, S-E-C” derisively in the closing minutes. The Bulldogs will now get a chance to challenge a Big 12 power on Saturday in the Round of 32 when they meet Texas Tech.
For Missouri, it was a good season with some great moments, including 3 wins over top 5 opponents. But Dennis Gates and company faded down the stretch, dropping 6 of their final 8 games. The Tigers will have to defend better next season than they did this year to play deeper into March. A 70th ranked defense, per KenPom, crushed them in a lower possession battle on Thursday night.
Texas A&M shows you can’t bully ball the bully ball kings
The most impressive SEC basketball team on Thursday was Texas A&M, who handled Yale, a trendy upset pick, 80-71 in South Regional action at Ball Arena in Denver.
Yale figured to challenge the Aggies with their surprising physicality, especially on the glass, where the Bulldogs ranked top 25 in America. The Aggies were prepared for that test, out-rebounding the Bulldogs 37-29 and imposing their will on the game in the second half, when Yale grabbed just 2 offensive rebounds.
Yale also likes to pound the ball inside and drive to create free throws and rim pressure, but Thursday night’s game was a reminder that almost no one does that as well as a Buzz Williams ball club. The Aggies shot 52% from the field on the night — a scorching number, by their standards — and a ridiculous 71.4% on 2-point field goals, diving to the rim and feeding Pharrel Payne (25 points, 10 rebounds) with regularity to prove you can’t bully ball the bully ball kings.
Texas A&M’s top 10 defense did the rest, limiting Yale to just 29% shooting in the first half to build a 13-point lead and then seeing the game off with their ability to limit Yale possessions and second-chance opportunities late.
Texas A&M gets Michigan, in a deeply fascinating contrast of styles, in the second round. If the Aggies can turnover a Michigan team that is sometimes too casual with the ball, Buzz Williams may finally get to the second weekend with Texas A&M.
And 1: Georgia got a raw deal — but Mike White will have work to do in the offseason
In a battle of Bulldogs in Wichita, Georgia was outclassed from the top by Gonzaga, who built a 27-3 (No, it was really 27-3) lead and never looked back in vanquishing the Dawgs 89-68.
Mike White, who lost a NCAA Tournament first-round game for the first time in his coaching career, accomplished something in simply taking a Georgia program that had not been dancing since 2015 to the Big Dance. But as Georgia signs off on a 23rd consecutive season without a single NCAA Tournament win, it’s worth asking what it will take for White to bring Georgia back to the Tournament with the chance to stay longer next season.
Asa Newell, who had 20 points and 12 rebounds as Georgia’s lone bright spot Thursday, is a projected lottery pick, unlikely to play another season in red and black. Silas Demary Jr.’s late-season flourish, along with his physicality as a driver and on-ball defender, may make him test his NIL value in the transfer portal. Blue Cain is a great shooter and a terrific competitor, but he’s athletically deficient defensively and hardly a foundation you build a program around. Tyrin Lawrence and Dakota Leffew were short term portal rentals, gone to graduation.
Roster turnover is nothing new in college basketball. It’s part and parcel with the portal era. At Georgia, however, it’s fair to wonder what the long-term aim of the roster construction is moving forward. Georgia lacked an identity on offense this season and was one of the youngest teams in the SEC (1.86 years of experience per rotation player). Now they’ll have to start over without Newell, their centerpiece, and potentially without Demary Jr., their second-best player. That’s a heavy lift, especially given Georgia’s second-tier NIL situation for basketball, which ties White’s hands a bit in terms of who can be added to the fold.
Bottom line? Year 3 of the White era in Athens was a success. But Year 4 may be defining.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
