We’re getting off to an early start with the March Madness. It was a night full of buzzer beaters, and we have video for those of you who, for some unholy reason, do not sit in front of the television devouring every second of action cable TV can provide.
First, we had Trevor Releford’s improbable half-court heave to break UGA’s heart:Alabama 61, Georgia 58
Then, the Horizon League finals were set in the most dramatic fashion possible:
Wright State 56, Detroit 54
Valparaiso 70, Green Bay 69
We also had drama in the Mountain West, which is becoming standard:
Air Force 89, No. 12 New Mexico 88
Finally, Belmont made themselves quite at home in their first season in the Ohio Valley Conference, downing previous league bully Murray State with this basket of onions:
Belmont 70, Murray State 68
Belmont’s buzzer-beater earned them an auto-bid, putting them in company with two other programs who guaranteed passage to the Big Dance with wins. The other two were in much less dramatic fashion, but a win’s a win, especially in March.
Florida Gulf Coast 88, Mercer 75
Harvard 65, Cornell 56
To recap, that’s auto-bids for Belmont, Florida Gulf Coast and Harvard.Along the way, some regular-season titles were decided with considerably less fanfare.
UCLA 61, Washington 54: The Bruins took the regular season title outright, thanks to Oregon’s slip-up at Utah.
Three teams split up the Big East title by winning on the same day:
Georgetown 61, Syracuse 39: This one made Jim Boeheim joke (?) about retiring.
Marquette 69, St. John’s 67: This one should have been in the buzzer beaters above. Bygones.
Louisville 73, Notre Dame 57: This one made Rob Dauster ask and answer a bunch of his own rhetorical questions.
St. Louis grabbed their piece of the hotly-contested A-10 title:
St. Louis 78, La Salle 54
And, finally, Kansas lost badly to Baylor, but still won their ninth-straight Big 12 title, because Kansas State also came up short:
Baylor 81, Kansas 58
Oklahoma State 76, Kansas State 70
Lots of other stuff happened, but these were the most meaningful moments. And this was just one day in early March.