NCAA Tournament Watch: Colgate wins, Pitino loses, bubble pandemonium

Only one conference championship on Wednesday night — in the Patriot League. But there was plenty of chaos on the bubble as well as a huge upset of Rick Pitino in the MAAC. Let’s talk some NCAA Tournament!

Of course, the NCAA Tournament Manifest awaits at the end of the post, breaking down who’s in, who’s out and who did and didn’t do themselves favors on the bubble today.

Patriot League: Colgate earns second tournament bid in a row

The Colgate Raiders sunk the U.S. Naval Academy in the Patriot League title game Wednesday evening and will be dancing in March Madness for the third time in the last four seasons. Colgate jumped on top early and never allowed Navy to take a lead. The Raiders’ advantage ballooned to 22 at 58-36 midway thru the second half as they rained three after three. But the Midshipmen found an extra gear on both sides of the ball after falling down 20. Navy ran off 16 straight to cut the game to six with 6:30 to play.

Unfortunately that was the closest Navy came to coming back and Colgate re-asserted themselves the rest of the way to win by double digits.

Why Colgate can pull an upset: Last season’s Colgate team was rewarded with a 14-seed despite finishing with a 14-1 record and ninth overall in the NET rankings. They came into the tournament lauded as almighty three-point shooters, but were wiped out by Arkansas’ superior athletes. Ahead of 2022, they lost their leading scorer but returned their next EIGHT behind him. And they still shoot the snot out of the ball at 40.2% — second-highest in the nation, behind South Dakota State, who we discussed yesterday.

Colgate and their cast of frat-bro Steph Curry’s ride a 15-game winning streak into the NCAA Tournament. After taking one on the chin vs. Arkansas last spring, perhaps they’ll prove a tougher first-round out this time around.

Things Fall Apart for Xavier

As of mid-January, Xavier was 14-3 with a win over Ohio State and no losses outside the top-25. The Musketeers proceeded to lose nine of their final 13 games to flip a promising season into an NCAA Tournament long shot. They salvaged a win over UConn to go along with their non-conference losses, but at 18-13, Xavier had a lot of work to do in the Big East Tournament in order to make the field. Starting on Wednesday vs. Butler.

The end of this game was something to behold. Xavier led by six with 53 seconds left — impossible to screw up a lead like that, right? Not for Paul Scruggs. In those final 53 seconds, he did the following:

Fouled to give Butler two free throws
Missed two free throws of his own
Committed a charge on an in-bounds play
Made a layup to take a 68-66 lead with seven seconds left
Forgot his team was up by two and fouled Butler on purpose
90% free throw shooter knocked down both FT’s after Scruggs foul

Woof. As Xavier entered OT they would (luckily?) be without his services after he fouled out with the three fouls in the final minute. But in the extra period, Butler, much like Boston College, played with more poise to seal the upset.

Paul Scruggs? More like Paul Bunyan after he took an ax to Xavier’s bubble chances.

Allow Brad D of Banners on the Parkway to explain his disbelief of Xavier’s poor free-throw shooting last night:

Grab a ball and walk out to your hoop right now. Soak your hands in ice if you want. Odds are you still do better than 6-17. Shoot them off handed, shoot them through the tears, shoot them while your significant other screams loudly about every single flaw you have. Shoot them on the move, shoot them blindfolded, or with a broken hand, or from your knees, or facing the wrong way, or while someone beats you with a rubber hose. Get really extreme and shoot them while someone makes you watch a Xavier game. No matter what, you’ll likely do better than 33%.
Brad D of Banners on the Parkway

Poor fella and poor X fans.

Bubble Madness in ACC Tournament

Duke and North Carolina are the only ACC teams comfortably in the NCAA Tournament field. Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Virginia all occupied real estate on the bubble heading into their ACC tourney debuts on Wednesday. After their performances, I’m left asking the same question as Joe Lunardi: “does anyone wanna make the tournament?”

Wake Forest was likely in with anything but a first-round loss and they faced Boston College. Easy win right? Especially for a team desperate to improve their bubble resume. Not so much.

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Wake led by 10 with six minutes to play in the second half but allowed BC to storm back and tie the game at 70 by the end of regulation. In overtime, the Eagles steamrolled, leading by double-digits for most of the extra period to secure a spot in the semifinals vs. Miami, who is enjoying a nice laugh at Wake’s expense as they prepare to solidify their resume with a win that the Deacons should have gotten over Boston College.

In the following game, Virginia Tech tried their hardest to blow the slim chance they had left at an at-large spot against Clemson. The Hokies also led for most of the game and allowed the Tigers to sneak back in and force overtime. And in OT, Clemson gained a late two-point lead before Tech drove down with six seconds left and Darius Maddox knocked down a pull-up three at the buzzer to win it.

THIS IS MARCH!

MADDOX FOR THE WIN! pic.twitter.com/TYmgNmTNe9
— /r/CollegeBasketball (@redditCBB) March 10, 2022

In the final game of the night, Virginia held off Louisville in a very typical Cards-Cavs matchup. Louisville jumped on top early, Virginia slowly sucked the last ounce of spirit from their corpse and won in a game that featured less than 100 total points. Tony Bennett and the Hoos alive for another day.

Down goes Rick Pitino

Here’s a funny stat: since their divorce, Rick Pitino has as many NCAA Tournament appearances (and wins) as Louisville. Just thought I’d throw that out there. Anyway…

Pitino’s Iona Gaels dominated MAAC play to earn the No. 1 seed in its conference tournament, where they faced the 13-18 Rider Broncs. Pitino got caught looking ahead to securing the Gaels’ fifth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance as the Broncs staved off multiple runs to stay in the game late.

With under 10 seconds to play, Rider guard Dwight Murray charged into the paint and used the longest pivot in college basketball history to position himself for a floater to take the lead.

Dwight Murray Jr. with a HUGE shot with 7.3 left giving Rider a 71-70 lead. #MAACHoops @RiderNewsSports @theridernews pic.twitter.com/dgU4g6XHVd
— Dylan Manfre (@Dylan_Manfre11) March 10, 2022

With seven seconds still to play, surely Pitino had his guys whipped into trustworthy late-game shape to recapture the lead. Not exactly. Fifth-year senior Elijah Joiner drove down the court and lashed a pass directly towards the Iona bench with seconds to play. Checkmate, Rider.

NCAA Tournament Manifest

Finally, some bubble implications for the Manifest. No locks lost today so the at-large list remains the same. But the bubble experienced some major turbulence. Teams with an asterisk in the bubble section are DONE with their season. So, here’s what went down today: