Cinderella was on the prowl at the Bon Secours Center in Greenville, S.C. on Thursday. However, the day was far from a fairy tale for the two Triangle teams in attendance.
Siena and VCU got to try on the glass slipper and go to the ball, while the blue bloods fought for their tournament lives. Only one survived.
Saints go March-ing in
Duke narrowly missed suffering what would have been the biggest upset in NCAA Tournament history, escaping with a 71-65 win over Siena. 16-seeds have beaten 1-seeds before, but never has the tournament’s top-ranked team suffered an opening-round loss to a 16. Duke became the first 1-seed to trail by double digits at the half when the Saints hit the locker room up 43-25. The lead grew to as large as 13 in the second half, which was the largest deficit the Blue Devils faced at any point this season.
“Toughest one, not close,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer. “Toughest moment, toughest game, toughest position I’ve ever been in in the tournament.”
Amazingly, Siena played the entire game without substituting. The five starters all played the full 40 minutes.
“You’re looking at a guy that played 40 minutes a lot,” said coach Gerry McNamara, who played at Syracuse and may have just moved into the frontrunner position for the Orange’s coaching vacancy. “We just got here from Atlantic City (where Siena won the MAAC Tournament) doing pretty much the same thing … These kids were just on it. Our energy was elite.”
Still, it was not enough. Duke tightened up its defense in the second half, with the help of a zone defense that the Blue Devils turned to for part of the stretch run. After shooting 55% in the first half and outrebounding Duke by five, Siena shot just 24% after the break and lost the battle of the boards 30-13 in the second half. The Blue Devils used a 16-1 run to erase the Siena lead and pull in front. Duke will play No. 9 TCU on Saturday for a spot in the Sweet 16.
“Obviously, we played our heart out,” said Brendan Coyle, who hit four three-pointers for a team that entered the game ranked No. 331 in the country in three-point shooting. “But close doesn’t count for much.”
Uncommon Commonwealth
UNC had the opposite experience from Duke in its first-round game in Greenville. The 6-seed Tar Heels jumped out to an early lead over No. 11 VCU and built it to an 11-point margin at the half. The lead grew to as much as 19 in the second half, and, with five minutes left in the game, it was still in double figures.
Carolina went the final 2:44 of regulation and all five minutes of overtime without making a shot, going 0-for-9 from the field and 5-of-9 from the free throw line, including the front end of a one-and-one by Seth Trimble with 29 seconds left in regulation and UNC leading by two. Trimble and Henri Veesaar also missed free throws in the final 35 seconds of overtime.
UNC also committed two turnovers in the final 30 seconds of regulation. Meanwhile, VCU made seven straight shots and four straight shots during its late-game run, tying the score at 75 with 11 seconds left, the first tie since 13-13. VCU took a lead in overtime for the first time since more than 10 minutes remained in the first half, and finished with an 82-78 win.
Hubert Davis, already under fire by much of the UNC fanbase for a nine-loss season, lost his third straight game—the regular season finale to Duke, UNC’s first game in the ACC Tournament, and now the NCAA opener.
After giving four reserve players more than 30 minutes of playing time in the first half, Davis only used one sub—Jonathan Powell—for less than six minutes in the entire second half and the first 4:56 of overtime.
When asked if he thought his team tired down the stretch, Davis gave a five-word answer. “I did not. I didn’t.”
When asked for his reasoning behind the substitution pattern, he shared another five words. “Because that was my decision.”
Davis defended his offense’s performance, implying that the Tar Heels just had some bad luck. “Just because you miss a shot doesn’t mean something’s wrong,” he said. “We had open looks. We had shots at the basket. We had executed plays … Sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in.”
The result was the largest comeback in the first round in NCAA Tournament history. UNC fell to 48-2 in NCAA games it led by double digits at halftime, with both losses coming in Davis’ five years at the helm. The first was a loss to Kansas in the 2022 title game which is the largest blown lead in a Final Four game in NCAA Tournament history.
The loss ended UNC’s season, the second straight year it’s ended in the round of 64—another first in school history. UNC has made the cut to 32 teams in the NCAA Tournament just once in the last four tourneys.
