Dayton, OH (Sports Network) – Sharp shooting performances from Jeremy Underwood and Bruce Beckford put them in control, but the North Carolina A&T Aggies needed a stop on the last possession to preserve their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory, a 73-72 triumph over a Cinderella Liberty squad. In the final seconds, North Carolina A&T’s Austin Witter forced a driving John Caleb Sanders into a layup attempt he couldn’t finish, vaulting the Aggies (20-16) to their fifth straight win and into a Midwest Region second-round matchup with top-seeded Louisville Thursday in Lexington, KY. Underwood’s team-leading 19 points on 6-of-6 from the field was a part of N.C. A&T’s 51.9 percent shooting percentage for the game. Beckford followed with 16 points and shot 8- for-10 in the victory. An improbable and incredible run through the Big South Tournament provided the Flames (15-21) with a trip to the Big Dance, but they saw their late-season five-game winning streak come to an end when Sanders’ layup fell just short. Sanders had 21 points with nine assists, while teammate Davon Marshall buried six 3-pointers for a game-high 22 points. Tavares Speaks added 17 for Liberty, which was just the second 20-loss team to ever reach the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Final Score: Saint Mary’s 67, Middle Tennessee 54<\/p>\n
Dayton, OH (Sports Network) – Matthew Dellavedova carried Saint Mary’s to a first-round win in the NCAA Tournament Tuesday with a 22-point effort as the Gaels upended Middle Tennessee, 67-54, at University of Dayton Arena. The meeting pitted questionable at-large teams from smaller conferences as No. 11 seeds, and Dellavedova made sure the Gaels proved they belonged in the Midwest Region’s round-of-64. The program’s all-time leader in scoring, assists, 3-pointers and games played connected of 5-of-7 from behind the arc and added six rebounds and four assists. Stephen Holt chipped in 18 points for Saint Mary’s (28-6), which advanced to face sixth-seeded Memphis in Auburn Hills, MI on Thursday. Marcos Knight paced Middle Tennessee (28-6) with 16 points, while Kerry Hammonds and Neiko Hunter each had 10 for the Sun Belt Conference regular season champs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dayton, OH (Sports Network) – Sharp shooting performances from Jeremy Underwood and Bruce Beckford put them in control, but the North Carolina A&T Aggies needed a stop on the last possession to preserve their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory, a 73-72 triumph over a Cinderella Liberty squad. In the final seconds, North Carolina A&T’s Austin Witter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}