Associated Press
The college basketball notebook …
DAYTON, Ohio ó A lot of NCAA tournament fans didn’t get to see Ronald Moore’s two dramatic shots.
Siena’s junior point guard played the biggest role in prolonging the Saints’ first-round win over Ohio State. He made a 3-pointer from the right wing ó his first 3 all game ó with 3.5 seconds left in overtime to keep the game going. His 3 from the same spot with 3.9 seconds left in the second overtime brought a 74-72 win Friday night.
It was the longest game of the opening round and made Moore a shooting star.
The junior had the crowd chanting his name after the buzzer sounded for the final time, well past midnight Eastern time. The accolades were just starting.
Now, everybody wants to be his friend.
“I had a lot of text messages,” he said Saturday. “On Facebook, a lot of friend requests and stuff like that. I’m happy that a lot of people congratulated me. I don’t want people to think it was just me that won the game.”
No, but his two shots had the most to do with how it turned out.
The 5-foot-11, 160-pound guard relished the chance to knock off a team like Ohio State. He wasn’t recruited by any big-name college; even Siena overlooked him until his high school coach in Pennsylvania urged the Saints to take a look at him.
“I never really had any big-time looks,” Moore said. “I was always the little guy, and these Big East schools like bigger guards. So I guess tomorrow night I’ll try to prove them wrong.”
The Saints play Louisville, the Big East champs and the tournament’s top team, in the second round today.
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EXTRA TIME: The last two games of the first round went overtime as Siena beat Ohio State 74-72 in double overtime and Wisconsin beat Florida State 61-59 in just one extra period.
That extended the streak of at least one overtime game in the first round to 17 consecutive tournaments. The last time there wasn’t a first-round overtime was 1992.
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FOLLOW-UP: Connecticut’s 103-47 win over Chattanooga in the first round on Thursday was the third-largest margin of victory in NCAA tournament history.
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SALLIE MAY: Memphis’ Roburt Sallie followed his 10-for-15 effort from 3-point range in an opening-round win over Cal State Northridge by going 3-for-4 in an 89-70 victory over Maryland on Saturday.
The 13-for-19 long-range run in the two games has Sallie shooting 68.4 percent from beyond the arc, just off the top 10 performances in NCAA tournament history, with at least one more game to play.
The best performance on 3s happened when Ranzino Smith of North Carolina made all six of his attempts over four games in 1987.
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NO BRUINS: For the first time in four years, the Final Four won’t include UCLA.
Third-seeded Villanova beat the sixth-seeded Bruins 89-69 on Saturday to keep them from the what would have been the fourth-longest consecutive Final Four streak in college basketball history.
The Bruins are one of eight teams that reached three in a row. UCLA holds the record of 10, the first nine from 1967 to 1975 under coach John Wooden, while Cincinnati (1959-1963) and Duke (1988-1992) both had runs of five straight years.
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LACE ‘EM UP: At 64 years old and carrying a handicap of around 5, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is tough for most people to beat on the golf course.
He doesn’t care that Arizona State’s Herb Sendek ó whose Sun Devils will face Boeheim’s Orange on Sunday in the South Regional second round in Miami ó is 18 years younger. Boeheim insists he’d win a 1-on-1 game in hoops, too.
“If we were playing, I think I could handle him,” Boeheim said, “even at my age.”
Would he post him up?
“I wouldn’t have to,” said Boeheim, who does stand a bit taller than Sendek.
Boeheim played three seasons at Syracuse, averaging nearly 10 points per game. His senior year, he started in the backcourt with future NBA Hall of Famer Dave Bing.
If a challenge was being thrown down, Sendek didn’t bite.
He, well, agreed with Boeheim’s prediction of a 1-on-1 victory.
“That’s really not saying a lot,” Sendek said. “I mean, that’s not like he went out on a limb and made some outlandish claim. I didn’t exactly have a stellar career at Carnegie Mellon.”
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DOUBLE DIGITS: Eight teams seeded 10th or higher won in the first round, matching the total in 2006.
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CENTURY MARK: Louisville’s 74-54 victory over Morehead State gave No. 1 seeds a 100-0 record over No. 16 seeds.
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DANCING DOZENS: Western Kentucky had already taken care of a No. 12 seed beating a No. 5, downing Illinois 76-72 on Thursday night. Arizona and Wisconsin added wins Friday night to match the best tournament the 12 seeds have had since their amazing run over the 5s began in 1989.
A 12 seed has beaten a 5 in 19 of the last 21 years.
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FIRST-TIMERS: North Dakota State lost 84-74 to Kansas and Stephen F. Austin lost 59-44 to Syracuse, meaning the four schools making their first NCAA tournament appearances went 0-4. Morgan State and Binghamton both lost Thursday.
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ITCHING IVY: Cornell’s 78-59 loss to Missouri on Friday extended the Ivy League’s first-round losing streak to 11 years.
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GUILFORD WINS: Rhett Bonner scored 15 points, including a 3-pointer when Guilford’s lead was cut to one in the second half, and the Quakers used the 17-5 run to beat Franklin & Marshall 79-67 Saturday in the NCAA Division III men’s third place game.
Clay Henson led the Quakers (26-6) with 20 points and Tyler Sanborn had 14 and 17 rebounds. George Neville added 17 points and seven rebounds. Bonner scored 15.
Washington University beat Richard Stockton 61-52 to repeat as Division III champions.
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FINAL FLOOR: The portable maple court made for the Final Four is touring Michigan before being set up at Ford Field.
A truck carrying the floor left Connor Sport Court International’s plant in the Upper Peninsula community of Amasa on Saturday. It will be on the road five days before being arriving Wednesday in Detroit for the April 4 and 6 games.
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MORE FLOOR: The road to the Final Four ends in the Motor City, where a new tradition will begin.The NCAA is putting the basketball court in the middle of a football field.
Even if the defending national champion’s coach gets a chance to be on the sideline in Detroit again, he won’t like the look and feel of the setup. Previous tournaments in football stadiums have had the floor in one end of the field.
“I don’t think it’s a good basketball venue,” Kansas coach Bill Self in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s no comparison to San Antonio in terms of the crowd being involved.
“Ford Field is nice, it’s just not a good basketball venue.”