NCAA Tournament Day 1 takeaways: No. 15 Princeton upsets No. 2 Arizona

By The Athletic Staff

Mar 16, 2023

Let the madness begin.

The NCAA Tournament began Thursday, and it didn’t take long for the first upset. The Athletic has you covered with takeaways from the biggest games of the day:

Furman stuns Virginia in final seconds

Furman doubled its NCAA Tournament win total — the first came in 1974 over South Carolina, at the Palestra — with a furious rally that owed much to the switch to zone, and to 6-foot-7 forward Jalen Slawson. Down 50-38 with 10:54 to play, Slawson started the Paladins’ run by getting to the line and hitting a pair. He got a steal on the next possession, then assisted on a Marcus Foster triple. The 19-4 run that flipped the game in five minutes concluded with a Slawson driving 3-point play, a Slawson 3-pointer, and a Slawson 3-point play on a hook shot in the lane. He had a game-high 19 points and he was the best player on the floor.

That 1974 win did send the Paladins to the regional semifinals, where they lost 81-78 to Pittsburgh, and now they are one win from returning. It will be No. 5 seed San Diego State or No. 12 seed Charleston on Saturday in Orlando, Fla. Furman will probably have a tough time advancing to its second Sweet 16 if leading scorer Mike Bothwell can’t be more involved in the game than he was Thursday. Bothwell got a third foul late in the first half and a fourth early in the second, and he ended up playing just 20 minutes — though still managing 11 points in that time. The 6-foot-3 guard averages 33.8 minutes per game and should be fresh for the next one. — Joe Rexrode

Maryland wins fistfight

Maryland survived a two-hour fistfight with West Virginia to become the first team to advance in the 64-team bracket. The Terps overcame a 19-6 early deficit and went without a basket for the final 2:45 in the second half. It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a win. The Terps have now advanced past the first round in 15 of their last 16 NCAA Tournament appearances. This is the first time under first-year coach Kevin Willard.

Julian Reese was a force for the Terps against physical West Virginia. The sophomore has had some enigmatic stretches in his time at Maryland, but was the sum of his parts on Thursday. His 17 points came on 6-of-9 shooting to go with nine boards and disruptive defense at the rim. Jahmir Young struggled through a 1-for-5 shooting performance with six turnovers and four fouls. Maryland got by thanks to a combined 26 points on 11-for-20 shooting from veterans Donta Scott and Hakim Hart. The two have now played a combined 243 games for the Terps.

Kedrian Johnson would’ve been the story of the day for West Virginia if his last second 30-foot heave at the final horn had fallen. The fifth-year senior with stints at St. Peter’s and junior college was incredible, scoring a career-high 27 points in 31 minutes. The Mountaineers were done in by struggles to defend without fouling and moments of moribund offense against Maryland’s changing defenses. — Brendan Quinn

Missouri snaps tournament drought

It had been over 4,000 days since Missouri last won a tournament game, but that streak ended Thursday at the Golden 1 Center, as the Tigers saw off No. 10-seed Utah State in a fun, competitive start to the day here in Sacramento.

The Tigers deserve a ton of credit for their performance, particularly on the defensive end, where they frustrated a typically humming USU offense to the point that the end of the bench earned a technical in the second half after the Aggies appealed for a foul. It looked like another instance of clean, hard defense from Missouri, which kept the Aggies in front all afternoon. Throw in a ream of missed perimeter shots by Utah State — one of the best perimeter shooting teams in the country went 4-of-24 from 3, with plenty of good looks in that mix — and Kobe Brown’s confident one-on-one scoring in the second half, and the Tigers had enough to advance.

The win is another milestone in coach Dennis Gates’ incredible first season in Columbia. The Tigers were picked to finish 11th in the SEC last fall; they just won their 25th game of the year, and on Saturday they’ll meet the winner of Arizona–Princeton with a Sweet 16 shot on the line. Gates — not unlike fellow first-year coach Kevin Willard at Maryland — has rebuilt this program almost overnight. — Eamonn Brennan

San Diego State’s defense propels Aztecs past Charleston

South Region No. 5 seed San Diego State does what it does, using some of the best defense in college basketball and the clutch play of senior guard Matt Bradley to outlast No. 12 seed Charleston, 63-57, and earn a Saturday date with No. 13 seed Furman — stunning upsetter of Virginia — for a spot in the Sweet 16. It would be SDSU’s first regional semifinal since 2014 when Steve Fisher was still head coach. This is Brian Dutcher’s first NCAA win in four tries, but of course, he had that 30-2 team in the 2019-20 season that never got a chance to collect any.

Charleston (31-4) hung tough after falling down by nine with less than 12 minutes to play. An Ante Brzovic drive to the basket drew the Cougars even at 53-53 with 3:27 left. Dutcher went to Bradley after a timeout, and he does what he does, probing in the lane and finding an angle for a good shot. He banked it home and the Aztecs (28-6) led the rest of the way. Bradley led the way with 17 points, seven assists and four rebounds. The deep Aztecs had no one else in double figures, but five players with seven points or more.

Charleston had .891 points per possession against the team ranked 10th in defensive efficiency, and the Cougars officially missed 13 layups. Many of those were affected by SDSU’s length, including a late miss from Brzovic. — Joe Rexrode

Arizona couldn’t overcome limitations against Princeton

Arizona was a team with real limitations entering a single-elimination NCAA Tournament. The Azuolas Tubelis-Oumar Ballo frontcourt was always ripe for a team that runs a five-out offensive scheme to be able to space out the Wildcats and take advantage of them. If you can pull the bigs away from the rim, they’re not good enough to guard in space. Kerr Kriisa entered the tournament with a shoulder injury, and without him at full strength, the team has no consistently threatening perimeter player off the bounce. That they even made it this far, finishing second in the Pac-12 and winning the league’s tournament, is a credit to Tommy Lloyd’s uptempo ball-screen continuity that feeds the bigs and creates open kickout 3s.

The records were close, but this was a drastically inferior team to last season’s Arizona group with real pressure points to be picked at and a lack of depth to adjust when opposing teams took away the top options. Mitch Henderson and the Princeton staff knew that, and devised an impressive plan to counter what Arizona does. They crowded Tubelis and Ballo on offense in the paint by collapsing down when the ball entered the post with timely double-teams. Collapsed the defensive glass to limit second-chance opportunities. They got three or four guys back in transition defense every time, and still out-rebounded Arizona on the offensive end of the court 10 to 7. Then on offense, they just continually picked at the scab, either pulling Tubelis and Ballo away from the rim with their bigs or isolating them one on one and forcing them to play tough post defense without help. This wasn’t a traditional “Princeton” attack. They assisted on just nine of their 26 made field goals. They saw matchups they felt they could take advantage of, and hammered them.

And on Arizona’s side, when teams attacked Tubelis and Ballo, they didn’t have a recourse. They have no ability to play five-out or go small on their end defensively. They can’t switch actions regularly. The closest thing they have to a stretch-four is Pelle Larsson, and he’s not that — he’s a true wing. I’ll write about this upset more in detail later this weekend, but more than anything, this Arizona exit was a roster construction issue that was waiting to happen. They need to solve the issue of lineup versatility this offseason. They were too easy to scheme this season, which is why they lost some truly dumbfounding games despite their talent level, including defeats to Washington State, Utah and Stanford. — Sam Vecenie

Arkansas defeats Illinois, sets up showdown with Kansas

Arkansas will be a dangerous matchup for Kansas in the second round. Uber-athletic teams like TCU and Texas have given Kansas problems, and Arkansas is in that class. KU is not great at its tags in pick-and-roll coverage, and that’s an area Arkansas is built to exploit. KU’s one-on-one defense, particularly the defense of freshman Gradey Dick, will be key. In its 73-63 win over Illinois, Arkansas had only four assists and played a lot of iso ball.

The Razorbacks are one of the most talented teams in the country and dangerous when they play to their talent. Defensively, they’re long and get a ton of deflections. It’s the freshmen that get all the hype, but veterans Ricky Council (18 points and 10 rebounds) and Devo Davis (16 points) were the stars in Thursday’s win. — C.J. Moore

Auburn limits Iowa’s prolific offense

Turns out there are two teams playing home games in Birmingham. Auburn rode its defense and a 19-point performance by Johni Broome to an 83-75 win over Iowa on Thursday night. The Tigers led by as many as 17 at Legacy Arena before some dicey moments down the stretch as Iowa used its press to fight back, but Auburn kept its head.

Broome was dominant, pulling down 12 boards, including four on the offensive end, and blocked five shots. Iowa could hang with Auburn across the floor, but had no answer for the Morehouse State transfer center.

The Tigers held the nation’s No. 3 offense to 1.05 points per possession — well below Iowa’s season mark of 1.20. Hawkeyes standout Kris Murray took 18 shots to score 15 points.

Now Auburn gets another date in Birmingham. The Tigers will face Houston on Saturday, barring Northern Kentucky pulling off one of the greatest upsets in the sport’s history. — Brendan Quinn

Northwestern victorious for second time at NCAA Tournament

Northwestern has won its second-ever NCAA Tournament game. The infamously tourney-averse Wildcats made their first appearance in school history six years ago, where they also won in the round of 64, but it is interesting to note the slight difference in vibe between those two games. Whereas that win kicked off intense celebration in the stands — never forget the crying kid — today’s victory was greeted by a slightly more muted reception. Northwestern fans are happy, but with a player like Boo Buie running the show in tournament games, they could also expect more. — Eamonn Brennan

Texas continues strong play

Texas continues to play its best basketball of the season. The Longhorns had too much size, quickness and (kind of a surprise here) shooting to fend off Colgate, 81-61.

UT shot just 33.9 percent from 3 this season but was hot against Colgate, knocking down 13 of 23. Super senior Sir’Jabari Rice had a career high for 3s made (seven) and scored a team-best 23 points. The New Mexico State transfer has scored 15 or more points in five of his last six games now.

Colgate was a tough opponent, playing a style that was reminiscent of Jay Wright’s Villanova teams. Look for Matt Langel to be a hot name on the coaching carousel over the next month. Texas has one of the best defenses in college basketball, and Colgate ran some beautiful offense for most of the game. But every time it looked like Colgate might get close, the Longhorns buried a 3. — C.J.Moore

Northern Kentucky gives Houston all it could handle

Northern Kentucky tried to beat Houston at its own game tonight, an aspiration that seems as insane as it is difficult. But the Norse gave the top-seeded Cougars everything they could handle for nearly 40 minutes. The run came up short with NKU falling, 63-52.

It was an incredible effort from Darrin Horn’s team. The Norse pulled down 18 offensive rebounds against the team ranked fourth in the country in offensive rebounds. They stuck around thanks to 21 second-chance points, but couldn’t pull off the upset as 19-point underdogs. It’s hard to be Cinderella when you go 5-for-33 from the 3-point line and score under 0.9 points per possession.

But now the real question. How concerned should we be about Houston? That did not look like a No. 1 seed and Kelvin Sampson did not look like a coach even remotely pleased with his bunch. Not only did the Coogs struggle badly, but Marcus Sasser missed the second half after reaggravating his groin injury and now the second round is set up to be basically a true road game against Auburn.

UH looked completely out of sorts without Sasser steering things. Disconnected, disorganized. Seventeen turnovers led to 13 Northern Kentucky points. Auburn won’t be quite as accommodating. If the Tigers are being sprung in the open court, they’ll make the Coogs pay for it.

We’ll pass along any updates from Sampson regarding Sasser’s status. — Brendan Quinn

Tennessee survives a late push from Louisiana

East Region No. 4 seed Tennessee survives a late push from No. 13 seed Louisiana to advance, 58-55, and earn a Saturday date with Duke at Orlando’s Amway Arena. The Vols played 31 minutes of championship-level basketball and nine minutes of something that might not even deserve to be called basketball. Which doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence that this team, without point guard Zakai Zeigler (ACL), can put together a complete enough performance to take out the soaring Blue Devils.

But Josiah-Jordan James did hit a clutch foul shot with the Vols clinging to a three-point lead. UT’s bigs did a good job on Louisiana star Jordan Brown. The defense was mostly on brand. The offense turned it over 18 times and went without a basket for the final 5:31. — Joe Rexrode

Required reading

(Photo: Kyle Terada / USA Today)

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