Friday Morning Shootaround: Western Kentucky, Michigan, and Maryland the only upsets

Pretty exciting first day of the tournament. No buzzer beaters, but we did have some great games and some great performances:

GAME OF THE DAY: UCLA 65, VCU 64

UCLA went on a 13-0 run late in the first half to open up a 35-23 lead on the Rams. The Rams would make a couple runs in the second half, but each time UCLA had an answer. Two Eric Maynor fre throws cut the lead to 47-43, but Jrue Holiday responded with six straight points to cap an 8-1 spurt and the Bruins would open up a 55-44 lead. But that is when Maynor would take over. The senior would score 7 points and dish out 2 assists in a 14-6 run that cut the lead to 65-64 with just 48 seconds left on the clock. After Darren Collison had a lay-up blocked by Larry Sanders, it was Ram ball with 11.6 seconds left down one.

But Maynor's jumper at the buzzer, which was very closely contested by Collison, came up well short and UCLA advanced to take on Villanova. I had all sorts of issues with the last play run by the Rams. Maynor got the ball in the back court with about 8 seconds left, but a VCU player ran over to set a screen for him about 40 feet from the rim. As he came off the screen, the other defender hedged hard, forcing Maynor to dribble wide around him, wasting valuable seconds off the clock. Instead of allowing your senior point guard, conference player of the year, future first round draft pick, and already proven March performer a chance to take his time and go one-on-one for the win, you forced him to rush a tough shot against a great defender.

Darren Collison and Josh Shipp celebrate after holding on against VCU.
(photo credit: Michael Perez/AP)

Maynor finished with 21 points, 6 boards, and 7 assists for VCU, while Sanders added 10 points, 11 boards, and 4 blocks. All five UCLA starters reached double figures, led by 16 from Josh Shipp.


PLAYER OF THE DAY: Roburt Sallie, Memphis

Roburt Sallie, a big-time recruit coming out of high school, was supposed to be playing for Washington right now, but he was declared ineligible out of high school. After spending a year at Laurinburg Prep in North Carolina, he signed with Nebraska. But once again, Sallie was declared ineligible. After sitting out the '06-'07 season, he played at the City College of San Francisco the next season, earning JuCo all-american honors. He was all set to finally attend Nebraska, but some weird rule made him ineligible for any Big XII school (while awaiting his eligibility status, he started attending classes at Nebraska, but was not supposed to enroll. He was declared ineligible on September 11th and left school, but a mix-up somewhere in the school had him enrolled. The Big XII has some rule where once you enroll at a school, you must meet initial eligibility requirements or yo can never play at a Big XII school). So it looked like Sallie was out of luck, until former Laurinburg Prep teammates currently at Memphis (Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier) convinced Sallie to join the Tigers

Roburt Sallie scored a career-high 35 points to lead Memphis. His previous high was 13.
(photo credit: Orlin Wagner/AP)

Why does all this matter? Because if Sallie had not been in the line-up against Cal St-Northridge, Memphis would not have won. The Matadors threw multiple zone looks at the Tigers, and they could not figure out the defense. Except for Sallie that is. The sophomore, who came in averaging just 4.5 ppg, went for 35 points, hitting 10-15 three's in the process. For the day, Sallie was 12-17 from the field. The rest of his team went 17-42 (37%) and 1-13 from deep.

They were good too:

• Marcus Thornton, LSU: The SEC Player of the Year went for 30 points, including a number of critical baskets down the stretch, and the Tigers held off Butler 75-71.
• Greivis Vazquez, Maryland: Vazquez led Maryland to a win over the Cal Bears by scoring 27 points and adding 5 boards and 4 dimes.
• Manny Harris, Michigan: The sophomore went for 23 points, 7 boards, and 6 assists in his first ever NCAA Tournament game.
• Dwayne Anderson and Dante Cunningham, Villanova: The two Wildcat frontcourt starters combined to go for 50 points and 15 boards and Nova came back from 14 down against American. Anderson was 9-10 from the floor and 4-5 from three.
• Blake Griffin, Oklahoma: Griffin finished with 28 points and 13 boards, and was only flipped once.
  

TEAM OF THE DAY: Western Kentucky

For the second straight season, Western Kentucky came in the tournament as a twelve seed and has advanced. This year, it was against short-handed Illinois (who was playing without Chester Frazier who broke his hand). A 15-2 run midway through the first half gave WKU a 27-13 lead, and the Hilltoppers would hold on to the lead the rest of the way. Illinois got within single digits at the half, but WKU pushed the lead back to 15 midway through the second.

The Illini were not about to go away without a fight. Spurred by the tenacious defense they played all season long, Illinois got it down to 74-72 on a Trent Meachem (who had a season-high 24 points) lay-up, but on the ensuing inbounds WKU was able to run the clock all the way down to 0.9 seconds. Two free throws game the final margin.

The Hilltoppers, who put all five starters in double figures, were led by 17 points from a Name All-American Steffphon Pettigrew.

Deserves mention:

• Maryland: For everything that the Terps and Gary Williams have gone through this season, it is fitting that they have made it to the second round of the tournament. Maybe it speaks to the overall strength of the ACC versus the Pac-10, but Maryland looked like a much better team than Cal. One of the most impressive parts of this game was how well Vazquez played within the offense. He is not always known as a team player, but watching him and Eric Hayes play off of each other down the stretch was something special. I said it a number of times in yesterday's Day 1 live-blog, but when basketball is played the right way, it is one of the prettiest things to watch. How many open threes did those did get each other in Maryland's final push?