Look at First Round of the NCAA Tourney

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Posted 9:51PM on Friday, March 18, 2005

Florida found a way to avoid another first-round failure. Now the Gators have to hope this escape will again be the start to a successful NCAA tournament. The fourth-seeded Gators blew a 20-point second-half lead before pulling out a 67-62 victory over Ohio University on Friday. The last time Florida found a way to scramble out of the first round was in 2000. The Gators beat Butler 69-68 in overtime in the first round that year as a No. 5 seed and they went on to the national championship game, losing to Michigan State 89-76. The last three years saw Florida sandwich first-round losses around a blowout win over Sam Houston State in 2003. There was the 83-82 overtime loss to Creighton in 2002 and a 75-60 loss to Manhattan last year, both with the Gators seeded fifth. "Florida teams of old would have gotten beat by 10 or 15 points," said senior David Lee, who is now 2-2 in first-round games at Florida. Ohio tied the game at 60 with a 25-5 run over a 9:48 span. The Bobcats got into the field of 65 by overcoming a 19-point second-half deficit to beat Buffalo in overtime in the Mid-American Conference championship game. The Gators closed with a 7-2 run, so instead of two straight comebacks wins for Ohio, it's a new life for Florida. "I was happy the way our guys inside the last minute found a way to survive and win and have a chance to play on Sunday," Gators coach Billy Donovan said. And if history does repeat, that final minute could be the start of a long tournament run for Florida. --- IN-STATE MATCHUPS:@ There were only two first-round matchups involving teams from the same state. On Thursday, second-seeded Kentucky beat No. 15 Eastern Kentucky 72-64. On Friday, 10th-seeded North Carolina State defeated No. 7 Charlotte 75-63. North Carolina State looked to be in real trouble against the 49ers, trailing 36-29 at halftime after Charlotte's Brendan Plavich went 5-for-7 from 3-point range. The Wolf Pack put Cameron Bennerman on Plavich in the second half and the senior guard missed his three 3-point attempts in the final 20 minutes, none of which were open looks. "I couldn't breathe out there," Plavich said. "He did a great job of doing whatever he had to do to keep me from making shots." Bennerman made it sound easy. "I just stuck with him," he said. "He has unlimited range. He was shooting from halfcourt in some video clips we saw." --- LOSING RECORDS:@ Oakland, which beat Alabama A&M in the opening-round game to reach the main bracket, was the only team in the field with a sub-.500 record. The Golden Grizzlies (13-19), the champions of the Mid-Continent Conference, lost 96-68 to top-seeded North Carolina on Friday, leaving Bradley from 50 years ago as the only team with a losing record to win a first-round game. In 1955, Bradley not only beat Oklahoma City in the first round, it defeated Southern Methodist in the second before losing 93-81 to Colorado in the Final Four. The Braves finished the season with a 9-20 record. The only team in last year's field with a losing record was Florida A&M and the Rattlers lost 96-76 to Kentucky in the first round. --- POWERFUL ONE:@ Top seeds Washington and Illinois won their first-round games Thursday by 11 and 12 points, respectively. North Carolina posted a win Friday that looked more like the scores No. 1 seeds put up in the first round. The Tar Heels beat Oakland 96-68, a win that improved coach Roy Williams to 16-0 in the first round of the tournament. All but two of those wins came in his 15 seasons at Kansas. --- DEFENDING CHAMPS:@ Connecticut has to hope its closer-than-expected 77-71 first-round win over Central Florida isn't a sign of what happened last time the Huskies were defending national champions. In 2000, Connecticut beat Utah State 75-67 in the first round then were eliminated 65-61 in the second round by Tennessee. The Huskies will play North Carolina State on Sunday in the second round. "I thought we lost the lead and control of the game because we lost that joy of playing," Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said. "We talked about enjoying this whole experience. This is our 13th straight opening-round victory, some have been good, some have been awful. I's say today was an OK performance. We'll talk about the opportunity that is ahead of us tonight when we meet."