Before I sat down to watch my alma mater late Friday afternoon, the only madness the Big Dance had produced to that point was the scare Carolina-Asheville put into Syracuse.
That was a sixteen with a near take-down of a one.
Never has a sixteen knocked off a one in NCAA tournament history.
The respective credentials Norfolk State and Mizzou brought into their opening round matchup gave it the feel of a sixteen vs. one. The Tigers were 21 point favorites. The automatic bid Norfolk State used to get into this tournament came from a conference that had gone 0 for 41 this year against the top six basketball leagues in the land.
The NCAA selection committee very easily could have put LIU on the 15 line and dropped Norfolk State down to the 16 slot. There was also great debate about whether Mizzou (ranked third nationally to end regular season) should have been the final one seed.
That said, forget that a 15 had knocked off a 2 four times before (and would do it again a few hours after Mizzou lost). What Norfolk State did to Mizzou was mind blowing for its improbability.
Most of the contentious whistles went Mizzou’s way and if you look at the score sheet, you’d think the Tigers would have won by 20. They shot 53-percent from the field and 45-percent from downtown. They only turned it over only eight times.
What the box score doesn’t reveal is that the Tigers played a complacent, sit-back defense that allowed wide open perimeter shots and expansive passing lanes for all but the last couple minutes of the game.
On the season, Norfolk State had shot only 31-percent from behind the arc. With that in mind, Mizzou basically dared State to fire long balls. Early conversions and Mizzou’s refusal to adjust the strategy as the game went on allowed Norfolk State to make 10 of 19 shots from deep. State also got huge put-backs on the offensive glass when they missed. Norfolk State ’s size advantage and game-long devotion to be being the tougher, scrappier unit produced a 37-25 advantage on the boards. It was a glaring 14-7 difference on the offensive pane.
The killer moment in the game came with the Tigers in possession down three. Walking out of a team huddle with 34.9 seconds left, State players appeared to be warning each other against fouling the shooter. I fully expected Mizzou coach Frank Haith to order up a coast-to-coast dribble drive from Denmon or Dixon . State looked ready to concede that play with the idea they’d try to use a short clock to their advantage up one.
Turns out Haith must have drawn up some kind of wing screen to get an open three. As the play unfolded, Denmon got bottled up and chucked up a 25-footer with 20 seconds to go. A straight dart to the basket would have produced an easy two and a better comeback scenario.
After it was over, Norfolk State senior center Kyle O’Quinn met TNT’s Craig Sager at half-court for a post-game interview. His dominance in the paint had just helped Norfolk State ’s hoop team get on the map in their first ever NCAA tournament appearance. When Sager brought up the fact O’Quinn’s lone scholarship offer coming out of high school was from Norfolk State, O’Quinn’s eyes lit up. “God knows where I’d be without these coaches here,” he said.
O’Quinn attended high school at Campus Magnet in the Queens, NY neighborhood of Cambria Heights. Just a few minutes from Belmont Park , Magnet is a cluster of four distinctively-named smaller schools on property that once held one big school. Students pass through a metal detector to enter.
At six-feet-ten, 240 pounds, O’Quinn was a 16 and 10 guy for Norfolk this season. He was the star of the team when he wasn’t in foul trouble.
How did such a big, talented guy from the big city end up at a small, historically black school in Virginia? My hunch is that it’s probably not at all unusual for kids playing hoops at lesser known New York City public high schools to escape attention.
As much as I was pulling for Mizzou in this tournament, it’s hard not to like the Norfolk State team for its effort as such a huge underdog. With an enrollment of about one-fifth the size of Missouri ’s main campus, Norfolk State never acted rattled. Their reserve players got on their knees and slapped the floor when their starters played defense. It was a wild scene as the clock wound under two minutes.
Thousands of Kansas fans in the crowd at Omaha cheered extra hard for Mizzou’s opponent. Mizzou fans would have done the same thing in the same kind of situation.
I’m not sure why, but the thing that bothered me most about the game was when TNT play-by-play man Marv Albert mispronounced Mizzou point guard Flip Pressey’s last name. Marv repeatedly called him “Press-LEE.” I love Marv but c’mon.
It was Flip who launched a decent desperation three at the buzzer. It almost bailed the Tigers out of this one. Instead, it bounced off the rim. And then “Presley” left the building.
