Big Ten champ out of the NCAA Men’s Championship.
No. 12 Richmond finished fifth with a 67-63 . win Thursday afternoon in the first round of the Midwest. The Spiders’ Nathan Cayo had two huge buckets in the paint in the final 90 seconds of the game while Richmond had a little help in a no-contact match by the referees on three missed by Iowa’s Chris Murray.
Murray Shen tried three with a minute on the left and the Hawkeyes trailed, 60-57. Apparently he was shot in the arm by Matt Grace of Richmond but no whistle was fired. Here’s how bad a blown call can be.
Richmond picked up the rebound after Murray’s shot failed to reach the edge and Caillou scored and fouled to give the Spiders a six-point lead they would never concede, although there was still some drama before the final bell.
Iowa stole the inside pass on the spot and picked up a basket after cutting the lead to four with less than 30 seconds remaining. Richmond point guard Jacob Gillard He combed each of his free throws 15 seconds before, however, the spiders kept their possessions back. Iowa never had a chance to get a potential basket hook for the game, as Gillard made two more free throws five seconds before the game was over.
Roughly 10% of entries in the Yahoo Tourney Pick’Em had Hawkeyes headed into the Final Four despite being positioned as a No. 5 class while just over 11% of the bracketing Spiders pulled off the upset Thursday. The Atlantic-10 champion reached the championship by defeating Davidson in the A-10 championship game and was down 10.5 points before receiving a tip Thursday.
Richmond win is The ninth for school as seed number 12 or worse In the NCAA Championship since the tournament was ranked in 1979. No other team has had more than four wins as the low seed in that time frame.
The loss also continues a shameful streak for Iowa coach Fran McCaffrey. His teams have achieved 11 NCAA Championships and never made it to a Sweet 16. Iowa State was one of the highest-scoring teams all season and averaged 84 points per game. But Richmond controlled the tempo throughout the game and closed off the Iowa shooters.
The Hawkeyes were only 6 of 29 behind the 3-point streak and Keegan Murray and Patrick McCaffery were 15 of the team’s 24 field goals. The four players coming off the bench for Hawkeyes shot 3 to 16 off the field.
Meanwhile, Juilliard’s free throws were capped by an impressive performance from first-team keepers. He had 24 points to lead all scorers and has six rebounds and six assists. The Spiders play in Providence on Saturday in the second round after Monks No. 4 beat No. 13 in South Dakota earlier on Thursday afternoon.
