It took less than half a round – and not even a full, proper day of March Madness. It took one spirited, unforeseen performance from an unheralded 13-seed, and one underwhelming performance from a supposed Final Four contender. That’s all it took to knock college basketball’s best player, and an entire power conference, out of the 2018 NCAA tournament.
Arizona entered Thursday night’s game against Buffalo as the Pac-12’s last hope. It left as a token of the conference’s failure, upset by the Bulls by a shockingly wide margin, 89-68 – the joint second-largest margin for an NCAA tournament upset of any top-four seed, ever.
The MAC champs, talked about only sparingly as a potential Cinderella, never trailed over the game’s final 17 minutes. They put relentless pressure on Arizona’s weak defense. They hit 15 of 30 3-point attempts, while the Wildcats made just two of their 18. And as a nation waited for the favorites to put together a run, the underdogs just pulled further and further away.
And just like that, a strange, topsy-turvy season ended.
The Wildcats were a preseason top-five team, with a blend of experience and NBA talent that not many others could boast. But they struggled in November, losing three games in three days at the Battle 4 Atlantis. They won the Pac-12 with ease, going 14-4 in conference play, and taking the postseason title as well, but never quite were as dominant as their talent suggested they could be.
They were also dogged by scandal. Assistant coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson was one of 10 men arrested as part of the federal investigation into college basketball corruption before the season even began. Then, just last month, head coach Sean Miller had to refute an ESPN report that he had discussed a payment of $100,000 for top-ranked recruit DeAndre Ayton.
But weeks later, Ayton looked unstoppable, and because he did, Arizona looked like a legitimate Final Four contender, even after its wobbly season. Ayton had a combined 64 points on 36 shots in the Pac-12 tournament semifinal and final in Las Vegas. With the likely No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA draft alongside Allonzo Trier, Rawle Alkins and two seniors, Miller’s team looked capable of engineering a run.
Instead, out of nowhere, the Wildcats are out, the biggest casualty of a wild first full day of March Madness. Many other favorites, such as Kentucky – Arizona’s would-be second-round opponent – survived scares and advanced. Arizona, on the other hand, never even gave itself the chance. It was blown out, overwhelmed, deflated by Buffalo 3 after Buffalo 3. And it’s the Bulls who will move on to face Kentucky on Saturday. It’s the Bulls who, astonishingly, pulled off the biggest upset of the day.
– – – – – – –
Henry Bushnell covers soccer and college basketball for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Question? Comment? Email him at henrydbushnell@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @HenryBushnell.
More March Madness coverage from Yahoo Sports:
• Cinderella’s upset bid ends on physics-defying miss
• Loyola Chicago stuns Miami on last-second shot for upset win
• Oklahoma wastes Young’s heroics in NCAA tournament
• NCAA player winks at NBA legend after insane shot
• Loyola’s 98-year-old nun loved buzzer-beater
