NCAA tournament scores 2017: Mount St. Mary’s survives New Orleans on NCAA tournament opening night

No. 16 seed Mount St. Mary’s clawed their way to a 67-66 win over the New Orleans Privateers in the NCAA tournament’s First Four round. The game came down to the final possession, a failed scoring attempt by UNO to steal a win. The Mount advances into the round of 64, where they’ll meet No. 1 overall seed Villanova in Buffalo.

The Mount’s Junior Robinson — at 5’5, the shortest player in college basketball — led all scorers with 23 points. He also threw in three assists and a steal.

Mount St. Mary’s ran out to an early lead, aided by an 13-1 run in which New Orleans went stone cold from the floor. New Orleans eventually found their stroke, though, pulling to within four with five minutes remaining in the opening frame. The Mount built up a nine point advantage closer to recess, but New Orleans fought hard and closed out the first half down by three, 32-29.

The first half saw Mount St. Mary’s compile an 18-16 rebounding advantage, a remarkable feat for a team that on average is out-rebounded by seven boards per game. Even more remarkable because New Orleans has averaged a three rebound advantage over all opponents this year.

New Orleans was able to hang around in the first half because they owned an 8-4 advantage in the turnovers column. The Mount was at times sloppy on the offensive end, missing passes and losing handles, and the Privateers capitalized on those mistakes to prevent the Mountaineers from gaining any real separation. New Orleans closed out the first half on a 10-2 run, despite shooting just one of seven from three point land.

The Mount began the second half on an 8-2 run, New Orleans big man Travin Thibodeaux had an answer in the form of an Earth-shaking dunk. That came in the midst of a flurry of Privateers points, narrowing the score to 51 all with 10 minutes left in the game.

By the final official TV timeout, New Orleans trailed, but only barely, 63-62. A timely foul on the Mount’s Miles Wilson would have given the Mountaineers an opportunity to draw that lead out to three, but Wilson bricked both of his free throw attempts. That then gave New Orleans’ Christavious Gill the chance to sink both of his free throws a minute later, which gifted the Privateers their first lead since the first half at 64-63.

In what was indicative of the whole game, UNO committed a poorly timed foul in the last minute of the proceedings, at the time down by a possession 67-64, to turn the ball over to the Mount. The ensuing possessions ended with several players in a scrum flailing around for a live ball. The chaos produced a common foul on the Mountaineers, sending UNO’s Nate Frye to the line for two shots. At 67-66 Mount St. Mary’s, New Orleans called a timeout with 2.6 seconds remaining to take one last shot for the win.

That didn’t happen, and New Orleans find themselves bounced out of March Madness in their first attempt since 1996.