Surprise, Surprise: Purdue Gets No. 12 Seed McNeese Next After Shocker Over Clemson
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Tiny McNeese out of Lake Charles, La. has never won an NCAA Tournament. game. The Cowboys were supposed to lose to Clemson on Thursday, too, and coach Will Wade knew he needed to mix things up.
An aggressive man-to-man defensive team all year, McNeese, the No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region, went to a 2-3 zone against No. 5 Clemson — and completely confused them. The Tigers only scored 13 first-half points on 1-of-15 shooting from three. They trailed by 24 and only a frenetic late rally made it close.
The final score was 69-67, the first two-point blowout in history.
The win, their first in the NCAA Tournament in four tries, advances them to the second round and a matchup with the No. 4 Purdue Boilermakers, who advanced after a win over High Point. McNeese was a 7.5-point underdog, the first big upset of the tourney.
"Our first half was pretty flawless. We hit all of our benchmarks in what it takes to beat them,'' Wade said. "We had worked on a 2-3 zone a little bit for our (Southland) conference tournament but we never used it. We needed to do something to get them off-balance, and it sure worked. They didn't expect that, and we did a great lot of limiting everything the wanted to do.''
McNeese led 31-13 at the half, using a 19-2 run to blow the game open. They had an 18-point lead at the break and built it to 24 four minutes into the second half. They led by 22 points (51-29) with 8 minutes to go, but then Clemson (27-7) went wild. They went on a 9-0 to get the lead to 13, McNeese was still up 12 with a minute to go, but Clemson hit four threes in a row to get within three. They were forced to foul and Javohn Garcia made a free throw to put McNeese up four. A Clemson basket at the buzzer left it a two-point margin.
Brandon Murray, a 6-foot-5 guard who started his college career at LSU with Wade and is now at his fourth school, scored 14 first-half points to get McNeese rolling. He finished with 21 and now has 1,018 points for his career.
"I just had an aggressive mindset and my guys were just telling me to go, go, go,'' Murray said. "We came in here with a positive mindset that we could beat them. Sure, they're from the ACC and all that, but we feel like we've got a lot of talent, too.
"And we didn't just come here to win one game. We're planning on going to the Sweet Sixteen. We've got Purdue next now, and we don't care that they are a Big Ten team. We feel like we can beat them, too.''
Saturday's game time and TV slot will be announced later Thursday night when all 16 first-round games are complete.
Related NCAA Tournament stories
- DUSTIN SCHUTTE COLUMN: Purdue has allowed many leads to slip away over the last month. It almost happened again on Thursday in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament against High Point. This time, though, the Boilermakers found a way to weather the storm. Here is Dustin Schutte's ''Boiler Banter'' column. CLICK HERE
- PURDUE GAME STORY: No. 4-seed Purdue grabbed 19 offensive rebounds, and all those extra possessions helped the Boilermakers knock off High Point 75-63 in their first-round NCAA Tournament game Thursday in Providence, R.I. Trey Kaufman-Renn had 21 points, and Braden Smith added 20. CLICK HERE
- COLVIN, HEIDE BIG DUNKS: Purdue wings Myles Colvin and Camden Heide had two ferocious putback slams in the first half of Thursday's NCAA Tournament game against High Point. CLICK HERE
- NCAA TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE TRACKER: Here is our bracket story, with dates, game times, TV information and more for every game in the NCAA Tournament. Follow along in real time with updates throughout all 16 games on Thursday. CLICK HERE
- HEIDE STEPS UP: Earlier this season, Purdue's Camden Heide had battles with confidence. He's come a long way this year, recording his first double-double and playing a pivotal role in the Boilers' win over High Point in the NCAA Tournament. CLICK HERE
- WATCH HIGHLIGHT DUNKS: Purdue wings Myles Colvin and Camden Heide had two ferocious putback slams in the first half of Thursday's NCAA Tournament game against High Point. Here's the video. CLICK HERE
Tom Brew is an award-winning journalist who's worked at some America's finest newspapers, including the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Indianapolis Star. He also owns the book publishing company, Hilltop30 Publishing Group, and he has written four books and published 16 others.