NIT 2012: Scores and Recap from Tuesday March 20

Two teams punched their tickets to the NIT Final Four on Tuesday. UMass and Washington punched their tickets to New York City with wins over Drexel and Oregon, respectively.

The Minutemen will face the winner of Thursday's tilt between Nevada and Stanford while the Huskies will dance with the victor between Middle Tennessee and Minnesota.

UMass 72, Drexel 70

UMass showed tremendous grit and toughness to overcome a 17-point second-half deficit and emerge from Drexel's home court with a hard-fought 72-70 victory. The Dragons went into the locker room at the half with a double-digit advantage thanks to a 17-point outburst off the bench by Dartaye Ruffin, who failed to score thereafter.

The Dragons dominated up front, out-rebounding the Minutemen by a margin of 35-16 (19-6 on the offensive end), but couldn't quite hang onto the lead in Philly amidst UMass' scorching-hot shooting after the break.

Chaz Williams (20 points), Terrell Vinson (18 points) and Jesse Morgan (13 points) helped propel Derek Kellogg's club to 58.8 percent shooting from the floor and 41 points over the final 20 minutes.

For their efforts, the Minutemen will move on to Madison Square Garden, becoming just the fourth team in NIT history to win three road games to do so.

Washington 90, Oregon 86

Washington staged a comeback of its own, though not from nearly the depths that UMass found itself in, on the way to a 90-86 win over Pac-12 rival Oregon in the nightcap.

The Huskies benefited from tremendous efforts by their guards, with Terrence Ross ripping off a game-high 24 points, freshman Tony Wroten adding 22 with seven boards, C.J. Wilcox chipping in 17 off the bench and Abdul Gaddy falling three rebounds shy of a triple-double.

That proved to be enough to quack the Ducks, who saw E.J. Singler contribute 19 points, nine rebounds and four assists and Olu Ashaolu add 20 points and nine boards of his own before the team as a whole fumbled and stumbled its way to defeat down the stretch.

What's more, the decision means that UW will own the unequivocal bragging rights over its Pacific Northwest foe after taking two out of three meetings this season, including a regular-season split in conference play.

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