Winners and Losers of the Men's 2026 NCAA Tournament Friday First Round
After Thursday's opening round of the 2026 NCAA tournament, which saw four double-digit seeds advance, Friday's slate wasted little time providing more memorable moments.
The first game of the day proved to be a thriller, with No. 7 Kentucky and No. 10 Santa Clara trading threes in the closing seconds to force overtime, and with that another day of March Madness was off and running.
The winners won and the losers lost in each of the day's matchups, but let's take a deeper dive into some of the notable storylines from Friday's action to highlight our biggest winners and losers of the day.
Winner: A Thriller to Kick off Day 2
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What more can you ask from the first game of the day than teams trading clutch threes at the end of regulation to force overtime?
In a back-and-forth game where neither team built a lead of more than seven points, it was a 70-70 tie with nine seconds remaining after Otega Oweh converted a layup for Kentucky.
Allen Graves answered with what looked like a potential game-winning three for Santa Clara with two seconds left on the clock, but Oweh banked in a desperation heave from 32 feet to send things to overtime.
March Madness at its finest!
The Wildcats ultimately pulled out an 89-84 victory in the extra period, with Oweh putting the finishing touches on a career day to finish with 35 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in 43 minutes.
Loser: Iowa State's All-American Loss
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A quick glance at the scoreboard might suggest all went according to plan for the No. 2 seed Iowa State Cyclones in their first round matchup against Tennessee State, as they cruised to a 108-74 victory.
However, the win came at a substantial cost, as leading scorer and second team All-American Joshua Jefferson went down with an injury just a few short minutes after tip-off.
Jefferson landed awkwardly after a layup, rolling his ankle and crashing to the floor. He was helped off the court without putting any weight on the ankle, and later emerged from the locker room on crutches and in a boot.
Big games from Killyan Toure (25 points) and Nate Heise (22 points) helped fill in the gaps offensively, but the competition ramps up on Sunday when they face the Kentucky Wildcats.
For now, Jefferson's status is up in the air.
Winner: Jacari White's Offensive Explosion
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Jacari White put up gaudy offensive stats for North Dakota State last season, averaging 17.1 points and knocking down 88 threes to earn first team All-Summit honors.
He jumped up a level in competition and assumed a supporting role for the No. 3 seed Virginia Cavaliers, playing 17.4 minutes per game off the bench and chipping in a modest 8.8 points per contest.
On Friday, he flashed those past scoring skills on the sport's biggest stage.
In a closer-than-expected game against No. 14 seed Wright State, the Cavaliers actually trailed 43-38 at halftime, but they managed to avoid the upset in the second half thanks to a season-high 26 points on 10-of-12 shooting off the bench from White.
Without his six threes, it might have been a very different outcome for Virginia.
Loser: Miami (OH)'s Attempt to Silence the Critics
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Despite a 31-0 regular season and a spot as high as No. 19 in the AP poll, the Miami (OH) RedHawks found themselves squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble after losing their MAC tournament opener to UMass.
The selection committee ultimately put them in one of the First Four games, and they advanced past SMU in an 89-79 victory on Wednesday night.
"All the doubters that doubted us, all saying we don't have Quad 1 wins, two wins, all that stuff, I don't know what they're going to say now," guard Peter Suder told reporters after the win.
On Friday, they were completely overmatched against No. 6 seed Tennessee.
The Volunteers led by as many as 26 points in what ended up being a 78-56 victory, and the RedHawks were limited to 35.2 percent shooting, well below their NCAA-leading 52.2 percent rate entering Friday's action.
Tip of the cap on a memorable season by Miami (OH).
Winner: Utah State's Decisive Stretch Run
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It was a prototypical back-and-forth No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed matchup for the first 36 minutes between Villanova and Utah State.
Utah State guard MJ Collins Jr. made a pair of free throws with 3:54 left on the clock to knot things up at 73-73, setting the stage for an exciting finish.
Not so much.
The Aggies proceeded to close out the game on a 13-3 run, burying the Wildcats by double figures in a game that was much closer than the final score suggests.
Utah State made just two three-pointers, but shot a staggering 74.3 percent inside the arc, including 14 fast-break points en route to their 30th win of the season and a trip to the second round.
Winner: Iowa's Offensive Rebounding
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A season's worth of statistical evidence is generally enough to accurately identify the strengths and weaknesses of a college basketball team heading into the NCAA tournament.
Offensive rebounding was not a strength for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
They averaged 8.8 offensive boards per game during the regular season, which ranked 329th in the nation, and they never tallied more than 11 offensive rebounds in a single game.
Against No. 8 seed Clemson, they were the more physical team inside all game, and it ended up making the difference in a 67-61 victory.
The Hawkeyes hauled in a season-high 13 offensive rebounds, with Cam Manyawu (4) and Bennett Stirtz (3) leading the way. The result was a 16-4 edge in second-chance scoring, which helped offset a middling 38.3 percent shooting night.
Loser: A Chance to Revisit March Madness History
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Back in 2010, head coach Ben Jacobson led Northern Iowa to one of the most memorable upsets in recent NCAA tournament history when the Panthers upended a stacked No. 1 seed Kansas squad in the second round.
The Jayhawks entered that year's tournament with a 32-2 record and the top overall No. 1 seed, and the roster featured eight future NBA players. Despite all that future pro talent, the seemingly overmatched Panthers gutted out a 69-67 win.
Now 16 years later, the selection committee lined things up for a potential rematch in the second round if the No. 12-seeded Panthers could pull out an upset of No. 5 seed St. John's on Friday night. However, it quickly became clear that the upset wasn't happening when the Red Storm sprinted out to a 20-3 lead, and they ended up cruising to a 79-53 win.
To their credit, it was impressive that the Panthers even reached the NCAA tournament after they had to win four games in four days to secure the automatic bid.
Winner: Braden Smith's Record-Setting Assist
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Braden Smith will go down as one of the greatest players in Purdue basketball history, and during his four seasons he has gone from complementary piece alongside All-American Zach Edey to an All-American in his own right and the Big Ten Player of the Year last season.
Now his stamp on the sport stretches beyond just Boilermakers history after he surpassed Bobby Hurley's all-time record of 1,076 assists in Friday's game against No. 15 seed Queens (NC).
Smith entered the game averaging a career-high 9.1 assists this season, and a 14-point, 11-assist performance against Michigan in the Big Ten championship game left him one short of the record entering March Madness.
At the 12:11 mark in the first half, Smith found Trey Kauffman-Renn inside for a layup for his second assist of the game, giving him sole possession of the record. He finished with 26 points and eight assists in a 104-71 blowout of an outgunned Royals team.
Loser: The Kansas Offense
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They might have survived to fight another day, but it's hard to find many positive takeaways from the Kansas Jayhawks performance against No. 14 seed Cal Baptist, especially on the offensive end of the floor.
Starters Tre White (13.8 PPG, 12 points), Flory Bidunga (13.5 PPG, 6 points), Melvin Council Jr. (12.9 PPG, 4 points) and Bryson Tiller (8.2 PPG, 6 points) all finished below their season scoring averages.
Freshman phenom Darryn Peterson picked up the slack with a game-high 28 points, but he did it on 11-of-24 shooting, and the Jayhawks finished 40.0 percent from the floor and 4-of-19 from three-point range.
It's the 10th time this season that Kansas was held below 70 points, and they are 3-7 in those games, so it's not a stretch to say they were lucky to escape with a 68-60 win.
Credit where it's due to a Cal Baptist squad that ranks No. 49 in KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency, but it was not a promising showing for a Jayhawks team slotted on the No. 3 seed line and eyeing a deep March Madness run.
Winner: Tarris Reed Jr.'s Rare 30/20 Performance
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UConn center Tarris Reed Jr. did something that has only been accomplished twice in the last 50 years with his 31-point, 27-rebound performance against a pesky No. 15 seed Furman in the final game of the first round.
Zach Edey (30 points, 21 rebounds in 2024) and Joe Smith (31 points, 21 rebounds in 1995) are the only other players with a 30-point, 20-rebound performance since 1975, and dialing in even tighter, it's the first 30-point, 25-rebound NCAA tournament game since Elvin Hays in 1968.
The 82-71 final score doesn't tell the full story in what was a hard-fought game that saw the Huskies lead by just five points with under six minutes to play, but the Paladins simply had no answer for the 6'10", 260-pound Reed on the inside.
On the strength of his huge performance, UConn held a 44-23 advantage on the boards. In a game where no one else shot it particularly well, Reed was 12-of-15 from the floor while shouldering the scoring load alongside Alex Karaban (22 points).
It was a fitting bow on an exciting first round of the 2026 NCAA tournament.
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