NCAA Tournament 2018: Thursday's First Round Winners and Losers

The first proper day of the men's NCAA tournament was a bit on the chalky side. There was a lot of big talk about a No. 16 seed upsetting a No. 1, but that didn't come close to happening. There was some hope for a Trae Young explosion, but that was over about as soon as it started. And were it not for 13th-seeded Buffalo's upset of fourth-seeded Arizona, Thursday would have gone off without anything resembling a major upset. 

Still, there were some extraordinary performances. Houston's Rob Gray scored 39 points and hit a game-winning layup with a second left against San Diego State. Gonzaga's Zach Norvell made a 26-footer to beat UNC Greensboro. And Rhode Island's EC Matthews hit a cold-blooded step-back three to help keep his team up for good in overtime. 

Three big second-round matchups have been set up—Florida vs. Texas Tech, Ohio State vs. Gonzaga and Houston vs. Michigan—and one trendy favorite (Arizona) is already out. 

These are the winners and losers from Thursday.

Winner: Kelvin Sampson

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It's almost quaint, now that the FBI has arrested college basketball coaches, that Kelvin Sampson was once thought of as a villain for making too many phone calls. But it wasn't long ago that Sampson's college basketball coaching career looked like it might be over. 

Fired after just two seasons at Indiana, Sampson went to the NBA while a show-cause penalty ran out, and he took over a middling Houston program in 2014. 

Four years in, he has the Cougars in the NCAA tournament for just the second time since 1992. 

Houston beat San Diego State on Thursday for its first NCAA tournament win since Hakeem Olajuwon was on campus in 1983-84, and the Cougars looked like a classic Sampson team in doing so. 

A lot has changed in terms of public perception of the NCAA since Sampson was run out at Indiana 10 years ago, but one thing has always been true: The guy can coach. 

Loser: Everybody Who Rode the 'Penn Will Beat Kansas' Bandwagon

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Every year we hear about how some No. 16 seed or another is "not a regular No. 16 seed" and "could beat the No. 1 seed." This year, that No. 16 seed was Penn, and that No. 1 seed was Kansas.

Picking Penn over Kansas was an edgy thing to do, but you could see why people said what they did about Penn. As Jayhawks coach Bill Self put it on the TruTV broadcast, the Quakers were difficult to play against. Their defense was oriented around shutting off Kansas' lobs and three-point looks, and when the Quakers were making shots, they had the Jayhawks' windpipes tightening.

"We were playing tight," senior guard Devonte' Graham said on the broadcast.

The Penn lead didn't last long. Kansas led by seven at halftime and, although the Quakers hung around in the second half, what wound up happening was what always happens.   

Winner: Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt

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The team chaplain for Loyola-Chicago is a 98-year-old nun who prays for protection, for "just" calls from officials, proper execution.

And, of course, W's. 

"I ask God to be especially good to Loyola so that, at the end of the game, the scoreboard indicates a big 'W' for us," she told Jeff Arnold of the New York Times. 

The answer to those prayers came back "yes" on Thursday, as 11th-seeded Loyola took out sixth-seeded Miami 64-62 and will face Tennessee on Saturday. 

Dolores-Schmidt is an ideal character for this particular sporting event, and it's safe to assume she'll feature prominently in the coverage for as long as Loyola hangs around.  

She might want to pray for a little extra help at the free-throw line Saturday, though. The Ramblers only took nine free throws all night, making just four. 

Loser: The Trae Young Experience

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The whole Trae Young Experience…look, it all depends how you define success at Oklahoma, but it seems to me you'd have a hard time qualifying this season as much of a success.

Young had a brilliant year, leading the nation in scoring (27.4 ppg) and assists (8.8 apg), but his brilliance wasn't only statistical. His unique style of play broadened the spectrum of what a college basketball point guard could be like, and it's good to remember Young wasn't a Derrick Rose-O.J. Mayo-John Wall type of prospect. He was a McDonald's All-American, but nobody expected him to lead the country in scoring.

That all said, Oklahoma was a lousy team for most of the year. Success for the Sooners depended entirely on what Young did or didn't do, and it didn't take Big 12 teams long to figure out you could get rid of Oklahoma by harassing Young all night and taking advantage of the turnovers and OU's poor defense. His farewell performance (28 points, seven assists, five rebounds, six turnovers) put him around all his averages and left the Sooners in a familiar position during an 83-78 loss to Rhode Island.

In this calendar year, Oklahoma went 7-13, finishing the season 18-14 after being ranked No. 7 at the start of 2018.

That's an improvement over last season (11-20), but you wonder if OU would have been better off with a little less pace and a little more structure. 

Winner: Tennessee

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Other than No. 1 seed Villanova, nobody delivered a beatdown on Day 3 of the NCAA tournament that matched what Tennessee did to Wright State in a cold-blooded 73-47 win.

Wright State shot 31.7 percent from the floor, 19.0 percent from beyond the three-point line and got out-rebounded 44-32. Tennessee wasn't exactly on fire, going 5-of-18 from behind the three-point line, but it had the Raiders so suffocated it didn't matter.

This was a 3-14 matchup, so it was certainly expected to go Tennessee's way. You just don't see No. 14 seeds get blown out like this much these days. On the other side of the bracket, Stephen F. Austin pushed Texas Tech to the brink (before losing by 10), and Michigan was in a close game with Montana for most of the night. 

Then again, it wasn't much of a surprise to see the Volunteers force an opponent into a bad shooting effort. That's their game. Tennessee ranks 27th in the country in defensive efficiency, per Team Rankings, and Wright State found out the hard way how that feels.

Loser: Davidson's Late Shooting

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Davidson had every opportunity to pull off a vintage 12-5 upset Saturday, and a lot of that had to do with three-point shooting. Davidson made 11 three-pointers, and Kentucky didn't make any.

That's a pretty good recipe for an upset, and it probably would have been one if Davidson hadn't also missed 22 threes, including several clean looks down the stretch that would have changed the 78-73 Wildcat win.

Davidson shot 39.1 percent from the arc throughout the year, taking 27.3 threes per game for an average of...10.7 made threes per contest. 

It was the first time since 1988 Kentucky had been held without a three, making this a major missed opportunity for Davidson. It's a program that has found itself in this kind of a position before, falling to a blueblood in the NCAA tournament (Kansas, 2008) after playing great but coming up maybe one or two threes short.

Winner: Alabama's John Petty

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Landing John Petty was a major recruiting score for Avery Johnson and Alabama. A 5-star prospect, per ESPN.com, Petty has been overshadowed on a national level by fellow Alabama freshman Collin Sexton.

But it was Petty's 6-of-8 three-point shooting off the bench that made the difference in the 86-83 win over Virginia Tech. His 20 points were the most he had scored since mid-January, when he scored 27 in a win over Auburn, and it was just the third time he's hit the 20-point mark this year.

Sexton was excellent as usual Thursday, scoring 25 points to go with six assists on just 14 shots. But that's the way it's been all year for Alabama. Sexton averages 19 points per game, and he has performances of 40, 31, 30, 29 and 27 points this year, among others.

Petty has been less reliable. During a six-game stretch beginning in late February, he scored a total of 32 points before coming out of his funk with 18 against Kentucky in the SEC tournament. But if he's finally hitting his stride, Alabama could suddenly have one of the tournament's most dangerous backcourts.

Loser: Arizona's Whole Program

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For goodness' sake, Arizona. You have the country's sympathies after the whole fiasco with the FBI. Deandre Ayton is the most talented player in the field. You're a trendy Final Four pick.

And what do you do with all that goodwill?

Do you rise above the noise, proving that the only thing that matters is the guys in that locker room? Do you show the country you may be able to knock down the Wildcats, but you can't knock out the Wildcats? Do you use the NCAA tournament as an opportunity to get away from all the drama and just play?

No?

No?!

You get run by Buffalo?

Chances are good it's going to be a while before Arizona gets to play in another NCAA tournament. There's no telling what the NCAA is going to do about the FBI investigation, and the program is going to lose all five starters. It could be rebuilding mode for a while. 

Winner: Rhode Island's Bench

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Bench reactions are among the spices that make the NCAA tournament the gumbo it is. More and more in college basketball, we're seeing choreography in these things, but Rhode Island's bench celebration had a distinctly spontaneous flavor to it Thursday during a win over Oklahoma.

Of particular note was a helpful traveling call by the Rhode Island bench, but there was a lot of other things to watch, too.

So far, this all seems to be the work of one man. If Rhode Island continues to advance, the rest of the bench is going to need to start carrying more weight. As it happens, Rhode Island faces Duke in the next round Saturday, and if there is ever a time to turn it up to 11, it's in the NCAA tournament against Duke.    

Loser: The Great Equalizer

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The three-point shot is known as "the great equalizer" because of its ability to help underdog teams, particularly in single-elimination tournaments. But Thursday, underdog teams had a rotten time from the arc. 

Montana went 3-of-15 against Michigan, St. Bonaventure was 3-of-19 against Florida, UNC Greensboro was 3-of-22 against Gonzaga, Wright State was 4-of-21 against Tennessee, Davidson was 11-of-33 against Kentucky, Stephen F. Austin went 5-of-14 against Texas Tech, Iowa went 5-of-24 against Duke. 

On and on it went like that. There were exceptions, but by and large the three-point shot only made things worse for the underdogs Thursday. 

Four-guard lineups that shoot a lot of threes used to be a game for the underclasses of college basketball, but now that everybody is doing it, the three-point shot may not be much of an equalizer at all.