The first three games of the NCAA tournament yielded two close games and one blowout. All three games featured victories by the higher seeds.
The Maryland Terrapins received a scare from the Davidson Wildcats, as the Terps had to fight back from a second-half deficit to take down the Wildcats 82-70. Stephan Curry of Davidson led all scorers with 30 points.
Davidson jumped out to an eight-point halftime lead but started to show obvious signs of fatigue at the midway point of the second half. Despite the fast pace to the game, Davidson only shot 34.3% from the field during the game. They also hit ten 3-point shots, but attempted 27. It was a mistake-filled game for both teams, with Davidson turning the ball over 17 times and Maryland committing 22 turnovers.
Maryland ultimately won the game under the basket, both outscoring the Wildcats in the paint and outrebounding the Wildcats on both ends. Maryland will go on to face the winner of the Butler-Old Dominion contest.
Boston College and Texas Tech played an evenly-matched game out in Winston-Salem, with the Eagles defeating the Red Raiders 84-75. Bob Knight's Texas Tech team finishes the season 21-13.
The Eagles were led by game high scorer Tyrese Rice (26 points) and Sean Marshall (21 points). Boston College trailed by 4 points midway through the final half, but a 14-4 run gave the Eagles the lead. While Texas Tech would make it close, Boston College would pull away in the final minutes for the victory.
Martin Zeno led Texas Tech with 21 points. Three other players contributed double-digit point totals but as a team, Texas Tech was outrebounded 34-21.
For the Louisville Cardinals, it may have just seemed to be another regular-season home game.
Five players scored in double figures for the Cardinals, who played their first-round matchup mere miles from Taco Bell Arena in Louisville. While on any other day, Louisville would have expected to be soundly booed, they attracted a firmly partisan crowd in their favor for a 78-58 rout of Stanford.
Stanford started out slow, and could not string together enough successful possessions to keep the game close. Louisville forced 21 turnovers and held Stanford to 41% shooting. Of those 21 turnovers, 11 were steals for Louisville. Edgar Sosa and David Padgett led Louisville in scoring, both with 16 points. Brook Lopez led Stanford with 18 points.


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NCAA Basketball: Thursday session 1 recap