Pepperdine ends Knight's rocky week, Seton Hall wins in overtime, all other top seeds win Friday
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Defending himself against a new wave of controversy was one thing. Finding a way to defend against the Pepperdine Waves was another for Bob Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers.
Knight's rocky week ended with a lopsided first-round exit from the NCAA tournament in Buffalo early this morning.
The athletic and energized Waves, who entered the tourney as the East Regional's 11th seed, beat the sixth-seeded Hoosiers 77-57.
The loss came a little over a day after Knight issued a 20-minute soliloquy singing the praises of his program and his coaching style in defense of allegations that he choked a former player.
Knight needed only five words to sum up the loss.
''We just got beat badly,'' he said.
For once, Knight may have understated the issue.
Trailing 45-27 at the half, Indiana (20-9) closed within 11 points before the Waves (25-8) reeled off 10 straight in an 88-second span to seal it.
''I think we really shocked them,'' said Brandon Armstrong, who led Pepperdine with 22 points. ''They didn't know what to expect. And I saw their faces going down, and I knew that was our time to attack them.''
The Waves' next task will be No. 3 seed Oklahoma State in Sunday's second-round game. The Cowboys (25-6) had little trouble dispatching Hofstra (24-7), rolling to a 86-66 victory.
Sunday's other second-round game will feature second-seeded Temple (27-5) against No. 10 Seton Hall (21-9).
The Owls, behind Pepe Sanchez's career-high 15 assists, routed Lafayette (24-7) 73-47, while the Pirates pulled out a 72-71 overtime win against Oregon (22-8) in the most exciting contest of the day.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Eight years later, Billy Donovan learned how the other side feels.
When Florida's Mike Miller scored on a driving layup at the buzzer to give Florida a 69-68 overtime victory over Butler on Friday, it wasn't Donovan's first encounter with last-second heroics in the NCAA tournament.
Donovan was an assistant coach with Kentucky in 1992 when Duke's Christian Laettner buried the Wildcats with a 17-foot turnaround jumper at the buzzer in overtime. The venue that day was the East Region championship game in Philadelphia, and Duke went on to win the national title.
This time around, Donovan is Florida's coach, and the victory put his fifth-seeded Gators into an East Region second-round game Sunday against No. 4 seed Illinois, a 68-58 winner over Pennsylvania.
Donovan tempered his victory celebration, mindful that Butler's 12th-seeded Bulldogs came close to upsetting the Gators (25-7).
''I do have sympathy for Butler because it's hard. I've been there,'' Donovan said. ''It's difficult to absorb sometimes when you get that close.''
Sunday's other second-round game at Lawrence Joel Coliseum will match eighth-seeded Kansas and top-seeded Duke. After Kansas needed overtime for an 81-77 victory over DePaul, Duke rolled to an 82-55 victory over Lamar.
Miller, who had 16 points, won it after Butler's LaVall Jordan, an 83-percent free-throw shooter, missed two attempts with 8.1 seconds left.
''We told him we loved him,'' Butler coach Barry Collier said. ''I think he knows all those things, but you can imagine how distraught he is.''
Andrew Graves led Butler (23-8) with 20 points.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Defending national champion Connecticut is literally limping into the second round of the NCAA South Regional.
Star guard Khalid El-Amin hobbled off the court Friday with a sprained right ankle in Connecticut's 75-67 first round victory over Utah State. X-rays were negative, but no one was sure how bad of a sprain it was.
Without El-Amin, the Huskies don't have a leg to stand on in their bid to repeat.
''We have roughly 48 hours to hope he gets better,'' said coach Jim Calhoun, who promised team trainers would work day and night to get El-Amin ready.
The fifth-seeded Huskies (25-9) play No. 4 Tennessee (25-6) in a second round game Sunday. The Volunteers used a controversial sequence in the game's final moments to hold on for a 63-58 victory over 13th-seeded Louisiana-Lafayette.
In other first-round games, 8th-seeded North Carolina beat No. 9 Missouri 84-70 and top-seeded Stanford beat 16th-seed South Carolina State, 84-65.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Miami coach Leonard Hamilton doesn't want Arkansas' Nolan Richardson calling him to schedule a game any time soon. He's had his fill of the Razorbacks.
Arkansas nearly wore Miami out Friday night, whittling a 15-point lead down to three in the final minute before the sixth-seeded Hurricanes held on for a 75-71 victory in the first round of the South subregional.
Hamilton said the final minute was way too interesting.
''We got a little idea of what 40 minutes of hell is really like,'' Hamilton said of the Razorbacks' defensive slogan. ''Those guys really come after you. We had enough of that to last us hopefully until we meet them again in a tournament.''
That final minute made it the closest and most exciting of the first-round games at the Gaylord Entertainment Center, and Miami will play No. 3 seed Ohio State, which cruised past Appalachian State 87-61, in the second round Sunday.
No. 2 Cincinnati beat UNC-Wilmington 64-47. The Bearcats, who haven't gotten out of the second round the past three years, will try to end the jinx Sunday against No. 7 seed Tulsa, an 89-62 winner over UNLV.