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NIT First Round Recap - Arizona State vs Jacksonville

March Madness is a term normally used to describe the NCAA Tournament, which doesn't begin on a full scale until Thursday. With that said, tell the members of the Jacksonville Dolphins that March Madness wasn't in effect on a crazy Tuesday night in Tempe, Ariz.

In an ending that would have become one of the most celebrated moments in college basketball history had it been an NCAA Tournament game, the boys from the northern part of Florida shocked the locals in the southern half of Arizona. A humble team from a small conference - the Atlantic Sun - pulled off a minor miracle at Wells Fargo Arena and left the Arizona State Sun Devils in a state of utter disbelief.

With 20 seconds left in this opening-round NIT game, the top-seeded Devils - looking to carry the banner for a woebegone Pac-10 Conference - held a 65-60 lead and seemed well on their way to the second round of this 32-team tournament. Jacksonville put up a brave fight throughout the night, but a five-point deficit is just not surmounted in 20 seconds.

When the Dolphins scored a layup - and not a three - to cut the deficit to 65-62 at the 16-second mark of regulation, their outlook improved, but only to a very marginal extent. Teams that trail by five points in the final seconds of a game need a triple in order to reduce the deficit to two points and hope that (only) one missed foul shot by the opposition will give them a chance to tie the game. Jacksonville, by settling for a late deuce, enabled Arizona State to effectively ice the contest by making just one of two foul shots.

All the Sun Devils had to do with 16 seconds left was to inbound the ball. Even a poor foul shooter was likely to split a pair of free throws and give the second-place team in the Pac-10 a four-point, two-possession cushion in the waning moments of this intersectional encounter.

Ah, but that's when March became mad, and delightfully so, for the visiting team that flew into Phoenix on short notice for this Tuesday tilt.

ASU inbounded the ball to one of its best foul shooters, Rihards Kuksiks, and the Dutchman got his hands on the rock under his own basket. However, Kuksiks seemed to turn to his right side without swinging the ball in front of his body. He handled the ball to the left of his body, which enabled Jacksonville guard Ben Smith to make a steal and feed teammate Chris Edwards, who took the ball hard to the basket and was fouled by ASU's Jamelle McMillan. Edwards nailed both foul shots to make the score 65-64, and when Jacksonville fouled ASU guard Derek Glasser on the next inbounds pass, the home team suddenly felt a little heat. The Devils were still in front, but they were vulnerable to a long ball if Glasser couldn't hit both foul shots.

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Glasser swished his first try with 8.9 seconds left, and his second shot looked clean as well. However, the ball hit the middle of the front rim, glanced off the inside part of the back rim, and popped out of the basket. Improbably, amazingly, Jacksonville - left for dead just 15 seconds earlier - came storming down the floor with five seconds to go. Smith didn't have time to get anywhere close to the rim, so he chose a 27-footer just to the left of the top of the key. His necessarily hurried hoist was the kind of shot that goes in maybe once in 15 tries. Moreover, Jacksonville made only 4 of its first 18 3-pointers, so the Dolphins had not distinguished themselves from long distance in this duel.

But enough of logic and reasonableness: March is all about Madness, which of course means that Smith not only made his game-winning attempt with 1.9 seconds left; the guard banked in the thunderbolt that rocked the Valley of the Sun and silenced a devastated Arizona State crowd.

Jacksonville wasn't able to win the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament and advance to the Big Show, but on Tuesday night in the Desert, the Dolphins' thirst for glory was most definitely quenched.

WHAT'S NEXT

Jacksonville, as the lowest seed in its region (and arguably the lowest seed in the whole NIT), will not sniff a home game in this tournament. The Dolphins couldn't have expected to escape the first round to begin with, so they'll happily hop on a plane headed for Lubbock, Tex. That's because Texas Tech - the No. 5 seed in this NIT subregional - will host the Dolphins in the second round.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer