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Auburn's Daniels makes committee look good By JIM
O'CONNELL
AP Basketball Writer
Marquis Daniels had quite a Friday.
He carried Auburn to the second round of the NCAA
tournament. He outdueled Saint Joseph's Jameer Nelson in a good
old-fashioned game of can you top this? And he made the tournament selection
committee look a lot smarter than people thought it was five days ago.
On Selection Sunday, critics pointed to Auburn as the team
that didn't deserve to be in the field of 65. Daniels proved the 10th-seeded
Tigers did indeed belong.
The 6-foot-6 swingman had 25 points in the 65-63 overtime
victory over the Hawks. He also was the main defender against Saint Joseph's
Pat Carroll, who was averaging 12 points but didn't score.
Daniels, fourth in the SEC in scoring at 17.9, and Nelson,
who scored 32 points, matched big hoops down the stretch of regulation and
in overtime of the East Regional.
``I know he wanted to win. I wanted to win,'' Daniels said.
``It was a matter of stepping up and taking good shots. His shots were
going. Mine were as well.''
All you needed to see were the closing minutes of the
overtime.
Nelson, who averaged 19.3 points, hit two 3-pointers as
Saint Joseph's took a 63-59 lead. Auburn pulled within two on a dunk by
Daniels, and the Tigers (21-11) took the lead for good on the senior
forward's three-point play with 45
seconds remaining. The Hawks' last chance for a win ended when Carroll's
3-point attempt missed everything with less than a second left.
``I've seen him play better offense, but this was the best
defense I've seen,'' Auburn coach Cliff Ellis said. ``He shut Carroll
down.''
Anyone who had wondered aloud about Auburn's credentials for
an at-large bid, from a weak nonconference schedule to its 4-8 record
against other NCAA teams, heard an answer from the Tigers, who won their
seventh straight first-round game.
``We proved our point. We've done it all year,'' Ellis said,
referring to the Southeastern Conference being considered the nation's top
conference all season. ``We beat a good team. That's enough of that.''
There were six other close games Friday to add to the eight
that were decided by five points or less on Thursday, but none was as close
as defending national champion Maryland's 75-73 victory over North
Carolina-Wilmington. Drew Nicholas hit a running 3-pointer at the buzzer to
give the sixth-seeded Terrapins the win.
Wake Forest joined Kansas as a No. 2 seed that barely got
by, beating East Tennessee State 76-73, and Utah beat Oregon 60-58.
The other No. 2 seeds didn't have a problem as Pittsburgh
beat Wagner 87-61 and Florida downed Sam Houston State 85-55.
The two No. 1 seeds that played Friday enjoyed blowouts:
Texas beat North Carolina Asheville 82-61 and Kentucky defeated IUPUI 95-64.
In other games Friday, it was: Syracuse 76, Manhattan 65;
Purdue 80, LSU 56; Oklahoma State 77, Pennsylvania 63; Michigan State 79,
Colorado 64; Xavier 71, Troy State 59; Louisville 86, Austin Peay 64;
Indiana 67, Alabama 62; and Butler 47, Mississippi State 46.
In Tampa Fla., Wake Forest escaped with the win over East
Tennessee State, much the same way Kansas did the night before in a 64-61
win over Utah State. The team from the big conference had trouble with the
little guard. Tim Smith, a 5-foot-9 freshman, scored all the points in an
8-0 run that brought the 15th-seeded Bucs into a 72-72 tie. Atlantic Coast
Conference player of the year Josh Howard made two free throws with 21
seconds left to give the Demon Deacons (25-5) the lead.
Zakee Wadood of ETSU and Justin Gray of Wake Forest each
made one free throw and the Bucs had a chance for the win with 10 seconds
left. Smith drove to the left corner and launched a 3-pointer that found
nothing but air. The little man fell a little short of what would have been
the biggest upset of the tournament.
``He thinks he can score over anyone and around anyone,''
ETSU coach Ed DeChellis said of Smith, who played 40 minutes. ``You can't
coach that. The lights come on, he's going to play. He may make a mistake,
he may be great, but something's going to happen.''.
Jim O'Connell has covered college basketball for The
Associated Press since 1987. He was presented the Curt Gowdy Media Award by
the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002..
Copyright 2003
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:46:52 AM
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