Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni reacts during the first half of a first-round game against Wichita State at the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, Friday, March 16, 2018, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
By: Doug Smock, Staff Writer | Posted: Mar. 16, 2018 | Source: WV Gazette-Mail
SAN DIEGO — For perhaps the first time in his 70 years on this Earth, Dan D’Antoni didn’t know what to say.
After his Marshall men’s basketball team upset Wichita State 81-75 in the first round of the NCAA tournament, he tried to muster up one of his upbeat, motivating answers, and just couldn’t do it.
“They put their heart on the line, and usually I’m pretty good at quotes,” D’Antoni said. “But I’m so excited, I’m losing my mind! I’m just happy where we are and I’m never at a loss for words.
“Hell, I’m at a loss for words.”
The Thundering Herd’s performance did all the speaking in this 4-vs.-13 matchup, shocking the 16th-ranked Shockers before a nearly full Viejas Arena. It was the second time in five games the Herd knocked off a ranked team, the first time MU has beaten two ranked teams in the same season. The Herd felled No. 24 Middle Tennessee on the road on March 3.
Jon Elmore scored 27 points to lead four double-figure scorers for the Herd (25-10), who hit the 25-win mark for the first time since 1986-87 — which happens to be the season the team last appeared in the NCAAs.
And as almost any Marshall fan can tell you, the Herd won its first NCAA tournament game ever. As the plays went the Herd’s way down the stretch, players had to contain their giddiness until the final buzzer.
“I told them don’t get caught up in the atmosphere,” Elmore said. “The bench was celebrating. Everybody was hyped. The crowd was hyped, but there is still time left on the clock. They could get a 3; we can turn the ball over.
“So we came together, settled everybody down and told them we had to keep making plays and we did a great job of that, closed out the game.”
With that result, the Herd enters the unlikeliest of scenarios, a round-of-32 battle with fifth-seeded West Virginia on Sunday. The game time and network was to be set after all Friday games, after press time. The winner goes to the East Region semifinals next week in Boston.
Ajdin Penava scored 16 points for the Herd, including a dunk with 35.2 seconds left that made it 80-75. C.J. Burks had 13 points and four steals, including one that Rondale Watson picked up and called a timeout with 11.6 seconds left. Jannson Williams finished with 10 points.
The Herd shot 52.9 percent from the floor, hitting 9 of 23 3-point goals. But the outside game wasn’t the preferred strategy — Elmore and company took on the Shockers with the dribble, constantly driving to the basket. Elmore hit 4 of 8 from behind the arc, but spun his way around the basket and drew plenty of fouls, and dished out four assists. He was 11 of 15 from the free-throw line.
“We didn’t want to settle tonight,” Elmore said, invoking a rarely used verb in describing MU’s tendency to shoot from long distance. “We wanted to attack them all 40 minutes. We got some of their bigs in foul trouble early. We got some hand checks where we were getting by them and our guys did a great job of getting their shoulders around them.
“We had some good driving lanes. Threw a couple of alley-oops that set the roof on fire, but that’s Marshall basketball.”
The Shockers tried to put a longer defender on Elmore, starting with 6-foot-8 Markis McDuffie. Elmore was 2 of 7 from the floor, but made up for that by going 9 of 11 from the line. He had 14 points at the half.
“It seemed like he had the ball in his hands the whole game,” McDuffie said of Elmore. “He just keeps coming at you in a lot of different ways.”
Defensively, the Herd had 12 steals, which led to a 27-7 advantage on turnovers. Burks and Jarrod West had four steals each. For Shockers coach Gregg Marshall, that was the difference.
“We cut down the turnovers, it gives us a chance,” he said. “That’s the biggest stat of the game today.”
The Shockers (25-8) were led by Conner Frankamp, who also scored 27 points. He hit six 3-pointers in 10 attempts, helping his team take a seven-point lead early in the second half.
Marshall led 24 minutes, but the lead changed 14 times and the game was tied six times. The Herd’s largest lead was seven points, the latest at 33-26 with 4:17 left in the first half.
After that, the Shockers made their biggest run, an 11-1 streak to the finish the first half and the first four points of the second half to put them ahead 41-34. That was triggered by Penava’s technical foul for hanging on the rim on a missed dunk, which resulted in a four-point play.
The Herd needed six minutes to wipe that out, tying the game at 52 on an Elmore 3-pointer. The lead changed 10 times over the next 9:21, when Penava banked in a layup with 3:50 left to put the Herd up 71-70.
That lead stood up as the Herd scored its next seven in rapid fashion, as West hit an uncontested 3-pointer, Penava scored on a “Eurostep” move and Burks scored off a steal to make it 78-72 with 2:00 left.
Burks missed a free throw and Frankamp buried a 3-pointer to close the gap to 78-75, but the Shockers scored no more. Penava’s dunk came off a Watson inbounds pass.
And now, it’s onto the unlikeliest of intrastate rivalry games, a battle with WVU 2,000-plus miles away from the Mountain State.
“It’s a great feeling. It’s surreal now,” Watson said.
Doug Smock can be reached at dougsmock@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @dougsmock, and read his Inside Marshall Sports blog at blogs.wvgazettemail.com/dougsmock.
