March Madness: 10 best moments from the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend
2. LSU wins at the wire against Maryland
The first game in the Round of 32 saw LSU take on Maryland, and the matchup was fantastic from start to finish. The final minutes of this one were a must-watch affair, and how it all went down created an all-time classic.
The Tigers and Terrapins traded threes in the final minute, leaving LSU with the basketball in a tie game. LSU’s Tremont Waters took matters into his own hand, driving to the rack for the go-ahead layup with just 1.6 seconds to go.
A last ditch heave by the Terrapins was no good, sending Maryland home with their hearts broken and LSU onto Washington for a date with Michigan State in the Sweet 16.
1. The heart-stopping ending to Duke-UCF
We circle back to the game of the weekend, the showdown between UCF and Duke. The Knights gave the tournament’s top seed everything they could possibly handle, holding a three point lead in the final minute of the game.
The defining play of this one turned out to be Zion Williamson’s drive to the basket for a layup, which led to the fifth foul, knocking Tacko Fall out ahead of a potential game-tying free throw. Williamson missed it, but without Fall to snag the rebound R.J. Barrett secured the basketball and put it back to give Duke the lead.
The Knights ended up getting two tremendous looks at the basket to steal the game, but the ball simply would not go down, allowing Duke to escape with a death-defying win.
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The Blue Devils survived and advanced to the Sweet 16, where they will take on Virginia Tech to try and get to the Elite Eight. If they can give us a moment as good as the end to their game today we could be in store for a tremendous finish in March.