A ‘daunting’ task in Indy
Hawks face top-seeded Baylor in the NCAA Tournament first round
In 2018, 16th-seeded University of Maryland, Baltimore County upset No. 1 Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the first time a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed.
In 2016, 12th-seeded Yale beat No. 5 Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
This is giving No. 16 Hartford hope in its first-round NCAATournament game against top-seeded Baylor on Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis at 3:30 p.m. on TruTV.
“It’s March, where anything is possible in basketball,” Hartford graduate student and point guard Traci Carter said Tuesday. “We only got to get it right one time. You only got to win one time. We just have to play better than them one time.”
It will be a tall order. Baylor has junior guard Jared Butler, the program’s first AP All-American, who leads the Big 12 in steals,
3-point percentage, 3-pointers made and is second in assists and third in scoring. Junior guard Davion Mitchell leads the conference in assists and field goal percentage, and senior guard MaCio Teague averages 16.2 points per game behind Butler (17.1 ppg).
“They are deep and their guard play is the best guard play in the country,” Hartford coach John Gallagher said. “They got four or five guys who can go for 30 [points]. We’ll have our hands full. It’s exciting, but it is daunting.”
The Bears (22-2) lost to Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Tournament semifinal 83-74. It was their second loss in their last seven games after returning from a COVID-19 pause.
“What concerns me? Let’s go through it,” Gallagher said. “Their offensive rebounding. You can play great defense, you can hold them, but you got to finish the possession. So one is offensive rebounding, two is the 3-point percentage. Three is their physicality and length when they get live ball turnovers, they’re out and they’re to the rim. There’s a lot that concerns us.”
Hartford (15-8) has been a good defensive team this season. The Hawks had the best scoring defense in the America East, allowing 63.3 points per game, and Carter led the conference in steals per game (2.6). The Hawks held UMass Lowell to 50 points in the championship game, 18.5 below its average.
Gallagher cited the Hawks’ experience playing teams such as UConn and Villanova at the start of the season as a bonus. Hartford lost to UConn 69-57 in the season opener on Nov. 27 at Gampel Pavilion but had rallied in the second half to cut a 19-point lead to three with 13:56 left in the game. Hartford was led by sophomore guard Moses Flowers, who had 24 points against the Huskies. Flowers, however, has been out since mid-season due to hip surgery.
The Hawks lost to Villanova 87-53 on Dec. 1 in “Bubbleville” at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
“Have we gotten better from those Villanova-UConn experiences to today?” Gallagher said. “That’s a question we have to answer, and that’s going to be answered on Friday.
“If we do certain things, we could hang around and anything’s possible.”