Cofer leads Grambling past Montana State in overtime in First Four
DAYTON, OHIO » Jimel Cofer scored all 19 of his points in the second half and overtime and Grambling State rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat Montana State 88-81 to earn its first NCAA Tournament win in program history in the First Four on Tuesday night.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Tigers (21-14) advance as the No. 16 seed in the Midwest Region to play No. 1 seed Purdue on Fridayt night in Indianapolis.
Robert Ford III made his fifth 3-pointer of the game to tie the game at 78 for the Big Sky Conference tournament champions with 2:02 left in overtime, but Grambling iced the game from the free throw line with eight straight points.
Montana State (17-18) went 1 of 6 in the final 1:27.
Burnett and Jourdan Smith had 18 points apiece for the Tigers.
Grambling State, which was playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time despite a 2-10 start to the season, rode a second-half surge going on a 21-6 run erasing its 42-33 halftime deficit. Cofer, who didn’t play in the first half, flipped in a layup as part of an individual 6-0 run giving the Tigers their first lead of the second half 60-59 with 5:47 remaining in regulation.
Cofer laid in a game-tying score with 34 seconds left to knot it at 72, and Montana State’s Brandon Walker missed a potential goahead layup with 9 seconds left to send the game to overtime.
Montana State shot 63% in the first half and held a lead as large as 14 in its third-straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Ford had 26 points, including six 3s.
The First Four went to overtime for the first time since Notre Dame beat Rutgers 89-87 in double overtime in 2022.
Clark, freshmen Watkins, Hidalgo top All-America team
Caitlin Clark has been a mainstay on The Associated Press AllAmerica team the past few seasons.
The NCAA’s all-time scoring leader from Iowa was honored for the third straight year Wednesday, becoming the 11th player to earn the distinction three times. She was a unanimous choice from the 35-member national media panel that chooses the AP Top 25 each week.
Clark was joined on the first team by Stanford’s Cameron Brink, UConn’s Paige Bueckers and freshmen JuJu Watkins of USC and Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame. They are only the fourth and fifth freshmen to make the AP team since it began in 1994-95, joining Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris, UConn’s Maya Moore and Bueckers.
“We’ve had a front row seat to JuJu, but what Hannah’s done is unbelievable,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Coach Niele (Ivey) has done an incredible job.”
Clark joins a select group with her third first-team honor: South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston, Baylor’s Brittney Griner, Tennessee’s Chamique Holdsclaw, Duke’s Alana Beard, Paris, Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu, Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard and UConn’s Breanna Stewart and Moore. Paris and Moore did it four times.
Clark, who earned second-team honors as a freshman, led the nation in scoring averaging 31.9
points per game as well as being tops in assists with 8.9. The Iowa native became the first Division I player to have consecutive 1,000-point seasons and to also top 3,000 points and 1,000 assists for her career.
Kansas’ Dickinson says shoulder feels good
ALT LAKE CITY » Kansas center Hunter Dickinson said he’s good to go for the Jayhawks in their NCAA Tournament opener after a dislocated shoulder that sidelined him last week.
“The shoulder feels good — good enough to be out there with my teammates,” Dickinson said Wednesday, on the eve of fourthseeded KU’s first-round game against Samford.
That was the good news for Kansas. The rest of it — rough. The Jayhawks will be without leading scorer Kevin McCullar Jr. They have lost four of five, including a 72-52 loss at the hands of Cincinnati last Wednesday.
In that game, they were missing both McCullar (18.3 points per game), who has been dealing with
a bone bruise on his knee since January, and Dickinson (18 ppg), who dislocated his shoulder on March 9 against Houston.
Georgetown makes Haney coach after interim season
WASHINGTON » Darnell Haney was promoted to head coach of the Georgetown women’s basketball team on Wednesday after one season in an interim role succeeding the late Tasha Butts.
Haney has led the Hoyas to a 2211 record — their most wins since the 2010-11 season — including a run to the Big East Tournament championship game and a berth in the first Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament. Georgetown plays Washington in the first round on Thursday night.
Haney came to Georgetown before this season as the associate head coach for Butts, who was hired last April but died of cancer in October at age 41 before coaching a game.
“Coach Haney was faced with an unimaginable task, but he certainly rose to the challenge,” athletic director Lee Reed said.