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That'll do it!!! The second seed, Arizona, handles Texas Southern with ease as they win by a final score of. 72-93.
2nd Half (1:00) Now Ristic picks up a foul and Shepherd makes both. 72-93.
2nd Half (1:44) Shepherd finishes near the rim. 70-93.
2nd Half (2:07) Ristic with a hook shot. 68-93.
2nd Half (2:40) TSU hits a three to make it 68-91.
2nd Half (2:57) Ashley now goes to the free throw line and makes both of his attempts. 65-91.
2nd Half (3:23) Brandon Ashley picked up his fourth personal foul on the offensive side of the ball.
Johnson is four of five from behind the three point line and now has 22 points this afternoon.
2nd Half (3:58) Another three pointer from Johnson. 65-89.
2nd Half (4:21) Hollis-Jefferson gets his 10th rebound and will head to the line. Makes both of his free throws. 63-86.
2nd Half (5:38) Ashley with an easy finish around the rim. 63-84.
2nd Half (6:26) RHJ makes his and one. 61-82.
2nd Half (6:41) Thomas with the nice drive to the basket. 61-79.
2nd Half (7:11) Pitts gets his fourth foul. Blanks makes both free throws. 59-79.
2nd Half (7:19) Riley picks up his fifth foul and that is the second TSU player that has fouled out. Ashley will go to the line.
2nd Half (8:50) Stanley Johnson hits another three pointer and is up to nineteen points. 57-79.
2nd Half (8:30) Gibbs with a beauty of a move alonge the baseline and floats the ball in. 57-76.
2nd Half (8:51) Tarczewski is headed to the line for two more... makes both of them. 55-76.
2nd Half (9:07) Collier will head to the line for three free throws. He makes two out of those three. 55-74.
2nd Half (9:26) Johnson with a deep three. 53-74.
2nd Half (10:18) Malcom Riley with a layup at the other end. 51-71.
2nd Half (10:42) Hollis-Jefferson with a nice finish near the rim. 49-71.
2nd Half (11:55) TJ McConnell got foule as we head to a media timeout.
2nd Half (12:24) Kaleb Tarczewski hits both of his free throws.
2nd Half (12:42) Gibbss with a layup down the other end. 47-67.
2nd Half (13:15) Gibbs hits another three with two seconds left on the shoot clock. 45-67.
2nd Half (14:12) Carter with a three to bring TSU over 40 points. 42-66.
2nd Half (14:26) Pass to Pitts from Tarczewski, after he was doubled, is good fro two. 39-66.
2nd Half (14:59) Tarczewski with an offensive rebound and basket. 39-64.
2nd Half (15:38) McConnell spins around the rim, lays the ball in. 39-62.
2nd Half (15:58) At the media timeout, the Tigers are trailing by 21.
2nd Half (16:31) Thomas hits only one free throw. 39-60.
2nd Half (16:31) Fouls piling up here now for Arizona.
2nd Half (17:20) Gibbs with an athletic move as he's getting anything he wants in the paint. 38-58.
2nd Half (17:33) Gibbs gets his second personal.
2nd Half (17:42) McConnell with another steal.
2nd Half (18:31) Ashley with a lay-up to make it 36-58.
2nd Half (18:42) Riley drove the hoop, got fouled and made one free throw. 36-55.
2nd Half (18:59) Tarczewski drops it off to Johnson for the easy bucket. 35-55.
2nd Half (19:42) Gibbs hits the trailer, Thomas for the easy lay in off of a steal. 35-54.
2nd Half (20:00) We're back with the final 20 minutes of play!
In the first 20 minutes of play, the Wildcats made 20 of their 29 shots from the floor, good for 69%.
1st Half (:00) McConnell with a floater right at the buzzer and at the half, it's 33-54 Arizona.
1st Half (:43.3) Hollis-Jefferson gets fouled by Thomas as he drove to the lane. 31-52.
1st Half (:57.7) Gibbss makes one of his two free throws. 31-50.
1st Half (1:08) TJ McConnell spins and lays the ball through the hoop. 30-50.
1st Half (2:24) RHJ slices towards the bucket and lays it in with ease. 28-48.
1st Half (2:50) Gibbs gets the ball knocked out of his hands as he goes to drive; Collier scores a three off of the inbounds. 28-44.
1st Half (3:33) Stanley Johnson with the huge dunk as there was no help down low. 23-44.
1st Half (3:58) Hollis-Jefferson with a nice athletic finish near the rim. 22-42.
1st Half (4:02) Gibbss scores in transistion. 22-40.
1st Half (4:14) Hollis-Jefferson with the dunk. 20-40.
1st Half (4:46) Johnson scores from near the rim to bring the lead back to 18. 20-38.
1st Half (5:14) Gibbss with a shot of high degree of difficulty and makes the shot, gets fould. 20-36.
1st Half (5:20) Jackson-Cartwright makes a three. 18-36
1st Half (5:43) Collier with a three to cut the deficit to 18-33.
1st Half (5:55) Coast-to-coast from RHJ. 15-33.
1st Half (6:35) McConnell with a jumper from the free throw line. 15-31.
1st Half (7:28) Ashley with the nice spin move ad makes it 15-29.
1st Half (7:58) Thomas makes an off-balance shot. 15-27.
1st Half (8:19) He drove the ball to the hoop down the other end and finished it beauituflly. 13-27.
1st Half (8:35) McConnell with a nice steal.
1st Half (9:03) Johnson drives it hard to the hole and gets fouled. 11-25.
1st Half (9:19) Hollis-Jefferson makes both of his free throws. 11-23.
1st Half (9:46) Gibbs with a nice steal and shifted his body for an easy lay in. 11-21.
1st Half (10:35) Malcom Riley makes one of two free throws. 9-21.
1st Half (10:58) Tarczewski with an emphatic dunk. 8-21.
1st Half (11:50) Gibbs with a nice drive, but can't provide the finish. However, Riley was able to hit a jumper. 8-19.
Arizona is using it's size to their advantage here early and are getting anything they want on the offensive end of the floor.
1st Half (11:58) Stanley Johnson with the reach in; it's 6-19 at the media timeout.
1st Half (12:52) Thomas drives to the hoop and scores his first two of the night. 6-17.
1st Half (13:18) Right after Riley scores for TSU, Ristic scores down at the other end. 4-17.
1st Half (13:59) Ashley turns the ball over.
1st Half (14:23) Blanks misses both of his free throws.
1st Half (15:21) He makes both free throws. 2-15.
1st Half (15:21) McConnell draws a foul as he's going up for a lay-up as we've reached the under 16 media timeout.
1st Half (15:49) Another great feed from McConnell finds Ashley who uses his height advantage to score easily. 2-13 here early.
1st Half (16:20) Ashley lays it in easily. 2-11.
1st Half (16:55) Beautiful move from Hollis-Jefferson to receive a great pass from McConnell to make it 2-9.
1st Half (17:13) Gibbs turns the ball over with the score 2-7 to Arizona.
1st Half (17:58) Gibbs gets TSU's first poijnts. 2-4.
1st Half (18:28) A blockl by Johnson! And Hollis-Jefferson goes to the line. He makes both. 0-4.
1st Half (19:15) Tarczewski lays it in for two. 0-2.
1st Half (20:00) It's go time!
10 minutes left!
There's only about a half an hour left until the action starts! Are you excited?!
We are just about an hour away until tip-off! Hope you're enjoying the early action.
Continue to follow this LIVE Arizona - Texas Southern throught the matchup, as I will take you through it as your play by play and color man.
Mike Davis on his tough out of conference, schedule, “"Going into the season, we wanted to play a very challenging non-conference schedule in order to prepare us for this moment.”
"Coming off an injury, it really does take a lot of time to get all the way back to where you want to be. So I feel like at this point I am confident. I do feel a hundred percent healthy, and my teammates and my coaching staff have a huge part in that," Brandon Ashley on returning from injury and his confidence level.
Arizona head coach Sean Miller had this to say on Brandon Ashley’s importance and how he likes his chances, “"We were a man short last year with Brandon going down. If can you imagine Brandon playing like this on last year's team, what we could have done. Nobody knows that more than him. But that's last year. We're healthy this year, and some of the things that we know we're very good at, we have to be ourselves and take them into this tournament this week."
Texas Southern coach, Mike Davis, has made a deep run in the NCAA Tournament before, with Indiana. In 2002, he led the Hoosiers to the NCAA Tournament Championship game before they lost to the University of Maryland. He obviously knows what he is doing, but it is going to be a big ask if his school is going to upset the Wildcats.
TSU will only go as far as senior point guard, Madarious Gibbs, will take them. He has been on an absolute tear on the offensive side of the ball in the last eight games. In each of these games he’s scored in double figures and in three games, Gibbs has scored more than 20.
However difficult the non-conference schedule was, it bode well for conference play because Mike Davis’ squad ended up going 16-2 the rest of the way, claiming the regular season SWAC regular season championship. In fact, on their way to winning the double, TSU scored more than 80 points on nine different occasions. Although one of those times the game went into triple OT, it is an impressive feat nonetheless.
The Tigers played a tough out-of-conference schedule playing the likes of Gonzaga, Florida, Baylor, etc. Because of this, TSU started the season 3-10. However, they got impressive victories over Michigan State in overtime and a two-point win against Kansas State in Manhattan.
As soon as Texas Southern got into the SWAC Championship game, they were automatically in the NCAA Tournament because of Southern’s post-season ban. But the Tigers still played it as though the game had meaning and were able to pull out the 62-58 victory.
Kaleb Tarczewski is playing lights out at the moment. The junior is playing extremely well on the defensive end of the court, limiting opposition’s bigs presence around the glass by outmuscling them around the board and getting basically anything he wants on the offensive side of the ball.
During those 17 wins, the Wildcats scored 80 points or eight times, and scored 90 points or more in two of those games. In each of these wins, Sean Miller’s squad has looked absolutely dominating. They are reaching their peak at exactly the right time. T.J. McConnell is the leader on the court and makes every single one of his teammates better.
Arizona has been on absolute tear as of late and are one of the hottest teams in the nation. They have won 17 of their last 18 games including a dismantling of Oregon in the PAC-12 Tournament Championship where they won by 28 points. Oregon was completely outmatched in every facet of the game. The Ducks never really looked right.
This is Arizona’s third consecutive tournament appearance and 32nd overall. Texas Southern has been in the NCAA Tournament on five other occasions and have lost in the tournament’s opening round in each of those instances. In last year’s tournament, TSU played in one of the first four games and lost to Cal Poly by a score of 81-69.
Hello and welcome to VAVEL USA’s LIVE coverage of the 2015 NCAA Tournament. This game matchup is between the 15th seed Texas Southern, out of the SWAC, and the 2nd seed Arizona Wildcats, from the PAC-12 conference. The second round game will be played at the Moda Arena in Portland, Oregon, with the tip-off scheduled for 2:10 PM EST. Stay tuned for live commentary and results!