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NCAA - South
March 22, 2003
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- With the game tied at halftime, Gene Keady dangled a prize in front of his Purdue players.
"It was like, 'You do want to play Texas, don't you?"' he said.
The ninth-seeded Boilermakers answered with an inspired performance. They scored the first 13 of the second half to begin a 28-8 tear for an 80-56 victory over No. 8 seed LSU on Friday in the first round of the South Region.
The Boilermakers (19-10) meet No.1 Texas on Sunday. Keady was uncharacteristically looking ahead at halftime.
"I don't know why I did that," Keady said. "It's not like me."
Even Purdue's blunders looked brilliant coming out of the locker room.
Nobody went up to catch Willie Deane's alley-oop pass, but it bounced off the glass and right into Chris Booker's arms. Booker hit a bank shot and the ensuing free throw, then freshman Melvin Buckley drained two 3-pointers for a 48-34 lead.
The score was tied at 32 at halftime but was one-sided after that.
TEXAS 82, UNC-ASHEVILLE 61: T.J. Ford took the opening tip, streaked downcourt and sliced through several defenders for an easy layup. Five seconds into the tournament, the Longhorns were off and running.
Thought by many to be a shaky top seed, Texas overwhelmed North Carolina Asheville from the start.
"We really wanted to come out and try to get our running game going in the first half. I thought we did a really good job of that," Longhorns coach Rick Barnes said.
Ford was at the forefront the whole way. The 5-foot-10 sophomore showed why he might be the best guard in the country, zipping passes from all angles. He skipped the ball down low from just over halfcourt for one basket, then flipped it over his shoulder in transition for another that made it 24-8.
Ford finished with eight points but had 11 assists. He also had seven rebounds, once keeping his dribble despite being knocked to the floor.
"He is what I call a really high-octane player," Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach said. "He can get it from midcourt to the paint really fast. Any time you have a player like that, he's going to cause problems."
The Bulldogs (15-17) were the only team in the tournament with a losing record even after beating Texas Southern in Tuesday night's play-in game. Down 29-10, Asheville did not fold and pulled to 36-28 when Alex Kragel scored the first basket of the second.
Texas' depth and Ford's tenacity were too much, though, and the Longhorns (23-6) kept No.1 seeds perfect against No.16s.
XAVIER 71, TROY ST. 59: David West and the Musketeers want to prove they're worthy of a No.3 seed. Consider this a good start.
Handed their highest seed ever, Xavier got through a sluggish start and held off Troy State in Nashville.
West, the Atlantic 10 player of the year, was slowed by foul trouble and scored only 12. Lionel Chalmers hit five 3-pointers to lead the Musketeers with 20, and Romain Sato added 18 as Xavier won for the 17th time in its past 18 games.
The Musketeers (26-5) had never been seeded higher than sixth, and they appeared just as nervous in the opening minutes as 14th-seeded Troy State (26-6), whose only previous tournament experience came in Division III.
The teams combined to miss their first 12 shots, and the Trojans, in Division I since 1993, wouldn't go away easily.
Xavier led 37-22 at halftime and by 20 early in the second. The Trojans kept whittling away until Eddie Baker's basket pulled them to 62-54 with 2:49 to go.
That was as close as Troy State got. Xavier won its second straight first-round tournament game and the seventh in school history.