College BasketballCollege BasketballDuke stays alive (barely), North Carolina bows out early, and strength of schedule debates are alive and well. Here are the winners and losers from the round of 64.Getty Images/AP Images/Ringer illustrationBy Steven RuizMarch 21, 1:43 pm UTC • 13 min
Who shined brightest in the opening round of March Madness? Who fell short? Let’s dive into a special edition of Winners and Losers.
Winner: Jon Scheyer’s Second Pitch
After fumbling a national title away in 2025, Scheyer probably needs a deep run in the tournament to avoid future conversations about his March coaching chops. And the Duke coach isn’t off to a strong start. His team needed a second-half comeback to get past 16th-seeded Siena, and Scheyer said after the game that Gerry McNamara, the former Syracuse star who’s in his first year with the Saints, outcoached him. I’m inclined to agree.
For about 23 minutes, the MAAC champs looked like the better team. They were more physical and brought an energy to the court that the Blue Devils didn’t match. That’s not all that surprising given the matchup on paper. We’ve seen 1-seeds start slow in these games in the past before turning it on late. But Siena also looked quicker than Duke, which was surprising. Duke couldn’t stay in front of these mid-major guards on the defensive end—a concerning development for the team’s long-term prospects in this tournament and a problem that Scheyer had to solve to prevent another stain on his postseason résumé.
With his team trailing 47-36 and just over 17 minutes remaining in the game, Scheyer found an answer to that issue. Duke went to a press, which slowed the Saints as they brought the ball up the court, and then fell back into a 3-2 zone, which hindered Siena when it got into its half-court offense.
“Our defense was not there, and I’ve been in that position before where you have to make adjustments, you have to throw different pitches,” Scheyer said after the game. “We were just trying to stand them up a little bit, trying to get us more aggressive.”
Duke stuck with the zone for about four minutes, and Siena managed just three points in that time—which came in transition against a scrambled defense. By the time those four minutes were over, the favorites were within a bucket. The 16-seed scored just five points on 12 possessions against the zone, per Synergy.
McNamara’s team faded from there, and it’s not difficult to figure out why that happened. Just look at the box score.
The Saints made their first and only substitution of the game with eight seconds left. McNamara rode his five best players for 40 minutes, and they eventually wore down. With longer timeouts and a stretched-out halftime break, teams will often shorten their benches in tournament play. But McNamara took that plan a little too far.
The breakdown started after Duke went to zone. Siena tossed up some bricks, and that sparked Duke’s fast break. The Blue Devils didn’t get those runs out in the first half—they had zero fast break points in the first 20 minutes—so the game was played at a pace that wouldn’t expend a lot of energy. But once things sped up, Siena was left trying to catch its breath. That really paid off for Duke in the last few minutes, when a win was still within reach for the underdogs. Duke was first to every rebound and started punishing Siena on the glass. The Saints just had nothing left.
So Duke survived, but the win was one giant red flag. This team desperately needs Patrick Ngongba’s presence on both ends of the court. Without his rim protection, the perimeter defense isn’t nearly as disruptive. And without him lurking around the rim on offense, teams can crowd Cameron Boozer—who dropped a casual 22-13-3 in a bad game based on his standards—without fear of getting beaten over the top by a lob. Scheyer says that Ngongba is close to a return, but until he’s on the floor, the Duke coach may need another pitch or two to make up for his absence.
Loser: Hubert Davis
While Duke narrowly avoided embarrassment in the round of 64, its rivals could not. Sixth-seeded North Carolina suffered a historic defeat after letting a 19-point lead slip away in an overtime loss to VCU. That’s the biggest blown lead ever in a round of 64 game, and coach Hubert Davis was understandably in a shitty mood after the fact.
A reporter asked, “What went wrong?” and left Davis in a state of confusion before he offered up an answer that avoided taking any responsibility for the loss: “What do you mean?” he said. “Just because you miss a shot doesn’t mean something is wrong. We had shots at the basket, executed plays, and missed eight free throws. Sometimes the ball doesn’t go in.” That’s coach speak for The players have to play better; I didn’t miss those shots.
Davis has a point. North Carolina did have good looks down the stretch and just missed. Free throws have been an issue for them all season, but there’s not much a coach can do about that. The players weren’t good enough—not with star freshman Caleb Wilson sidelined with a broken hand. But Davis and his staff are responsible for the talent on the roster, and that hasn’t met Carolina standards since Davis inherited the program from Roy Williams in 2021. Wilson will be the first NBA lottery pick Davis has produced, and only two UNC players have been drafted since he took over in 2022: Harrison Ingram, a second-round pick in 2024, and Drake Powell, who went 22nd in last year’s draft. The program’s talent pipeline is drying up; that’s been a bigger problem than Davis’s ability to manage a game.
North Carolina used a six-man rotation in the second half against VCU, which tells you how confident Davis was in his roster. Meanwhile, VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. got 42 points from his bench, including 34 from Terrence Hill Jr. The Rams’ sixth man led the comeback charge late in regulation and then hit the game-winning 3 in overtime. Davis’s greatest coaching failure on Thursday night was letting Hill boss the game down the stretch. With North Carolina switching on defense, VCU could hunt favorable matchups for the scoring guard—and all they had to do was set screens.
After seeing Hill torch the 6-foot-10 Jarin Stevenson at the end of regulation, Davis changed nothing and instead watched the VCU star shoot his team out of the tournament.
Davis signed an extension last January that will pay him through the 2030 season, so he theoretically has some job security. It’s unlikely that North Carolina will move on from one of their own so soon after making a long-term commitment. But with a new athletic director with no ties to the school taking over for Bubba Cunningham at some point this year, Davis likely won’t have much of a margin for error going forward.
Winner: Nebrasketball
The least competitive game of the round of 64 may have had the best environment. The Oklahoma City crowd was rocking for Nebraska’s first NCAA tournament win, a 76-47 romp against 14th-seeded Troy. Lincoln to OKC is a six-hour drive, and it sounded like the entire Nebraska fan base had packed into Paycom Center on Thursday. Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington says that his team’s round of 32 matchup with the Huskers will be “basically a road game.”
Nebraska finally gave its fan base something to root for in March. It was the last power conference school without a men’s tournament win, and it hasn’t been to consecutive tournaments since a run of four straight round-of-64 losses in the early 1990s. Before coach Fred Hoiberg arrived in 2020, Nebraska basketball was one of the biggest underachievers in college sports.
Hoiberg needed a few seasons before he could build a roster capable of playing his unique brand of basketball. He runs a true five-out offense, which requires a center who can shoot 3s and distribute on the perimeter. He also needed a lot of shooting and a smart roster that could execute his aggressive defensive scheme. The transfer portal made it easier for him to find players who matched his philosophy. Hoiberg got Rienk Mast, the 6-foot-10 Dutch center who’s made 47 3s this season and averages 3.0 assists per game, in the transfer portal two years ago. The team’s leading scorer and best shooter, junior Pryce Sandfort, also transferred in this past year after two seasons with Iowa. Those two have unlocked Hoiberg’s offense in its true form, and it’s awfully difficult to defend.
As efficient as the offense has been when fully healthy, the defense is even better, ranking seventh in adjusted efficiency, per KenPom. The Huskers hound opposing ball handlers, setting traps all over the court and trying to create transition opportunities. Big Ten teams have grown more accustomed to Hoiberg’s ways, but Nebraska can catch less familiar opponents off guard. That makes the Huskers a difficult team to prepare for—especially in a tournament environment. Vanderbilt has less than 48 hours to devise a plan for how to defend Mast on the perimeter, how to stay attached to Sandfort—who torched Troy for seven 3-pointers—and how to handle all of the defensive pressure Hoiberg will throw at its backcourt. The outlook has never been brighter for Huskers basketball.
Loser: Kevin Willard’s Comedic Timing
Kevin Willard’s first season at Villanova ended Friday with an 86-76 loss to Utah State, and the coach who calls himself an asshole nearly made it through the entire thing without one regrettable media interaction. Unfortunately, the season didn’t end before he spoke with TNT’s Lauren Shehadi for an in-game interview.
“I’m going to fire my staff,” Willard said after his team had fallen behind early. “We’ve given up 8 points on underneath, out of bounds defense. The only thing I’m going to do is fire them and get a new staff.”
Willard repeated the joke in his postgame presser, only with a dryer delivery that made it even more difficult to figure out whether he was really kidding. When a reporter asked a follow-up question to clarify the job status of his staff, Willard was miffed that anyone could have missed his sarcasm.
Typically when someone makes a joke, they say it in a certain tone or with a facial expression that makes their intentions clear. Including a punch line can also help. Willard did none of those things. If you ever find yourself clarifying, “It’s a joke,” you’ve probably made a bad joke. Or just picked a bad time to tell it.
Willard has something of a history of creating media shitstorms at the NCAA tournament. Last March, when he was Maryland’s coach, Willard ripped his athletic director, broke the news that the AD was leaving for SMU, and did nothing to shoot down rumors he himself was headed for another job. Three days after his team was eliminated, he departed for Villanova, which lent credence to reports that he was negotiating with his new school while Maryland was in the middle of a Sweet 16 run. So I’d say by comparison, this March was actually pretty tame for Willard.
Winner: Otega Oweh’s March Madness Moment
The second day of the round turned out to be a chalky dud—with favorites going a perfect 16-0 for the first time since 1992, per ESPN Research—but it did give us one bite of March Madness when Kentucky and Santa Clara traded three buckets in the final 11 seconds of regulation, including Otega Oweh banking in a 3 from 32 feet out to force overtime.
That’s the kind of sequence you get only in college basketball. You’d never see it in the NBA, where coaches get more timeouts and those timeouts come with the added bonus of advancing the ball past half court. That typically outweighs the advantage of inbounding the ball against an unsettled defense—but college coaches routinely opt to let their players play rather than stopping the game to draw up something that these 19- and 20-year-olds may botch anyway. Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek had three timeouts in his pocket after Oweh’s game-tying layup with nine seconds to go and just let his team play. A simple pick-and-pop in transition freed up Allen Graves for the go-ahead 3.
Sendek didn’t want Kentucky to get the same advantage, but his timeout signal was missed by the refs, which the veteran coach had every right to complain about after the game.
“I unequivocally called time out, but they didn’t grant it,” he said. “I think the video evidence is clear … [calling timeout] is a likely response after Allen hits the 3. The coach would be calling time out to set the defense, which I tried to do. And I was successful in doing other than, it [not being] recognized.”
A chance to set the defense may have made a difference for Santa Clara, but Oweh had people around him. The Broncos had a defender riding his hip as he dribbled down the court and another in position to contest the shot. The guy just banked in a logo 3 with a defender’s hand right in his eye. Santa Clara couldn’t have made things more difficult. That was the best defense the Broncos had played on Oweh, who scored 35 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and dished out seven assists in the overtime win.
Oweh’s heroics may have saved his coach’s job. Mark Pope’s second season has been a massive disappointment after a reported $22 million in NIL funds were spent putting the roster together. Big-money transfers Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance got hurt, Denzel Aberdeen, who came over from Florida, was inconsistent, and a few key holdovers didn’t make meaningful improvements to their games. Pope caught some bad breaks but also failed in the areas he had control over. Moving on from the former Kentucky player would have been a harsh but justifiable move if not for Oweh’s miracle shot.
Winner: Strength of Schedule Debates
High Point coach Flynn Clayman had some stuff to get off his chest after his Panthers upset Wisconsin on Thursday, giving us the first of only a few upsets in the round of 64. High Point had won 30 games entering Selection Sunday and was riding the nation’s longest win streak, but due to a poor strength of schedule, the committee decided the Big South champs were only worthy of a 12-seed. Clayman seems to think the blame for his team’s cupcake slate should be directed elsewhere.
“Looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors early in the season. Because they said we didn’t play nobody. We played somebody now.”
-High Point HC Flynn Clayman pic.twitter.com/IpObzgJSGm
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 19, 2026
“It looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors early in the season, because they said we didn’t play nobody,” Clayman said, very intensely. “We played somebody now. … I know how good of a team we had, but nobody would play us. Just like nobody would play Miami of Ohio but they’ve got to play us in this tournament.”
Clayman has a point, but his team’s performance against the Badgers ultimately justifies teams’ decision to duck them. High Point is a scary matchup, and because the Panthers are undervalued by advanced metrics that are adjusted based on schedule strength, there’s not much of a reward for beating them. It’s not up to the big schools to schedule good mid-majors; it’s on the committee to recognize the context and evaluate teams based on the product they put on the court.
High Point didn’t look like a 12-seed on Thursday. The Panthers ran with a talented Wisconsin squad up and down the court in one of the most entertaining games of the first round. Their game plan was to get up as many 3-point attempts as possible, as quickly as possible, and they ended with 40 attempts on the night. High Point’s guards were ready to shoot as soon as the ball touched their hands. Senior guard Chase Johnston tied for the team lead with four makes from beyond the arc and didn’t take a single dribble before any of his five buckets on the night, including the layup that put the Panthers up for good.
The other team at the heart of the strength of schedule debate, Miami of Ohio, took a similar approach to its first game of the tournament. Coach Travis Steele told the broadcast crew he wanted his team to jack up 40 shots from beyond the arc against SMU in Wednesday’s First Four game. Miami finished with 41 attempts. The RedHawks made 16 of them and rebounded a good chunk of those misses—nine by my unofficial count.
Long shots led to long rebounds, allowing Miami’s guards to scoop up loose balls and swing them to teammates for open shots. They hit four of seven 3-pointers following an offensive board, per CBB Analytics. Those extra 12 points were ultimately the difference in the 10-point win on Wednesday in Dayton.
Beating an SMU team that was leaking oil coming into the tournament didn’t exactly prove Miami’s haters wrong. And getting punked by Tennessee in the round of 64 will only strengthen said haters’ resolve. After watching this team over two games against power conference teams, an 11-seed feels appropriate.
Loser: Iowa State’s Injury Luck
Things just seem to be breaking Kentucky’s way in this tournament. Iowa State could be without Joshua Jefferson, the team’s leading scorer and a second-team all-American, in Sunday’s round of 32 game after he suffered a sprained ankle three minutes into Friday’s win over Tennessee State. Jefferson’s status for Sunday is still unclear, but it will be a tight turnaround for a guy who needed crutches to walk around the arena. Even if Jefferson plays, he won’t be at his best in the round of 32.
This tournament has already been marred by some key injuries, but Jefferson’s absence would be the most significant blow taken by any team. He’s Iowa State’s chief playmaker, its most reliable perimeter scorer, and its strongest option on the low block. When coach T.J. Otzelberger needs a bucket, he gives the ball to Jefferson and something good usually happens. That cheat code has turned this into the best offense of Otzelberger’s five years on the job. That all falls apart without Jefferson.
If Jefferson does miss time, it will be the second year in a row that Iowa State has been without its top scorer for the opening weekend of the tournament. In 2025, the Cyclones lost Keshon Gilbert to a groin injury just days before the NCAA tournament tipped off. They cruised in the opener against Lipscomb but didn’t make it out of the second round after running into an Ole Miss team that could play defense. Iowa State looked lost on offense without Gilbert and put up just 46 points over the first 30 minutes en route to a 91-78 loss. This year’s bunch is even more dependent on its star. Without him, Iowa State would have to find a new offensive identity on the fly.
Steven Ruiz
Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.
