13 is Siena’s lucky number in upset win
Published 11:41 pm Friday, March 21, 2008
TAMPA, Fla. — Privately, some Siena players wondered in recent days if their counterparts on the Vanderbilt roster knew any of their names.
If the Commodores didn’t, they surely do now.
Kenny Hasbrouck and Tay Fisher personally saw to that, and the Saints have another colossal upset to add to their tiny school’s NCAA tournament legacy.
Hasbrouck scored 30 points, Fisher added 19 on 6-for-6 shooting from 3-point range, and 13th-seeded Siena stunned No. 4 Vanderbilt 83-62 Friday night in the first round of the Midwest Regional. The Saints (23-10) never trailed, became the first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference team to reach the second round since Manhattan in 2004, and plays Villanova on Sunday.
“I really don’t consider it an upset,” Fisher said. “I have confidence in my team and I knew we could hang with anybody in the country.”
Until now, Siena’s program was best-known for a first-round upset of Stanford in 1989 — a 14 seed over a 3. This one might have been just as shocking, considering it came against an SEC team in Vanderbilt that reached the round of 16 last year and had aspirations of doing at least that much this year.
But this might not have been a surprise.
After all, it was in Tampa, which might now have a reputation as a bracket-busting sort of town. Earlier Friday, two other unheralded underdogs pulled off upsets on the same floor where Siena won: No. 12 Western Kentucky beat fifth-seeded Drake and No. 13 San Diego ousted fourth-seeded Connecticut.
Turns out, everything did not go according to the Saints’ plan.
“Actually, we wanted to be the first upset of the day,” Hasbrouck said.
They’ll gladly settle for this.
“It’s been a long journey to get here,” Siena coach Fran McCaffery said.
A.J. Ogilvy scored 18 points for Vanderbilt (26-8), which got 13 from SEC player of the year Shan Foster — who became the 22nd player in SEC history to eclipse 2,000 points — and 10 from Ross Neltner. The Commodores came into the tournament more than a little miffed that they were widely picked to be a first-round upset victim and insisted they wouldn’t look past Siena.
Vanderbilt simply couldn’t stop Siena, either.
“All season long, I didn’t get this team to play defensively the way it had to play on a consistent basis for us to win, the way we wanted to win,” Vandy coach Kevin Stallings said. “Again, 26-8 is not a terrible year. But we just never were consistent defensively and again, that’s my responsibility. Completely my responsibility. I just wasn’t able to push the right buttons.”
Midwest Regional games
Georgetown 66, UMBC 47: At Raleigh, N.C., Roy Hibbert went over and around undersized UMBC all day, finishing with 13 points and leading the second-seeded Hoyas past the 15th-seeded Retrievers. Jonathan Wallace added 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting and Austin Freeman finished with 11 for the Hoyas (28-5), who shot 51 percent and held UMBC scoreless for a 7-minute stretch. Darryl Proctor scored 16 points and Brian Hodges added 11 for America East champion UMBC (24-9), which didn’t have a starter taller than 6-foot-9 to defend the 7-foot-2 Hibbert. Patrick Ewing Jr. added 10 points for the Hoyas, who let UMBC hang around for about 10 minutes before taking control with a 22-5 run late in the first half that overwhelmed the Retrievers.
Villanova 75, Clemson 69: At Tampa, Fla., Scottie Reynolds scored 21 points, Corey Fisher added 17 and the 12th-seeded Wildcats gave this NCAA tournament pod its fourth upset in four games. Villanova, which has more wins as a lower-seeded team in the tournament than any program since 1979, overcame an 18-point deficit for this win. The Wildcats trailed 36-18 with 5 minutes to play in the first half. But they made their 3-pointers — Reynolds made his first three after the break — and slowly sliced into the big lead. Reynolds’ bucket gave Villanova its first lead of the game, 50-49 with 11:56 remaining. Demontez Stitt led the Tigers with 14 points. K.C. Rivers Jr. added 12.
