PORTLAND, Ore. — No. 11 seed Texas knows the success level associated with its spot in the NCAA Tournament bracket.<\/p>\n
Just don’t bring it up.<\/p>\n
“Don’t jinx us,” Longhorns’ guard Tramon Mark said.<\/p>\n
No. 11 seeds Virginia Commonwealth and UCLA are the only teams to use First Four victories as a springboard to the NCAA Final Four, in 2011 and 2021, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns (20-14) will attempt to stay on that path when they meet third-seeded Gonzaga (31-3) in the second round of the NCAA West Region on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“If the right team starts clicking at the right moment, anything can happen,” Texas guard Jordan Pope said after a high-anxiety 79-71 win over sixth-seeded BYU on Thursday. “Any team can win. Any team can lose.<\/p>\n
“That’s what March Madness is about. It’s about who’s the better team that day of the game, not necessarily who has been better all season.”<\/p>\n
Coach Mark Few and the Bulldogs won their first tournament game for the 17th straight season by holding off No. 14 seed Kennesaw State 73-64 on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“One day down the road, people will reflect on what he (Few) has done at Gonzaga,” Texas coach Sean Miller said. “It’s almost like a movie that is too good to be true. How can you have that much success in Spokane, Wash., at Gonzaga for that long?”<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs understand how dangerous a low seed can be. They have won tournament games twice as a 10th seed, twice as an 11th seed, and once as a 12th.<\/p>\n
“This is one of the beauties of the tournament,” Few said.<\/p>\n
Mark made four free throws in the final 18 seconds to clinch Texas’ win over BYU after Pope’s corner jumper late in the shot clock gave the Longhorns a seven-point cushion.<\/p>\n
The game hinged on Texas center Matas Vokietaitis, who had 23 points and a career-high 16 rebounds but missed seven free throws in the second half.<\/p>\n
“I tried everything,” Miller said to encourage Vokietaitis at the free-throw line. “I tried head-butting him in the chest. I tried making fun of him, joking around. I tried to encourage him. I tried to leave him alone. It’s a shame because he had such a great performance otherwise.”<\/p>\n
Gonzaga, meanwhile, can turn its attention to field-goal shooting.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs, who ranked fifth in Division I with a 51.0 percentage entering the tournament, survived against Kennesaw State despite shooting 39.7% from the floor.<\/p>\n
It was the third time they failed to crack 40% this season, the first two coming in losses to Michigan and Saint Mary’s.<\/p>\n
“We know we have the ability,” said Gonzaga point guard Mario Saint-Supery, who had seven points and eight assists. “Just have to keep shooting. You got to let it rip.”<\/p>\n
West Coast Conference Player of the Year Graham Ike had 19 points and eight rebounds in the Bulldogs’ all-hands-on-deck attack against the Owls.<\/p>\n
Freshman reserve Davis Fogle posted 17 points and five rebounds, and Jalen Warley recorded his second double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Gonzaga and Texas had rebounding edges Thursday, the Longhorns at plus-nine and the Bulldogs at plus-11.<\/p>\n
“The one key element for them is that they really pound the glass,” Miller said of Gonzaga. “Rebounding has always been a key statistic playing them. We’re going to have to be every bit as good as we were last night.”<\/p>\n
–Jack Magruder, Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. — No. 11 seed Texas knows the success level associated with its spot in the NCAA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,1149,217,2851,6635,19769,39564,5978,63421,1739,231,772,11616,1544,32582,2098,12321,19761,5747],"class_list":["post-670633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-bulldogs","tag-college-basketball","tag-gonzaga","tag-graham-ike","tag-jordan-pope","tag-kennesaw-state","tag-longhorns","tag-mario-saint-supery","tag-michigan","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaa-tournament-bracket","tag-ncaab","tag-sean-miller","tag-texas","tag-the-longhorns","tag-tramon-mark","tag-ucla"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116267189494477998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}