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Texas A&M upends Syracuse

It was no way for Gerry McNamara to end his collegiate career, not after his weekend-long star turn in the Big East tournament, or in his stellar four-year career, which included a national championship in 2003.

But there was McNamara, on the bench, a towel draped over his legs, then around his neck, for the final five minutes of Syracuse's 66-58 loss to Texas A&M on Thursday night in an NCAA tournament first-round game.

Bothered by a sore groin toward the end of the season, McNamara had nothing to offer Syracuse offensively Thursday night. He missed all six of his field-goal attempts. He scored two points, on free throws, in the first half. It was the first time in his career, 135 games, that he did not score a field goal in a game.

"I feel great about it," McNamara said in a postgame interview, his words dripping with sarcasm. "Because of me, we lost. Fantastic. Great feeling."

Terrence Roberts scored 15 points for fifth-seeded Syracuse, which ended its season at 23-12.

A&M, seeded 12th, advanced to the second round, to play Louisiana State.

McNamara seemed to be able to exert himself on some plays, but there were other times when he did not seem to have his legs under him as he launched shots.

McNamara looked flat in the first half. He took two shots and missed both. The Orange made 7 of 20 shots in the first half and trailed, 33-24, at the break.

A&M's Chris Walker chased McNamara hard off screens and from side to side, and A&M forwards also stuck a hip into McNamara to slow him down.

What hurt Syracuse more was its defensive rebounding. Texas A&M outrebounded the Orange 19-14 in the first half. The Aggies grabbed eight offensive rebounds and scored eight second-chance points.

Boston College 88, Drake 76, 2OT

Boston College is a team that never rattles but rarely dominates. The Eagles execute well enough that they have won nine straight overtime games, but the same team that plays possession-for-possession with Duke can't easily dispatch Drake and Stony Brook.

An 88-76 double-overtime win over 13th-seeded Pacific on Thursday afternoon encapsulated both the Eagles' greatest strength and their most damaging weakness, a flaw that nearly proved devastating in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The No. 4-seeded Eagles squandered a 13-point second-half lead and endured a six-point deficit in the first overtime before they finally put the Tigers away.

Wichita St. 86, Seton Hall 66

The seeding favored No. 7 Wichita State going into its first-round NCAA tournament game against No. 10 Seton Hall on Thursday at Greensboro Coliseum. But surely, Seton Hall had the resume to pull off this mild upset. It was the Missouri Valley Conference versus the Big East, after all.

And it was no contest. Wichita State had Seton Hall by 20 before the first half ended and never allowed it to become much of a game, breezing to an easy 86-66 victory over the Pirates in the Washington regional.

The Shockers (25-8) advanced to face Tennessee, which beat Winthrop at the buzzer, 63-61, in the other regional first-round game here. Wichita State and Tennessee will play today.

UW-Milwaukee 82, Oklahoma 74

When UW-Milwaukee opened the season with a 27-point loss to Memphis and lost again in the third game of the season to Tennessee Tech, there was some concern that the Panthers, with four returning senior starters, were going to be ruined by a change of coaches.

Bruce Pearl, who guided UW-Milwaukee to the Round of 16 in the 2005 NCAA tournament with two upset victories, had left for Tennessee. The transition under the new coach, Rob Jeter, a former assistant and associate head coach at Wisconsin, was not going smoothly.

"Coach Pearl and Coach Jeter had different ways," the senior guard Chris Hill said. "It was a little rough at the beginning."

There was a tug of war between the senior-dominated team and Jeter, who did not press as much as Pearl did. Jeter also installed a swing offense, a more deliberate attack than the freewheeling one used by Pearl.

But as the season progressed, the Panthers and Jeter collected themselves. That partnership was on display in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday at Veterans Memorial Arena as 11th-seeded UW-Milwaukee ran away from sixth-seeded Oklahoma to win 82-74 in the Minneapolis Regional.

The senior guard Boo Davis scored 26 points and the senior forward Joah Tucker added 24 to lead the Panthers (22-8) into the second round against third-seeded Florida today. The Gators defeated 14th-seeded South Alabama, 76-50, in another first-round game on Thursday.
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