While the NCAA Tournament won’t begin until next week, March Madness is in full swing thanks to conference tournament action and we have already seen some wild upsets and heartbreaking losses. In terms of the big picture of who will get at-large bids, NC State beating UNC in the ACC final and Oregon beating Colorado in the Pac-12 final will have the biggest ripple effects around the country as they swiped automatic bids.
Then you have the single bid leagues, where the conference tournament is your lone pathway to the Big Dance, and the final game produces some of the purest “thrill of victory, agony of defeat” moments in the game. On Saturday night in the MAC Tournament final, we saw just that in a truly insane final few seconds between Akron and Kent State. The Golden Flashes took a one-point lead with under seven seconds to play on a putback, but not everyone was aware that bucket put them in front, as Julius Rollins ran in to intentionally foul Akron on the inbound, sending the Zips to the line with a chance to retake the lead.
mental mistake for Kent State fouling after taking the lead, that’s a tough one pic.twitter.com/XylUjzFJSb
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) March 17, 2024
It was a brutal mental mistake, with Rollins’ teammates and coach, Rob Senderoff, losing their minds over what just happened. You can only feel for Rollins as he was distraught on the sidelines after realizing what he’d done, and the Zips naturally made both free throws to win 62-61 and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.