Rebounding did in the Buckeyes last night. Columns are already out that the Buckeyes blew it. Ohio State Head Coach Thadd Matta had this to say:

“We were never in the game mentally the way we needed to be,” Matta said after the eighth-seeded Buckeyes were bounced in the opening round for the first time since 2001. “We never had a flow, we didn’t rebound, we didn’t handle pressure.”

“Give Siena credit. They made some huge plays down the stretch and we didn’t do some things we needed to do.”

Jeff Goodman has high praise for Siena and Ronald Moore’s performance, even though it says “Craig Moore”. The NY Times has a recap of Siena’s dramatic victory and some comments on their The Quad blog:

One more thing about midmajors: Siena is the first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference team to win games in the N.C.A.A. tournament two years in a row. With the Big Ten at 4-3 and the A.C.C. at 3-4, maybe it’s time to listen to the coaches like Niagara’s Joe Michalich, who told Pete Thamel after the bids were announced: “The beauty of this tournament is not Oklahoma State playing Clemson.”

Even though both games went to overtime, anyone without a rooting interest would have to agree that a little guy (Siena) against a big guy (Ohio State) had a lot more juice than two also-rans from big conferences (Florida State and Wisconsin) slugging it out.

Louisville wore down Morehead State and pulled away for a 20 point win. With their win the 1 vs. 16 matchup is now a perfect 100-0 for the #1 seeds. C.J. Brown thinks that, like Memphis last year, the free throw line will be the Cardinals achilles heel in this tournament. They will apply relentless pressure and see how the Saints can hang with the overall #1 seed.