St. Bonaventure beats UCLA to headline the NCAA tournament’s opening night

The NCAA tournament began Tuesday night with a set of First Four games in Dayton, Ohio. The results were both in the East Region:

• No. 16 Radford 71, No. 16 LIU Brooklyn 61. The Highlanders advanced to play East Region No. 1 seed Villanova in the round of 64 on Thursday in Pittsburgh.
• No. 11 St. Bonaventure 65, UCLA 58. The Bonnies will play No .6 Florida on Thursday in Dallas, where they’ll be heavy underdogs.

A full bracket is here.

Below are updated live blogs of Tuesday’s games:

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Final: St. Bonaventure 65, UCLA 58

SBU 60, UCLA 58, 0:44: What a game this has turned into. The Bruins responded to a 12-0 Bonnies run with a 7-0 run of their own and tied the game. St. Bonaventure’s Jaylen Adams just hit a long two-point jumper to put his side back ahead. Adams, the Bonnies’ star, is 2-of-16 from the field and has 5 points. Those were two big ones.

SBU 58, UCLA 51, 3:54, 2H: Wow, wow, wow. The Bonnies just went on a 12-0 run, and they’re firmly in the driver’s seat as this thing barrels toward a finish.

UCLA 51, SBU 46, 7:49, 2H: The Bruins’ offense has finally come out of a slumber that started about midway through the first half. A 7-2 run over about four minutes has given them their first separation in a long time, and the clock’s ticking.

UCLA 44, SBU 42, 11:53, 2H:

SBU 36, UCLA 34, 15:53, 2H: UCLA fell behind by seven in the early moments of the half, but the Bruins’ offense has picked up — relatively speaking — in the last few minutes. Still, that we’re heading for a probable close finish is about as good news as St. Bonaventure could’ve asked for, given UCLA’s talent advantage.

Halftime: SBU 28, UCLA 23: The Bruins didn’t sink a shot from the field for the last six and a half minutes of the half. Both teams shot between 32 and 35 percent for the half. This has been all kinds of sloppy, and we’re set up for a final score in the 60s — if that high.

SBU 23, UCLA 22, 3:20, 1H: UCLA has missed eight of its last nine shots from the field, and offense has almost completely ground to a halt. There has been a total of six points scored in six minutes.

UCLA 20, SBU 19, 7:43, 1H: Things have (probably just briefly) settled down a little after a frantic start.

UCLA 20, SBU 17, 9:52, 1H: St. Bonaventure has made a nice charge back after falling seven points down at the first media timeout. The Bonnies battled back with their own run to tie the game at 17, before a UCLA three-pointer from Kris Wilkes got the Bruins back up by a smidgen.

UCLA 14, SBU 7, 15:40, 1H: The Bruins have gotten off to just the right kind of start. They’re 5-of-6 from the field, including a perfect 3-of-3 on three-pointers. The Bruins won’t shoot 86 percent for the whole night, but they’re one of the better shooting teams in the country. If they don’t go way cold at some point, it’s going to be hard for the Bonnies to win. UCLA’s star guard, Aaron Holiday, is off to a brilliant start:

Preview

Steve Alford’s bunch is significantly more talented than the Bonnies, and if the Bruins’ offense plays to anything near its abilities, they’re going to win. Whoever wins faces East No. 6 seed Florida on Thursday in Dallas. UCLA is a 3.5-point favorite to get there.

UCLA has fallen off considerably from a season ago, when Lonzo Ball catalyzed one of the two or three best offenses in the country and drove the Bruins to the Sweet 16. Pretty much everything is worse this year, but there are still players here who can score. UCLA remains a pretty good shooting team, with no one better at that than guard Aaron Holiday.

St. Bonaventure was a somewhat controversial NCAA pick, given that it didn’t win its mid-major conference, the Atlantic 10. The Bonnies can shoot the three-pointer really well (39.8 percent, or 19th-best in the country this year), and they’re not bad on defense. Despite a talent disparity against UCLA, they could knock down enough jumpers to compete.

Radford beats LIU Brooklyn, 71-61.

Radford 66, LIU Brooklyn 59, 2:42, 2H: Long Island went on a brief 9-4 run to cut Radford’s lead to 2, but the Highlanders have gotten some more distance since then.

Look at this gorgeous crossover:

Radford 55, LIU 48, 7:58, 2H: Radford’s still sticking to a seven-point lead, the product of a nice burst about five minutes into the second half. If this margin holds, that 12-4 run is going to be what sends the Highlanders on to the round of 64.

Radford 49, LIU 42, 11:47, 2H: Radford’s gone on a 12-4 run in the last three minutes, flipping a one-point deficit into its largest lead of the game. Huge for the Highlanders.

LIU 38, Radford 37, 15:40, 2H: The Blackbirds have their first lead since it was 3-2.

Halftime: Radford 30, LIU 28: Radford stuck to a slim lead for the last 19 minutes of the half, after they went up 4-3 with 18:57 left on the clock. The Highlanders were best on shots inside the arc, where they were 11-of-8, compared to 2-of-7 from deep. Eight different players scored points for them, and nobody had more than six.

LIU’s going to need more in the second half from star guard Joel Hernandez, who had five points on 2-of-6 shooting and took a charging foul on the break with two seconds left. If he gets churning, the Blackbirds will be in much, much better shape.

Here was an authoritative Radford swatting:

Radford 20, LIU 16, 7:07, 1H: Radford’s still outshooting LIU and sticking to a slight early lead. It’s been a rough start for LIU star guard Joel Hernandez, who’s 1-of-4 from the field.

Earlier, the best highlight so far:

Radford 13, LIU 9, 11:50, 1H: The Highlanders made six of their first 11 shots from the field, with four different guys chipping in those buckets. That’s a nice start for Mike Jones’ team.

Preview

This is the lesser of the two games happening on Tuesday. The winner is going to be lunch for No. 1 seed Villanova in a first-round game in Pittsburgh on Thursday. But one of these upstarts is going to get an NCAA tournament win, and that’s awesome, because the schools are a combined 0-8 in their previous March Madness appearances.

Radford is a 5.5-point favorite. The Highlanders are a better defensive team than the Blackbirds, and they come from a better conference. Radford’s the champion of the Big South, and Long Island clinched its spot by winning the all-around underwhelming NEC. (The Blackbirds were just 10-8 in conference in the regular season, but they mounted a shocking three-game run to the tournament title. That included a win in the championship game against Wagner, which had been by far the best team in the conference.)

The best player in the game might be LIU Brooklyn’s Hernandez, a junior guard who averages 21 points and six rebounds per game.