Vander Blue helped lead Marquette to a thrilling 59-58 comeback win in its first-round NCAA Tournament game against 14-seed Davidson Thursday, giving us our first true March Madness moment of the tourney.
The three-seed Golden Eagles trailed for much of the game. They were down from the 10:44 mark until the last second of the game when they finally re-claimed the lead on a layup by Blue.
Davidson appeared to have the game in control when they were up by nine points with five minutes left, but that all changed in the final minute. Marquette scored on four straight possessions, including three straight 3-pointers. Junior Jamil Wilson made two of the threes while Blue made the other. Blue also made two free throws before Wilson’s first three, and he had the go-ahead layup with one second left in the game. He also recorded a steal on Davidson’s last pass attempt.
The Wildcats completely fell apart at the end of the game. Even though Marquette got hot and made three 3-pointers in a row, Davidson still could have won had they held onto the ball. Instead, they turned the ball over on a pass that went out of bounds with seven seconds left, giving the ball back to Marquette and Blue.
Blue finished with 16 points on 5-for-15 shooting. He wasn’t sharp, but he did enough for Marquette to “survive and advance.”
