DAYTON, Ohio \u2014 A freshman guard overcame a frightful fall and helped Bobby Hurley \u2014 a two-time champion guard at Duke \u2014 get his first NCAA Tournament win as Arizona State head coach.<\/p>\n
Luguentz Dort shook off knee and hip injuries from a hard fall, scored 21 points and led the Sun Devils to a long-awaited NCAA Tournament victory Wednesday night, 74-65 over St. John\u2019s in the First Four.<\/p>\n
The 11th-seeded Sun Devils (23-10) will play Mid-American Conference champion Buffalo on Friday in the West Region, coming off their first NCAA tourney win in 10 years.<\/p>\n
“It was just great,” Dort said. “At the beginning of this year we knew that we wanted to do something special.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hurley’s first NCAA Tournament win as a coach was a family affair. Brother Dan, the head coach at UConn, was on hand for support.<\/p>\n
“We’re so close, and we talk so much,” Hurley said. “And I’m sure he’s very familiar with our team and our players. Just getting a chance to spend time with him this afternoon a little bit \u2014 it means everything that he took the time out.”<\/p>\n
Arizona State also provided a Pac-12 breakthrough: the conference’s first NCAA Tournament win in two years.<\/p>\n
The Pac-12 was 0-3 in the tournament last season, with two teams \u2014 Arizona State and UCLA \u2014 falling in the First Four. Arizona then got knocked out in the round of 64.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Johnnies season is over. (John Minchillo\/AP)<\/p>\n
The Pac-12 got three teams in again this year, with Oregon and Washington joining the Sun Devils.<\/p>\n
St. John’s (21-13) was the last team picked for the tournament, sneaking in despite a late-season fade. The Red Storm wound up one of the first ones out as well.<\/p>\n
Shamorie Ponds scored 25 points for St. John’s, which hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000. The Red Storm never led on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAYTON, Ohio — A freshman guard overcame a frightful fall and helped Bobby Hurley — a two-time champion guard at Duke — get his first NCAA Tournament win as Arizona State head coach. Luguentz Dort shook off knee and hip injuries from a hard fall, scored 21 points and led the Sun Devils to a long-awaited NCAA Tournament victory Wednesday night, 74-65 over St. John’s in the First Four. The 11th-seeded Sun Devils (23-10) will play Mid-American Conference champion Buffalo on Friday in the West Region, coming off their first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17930,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions\/17930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}