Close calls but no falls for NCAA No. 16 teams

Since the NCAA men's tournament field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985 and teams in each of the four regions were seeded 1-16, no top-seeded team has lost its first-round game.

West Regional No. 1 UCLA (31-3) opens tournament play Thursday night against No. 16 Mississippi Valley State (17-15) and it's quite probable that Bruins Coach Ben Howland has mentioned some of these games:

In 1989, No. 1 Oklahoma 72, No. 16 East Tennessee State 71; No. 1 Georgetown 50, No. 16 Princeton 49. In 1990, No. 1 Michigan State 75, No. 16 Murray State 71, in overtime. In 1996, No. 1 Purdue 73, No. 16 Western Carolina 71. In 2006, No. 1 Connecticut 72, No. 16 Albany 59 -- after Albany led by 12 points in the second half.

It is Princeton's near-win over Georgetown, which had Alonzo Mourning at center, that remains vivid for many college basketball fans. When the tournament draw was revealed that season, Princeton coach Pete Carril said, "I think we're a billion-to-one shot to win the whole tournament. But I think to beat Georgetown we're only 400 million to one."

That almost turned into a good bet.

In the last six seconds, Princeton had the ball and had two shots for the win. The first was taken by Bob Scrabis, the Ivy League player of the year, and the next, after an inbound pass, by Kit Mueller with one second to play. Mourning blocked both.

"We prepared for the game as if it were just another Ivy League game," Scrabis said. "We were preparing to win. One problem was that in practice our second team was told to play defense the way Georgetown did and we were having trouble getting a shot off against our second team."

Once the game started, though, Princeton became more confident.

"We were playing against a team that would have four or five guys in the pros pretty soon," Scrabis recalled. ". . . Charles Smith was covering me and I could tell he wasn't completely into it. It was like they didn't understand what was going on, felt like they could coast here a little bit and then just turn it on."

Georgetown's scare came a night after East Tennessee State led top-seeded Oklahoma by as many as 17 points before scoring only three points in the final five minutes of the game. Mookie Blaylock made a baseline drive to give Oklahoma its second lead, 72-71, with 1 minute 21 seconds left and East Tennessee State missed twice in the closing minute.