After beating South Alabama, the Wildcats had a bit of good luck: No. 5-seed Maryland had been upended by 12th-seeded College of Charleston, a 28-2 squad out of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Cougars were no pushovers, led by center Thad Delaney and guard Anthony Johnson, who formed a potent inside-out trio.
College of Charleston actually led at the half 34-33, but the Wildcats responded with a second-half surge as Simon led the way with 20.
Edgerson: “At the end, when it really counted, we found a way to put it together. It had to do with timing. We always felt we had a good team; it just didn’t jell till the end.”
Simon: “We didn’t think of it as a gauntlet, because we never looked too far ahead. We saw who was the No. 1 seed in our bracket, but it’s not like we were looking at the Final Four. We saw South Alabama, and in our minds we thought we’d beat them fairly easily. I for sure knew COC was good, I knew Delaney and Anthony Johnson. But we weren’t gonna fear anybody. We just wanted to play. More so, teams needed to fear us because we had really good players.”
People are also reading…
Rosborough: “The next game up for us was the biggest game, and that was one thing we always did real well — there wasn’t up and down preparation. If we were playing a school down here or at North Carolina, the prep was the same. I would think our guys would say they’d never go into a game feeling unprepared.”
Contact reporter Jon Gold at jgold@tucson.com or at (520) 573-8013. On Twitter: @TheCoolSub