It has been a boring day so far from those who are rooting for upsets. Kentucky beat Illinois by 9 after leading by double digits for a large portion of the game. Alabama won by 14 points against St. Mary’s in a game that really never felt like it was in doubt.

I was trying not to jinx it by not talking about it. But as all these games were going, I noticed that Colorado State was up on Maryland by 7 points at halftime. Maryland did come back out hot to start the half and took the lead without 14 minutes, but the Rams were not done – they would regain the lead quickly.

With 5 minutes left, Colorado State had rebuilt the lead to 5, but the Terrapins would go on a 9-0 run over the next 2 1/2 minutes, and I thought to myself that might be it. But the Rams continued to fight. With a little less than a minute left, Jalen Lake hit a jumper to tie the game at 68.

Selton Miguel would miss a three-pointer for the Terrapins, but Julian Reese got the rebound and was fouled. Reese hit both free throws to give Maryland the lead. Colorado State got the ball down the court, but Maryland was playing great defense and the Rams looked out of control, so the coach called a time-out.

And what a fantastic call by the coach Niko Medved. Colorado State gets the ball in Nique Clifford who dribbles down the baseline and then throws a cross-court pass to a wide open Jalen Lake who calmly drills a three-pointer with 6 seconds. The Rams have retaken the lead 71-70.

Maryland quickly takes the ball up the court and calls time-out as they cross the half-court line with about 3 seconds left in the game. Sometimes, the best play to call is get the ball into the hands of your best player and let him be a star.

That is exactly what Terrapins coach Kevin Willard called up. Maryland set some picks in the lane to let freshman center Derik Queen get the ball at the top of the key, Queen drove the left side of the lane, and shot a floating shot that hit high off the backboard and softly into the basket as the buzzer was sounding to give Maryland a 72-71 victory.

Charlie then noticed to make it worse that Purdue transfer Ethan Morton was the man guarding him. Morton was a defensive specialist at Purdue so I was sad to see him leave, but I suspect he wasn’t going to get a lot of playing time with the current line-up. He actually played pretty good defense – he used his body to force Queen to outside the lane, continued to have good positioning as Queen drove towards the basket, and had a hand in Queen’s face when he shot the fade-away floater.

But at the end of the day, Queen is 6’10” and Ethan Morton is 6’7″. And those three inches were the difference between Morton’s extended hand getting a hand on the ball as it left Queen’s hands.

And in the cruelest way possible, the clock struck midnight on the last 12 seed left in the tournament. Since it didn’t help Colorado State, I will mention that #6 seed Ole Miss is up big against Iowa State 63-42, #10 New Mexico is leading #2 Michigan State by 2 at halftime, and #5 Oregon has jumped out to a 13-4 lead over Arizona for an early start. Maybe we can still see at least one upset before the night is done.