YES, YES THEY ARE!
For the first time in NCAA history, a team has won four games in the Big Dance but is still not in the Final Four. All thanks to clutch play, and the expanded ‘First Four’ scheduling. The Cinderella Virginia Commonwealth Rams eeked out a fourth win tonight against the Florida State Seminoles 72-71.
Bradford Burgess made a layup off an inbounds pass with 7.1 seconds left and Jamie Skeen blocked a shot at the buzzer, giving Virginia Commonwealth a 72-71 victory over Florida State in overtime in a Southwest Region semifinal Friday night.
In the first NCAA tournament game between teams seeded 10 and 11, the lower seeded Rams blew a nine-point lead by scoring only three points in the final 7:37 of regulation. They never trailed by more than four all night, but found themselves down 71-70 when Burgess scored the kind of basket that will live in NCAA tournament lore.
The Rams (27-11) are among the final eight for the first time. Having already ousted high-profile programs from the Pac-10 (Southern Cal), Big East (Georgetown), Big Ten (Purdue) and now the ACC, they will try adding the Big 12 to their hit list, facing top-seeded Kansas. The Jayhawks advanced with a 77-57 rout over Richmond.
The Rams’ story may come to a screeching halt against the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday, but that takes nothing away from their remarkable accomplishment. They’ve made history this year. And if they can somehow beat the Jayhawks, they’ll set a record that likely won’t get broken for some time to come.
