7:38 PM ET As Oral Roberts coach Paul Mills prepared his players for overtime Friday against Ohio State, a 2-seed in the NCAA tournament and the Big Ten tournament runner-up, he had one message for them. “We’re winning this,” he said. Mills said he preached confidence to the 15-seed Golden Eagles, who beat the Buckeyes 75-72 for their first NCAA tournament win since 1974, when they were known as the Titans. 1 Related Few expected an Oral Roberts victory. In ESPN’s Men’s Tournament Challenge, more than 95% of the brackets (nearly 14 million) picked the Buckeyes, who were 16-point favorites. It was the biggest upset since UMBC’s first-round victory over top-seeded Virginia in 2018 as a plus-20.5 underdog and the eighth biggest since 1985. The loss punctuated a season of turbulence for an Ohio State team that had positioned itself to compete for a No. 1 seed at one point…
Continue Reading: Oral Roberts ousts Ohio State from NCAA tournament as 16-point underdog
