Richmond upsets Iowa for the first 5 vs. 12 upset of the tournament
The NCAA tournament has already given us our first big upset of the first round. Twelve seed Richmond defeated five seed Iowa 6t-63 in the Midwest Region.
We have our first bit of March Madness in the NCAA Tournament as the Richmond Spiders have upset the Iowa Hawkeyes in a 5 seed vs 12 seed matchup. Jacob Gilyard was the stand out Spider, going for 24 points on 8-15 shooting.
Cayo comes through in the clutch
Although Gilyard was the top dog on Thursday afternoon in Buffalo, New York, Nathan Cayo was the one who stepped up late when Richmond needed it most.
The game went back and forth in the opening 20 minutes as the each team swapped shares of the lead. Iowa built their largest lead of five points four minutes into the second half, but a 9-0 gave the Spiders the lead which they would narrowly hold on to until the end of the game.
Cayo had a couple of and-1’s in the final 90 seconds of the games to stretch the lead from a point to five points with under 35 seconds to go.
Providence awaits this season's first Cinderella
The Richmond defense was stellar all night, holding the Hawkeyes to just 36.4% shooting.
The 5 vs. 12 matchup is always a tricky proposition for the favored team, and is very tricky matchup for the higher seed historically and it proved to be so once again in Western, New York.
Richmond will now play the 4th seeded Providence Friars in the next round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.