March Madness: Ranking the Top 10 games of 2019 NCAA Tournament

3. Virginia 85 – Texas Tech 77 (OT)

This was the ending of a great tournament and a great and improbable three-game run for the Cavaliers. They decided they wanted to play the three best tournament games this year and do it in three straight games. They did it about any way possible. The first two will be coming up in soon, but this game was a fitting way to end their national title run.

This game was billed as a defensive slugfest and for the first ten minutes, that is exactly what it was. Twitter was lighting up about how boring this game was and how “unsexy” of a matchup it was. Nobody cared about these two teams and they played so slow that it would suck the life out of the building. The beginning did nothing to change their minds.

But then Texas Tech went on a three-point binge to turn a ten-point deficit into a lead. They would go back and forth for the last few minutes of the first half before Ty Jerome hit a three-pointer to end the first half and send the Cavaliers into the locker room with a three-point lead.

That was just the appetizer to what would turn out to be a great second half. It started with Virginia pulling away and getting up by as many as ten but just like in the Final Four game, the Cavaliers would give up that lead. The Red Raiders kept fighting back and during a two-minute stretch, they went on an 8-0 run to tie the game with 3:28 remaining. This would set up a great ending to a great game.

Texas Tech would take the lead by three with 22 seconds left after two free throws by Norense Odiase, but Virginia would come right back down and answer. Jerome would drive the lane and look like he had an open layup but hit De’Andre Hunter for a three on the baseline that he drilled to tie the game.

Jarrett Culver would come down and miss a three and Virginia would get the rebound and almost make one of the biggest blunders since Chris Webber’s timeout to end the game. After the rebound, Kyle Guy turned to call a timeout, but Hunter would throw him the ball as he was turning away and it went out of bounds. Tech would have one more shot to win the game but Culver’s shot was blocked and the game went to overtime.

The overtime was fairly uneventful as Virginia hit 12-12 free-throws to win the game by eight. The “easy” win in overtime didn’t take away the fact that this was a great game. The only difference between this game and the next two was the way the game ended. Virginia was able to escape with a national title and Texas Tech will sit back and think what if. The Red Radiers and Chris Beard look like they are building a power in the Big 12 and they proved they belonged with the big boys. The Cavaliers were able to turn around the biggest loss in school history and rebound with a championship.