No. 15 Belmont falls short of historic upset of Duke

Belmont missed out on becoming the fifth No. 15 seed to knock off a second-seeded team. Damian Strohmeyer/SI

RELATED • Duke survives scare from No. 15 Belmont

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WASHINGTON D.C. -- For a team that had just lost its first-round NCAA tournament game in heartbreaking fashion, the mood in the Belmont Bruins' locker room Thursday night was the farthest thing from despondent.

"The fact that we could have won -- it sucks," guard Henry Harris said. He let out a chuckle almost as soon as he said it. For a guy whose errant inbounds pass may have cost his team the game, Alex Renfroe was remarkably stoic as he sat in a locker stall taking with reporters.

"I'm going to remember everything about this game for the rest of my life," he said. "I'm sure my parents will give me a tape of it. I'll just have to stop it with four seconds left and act like it ends there."

Four seconds. That's how close Renfroe and the 15th-seeded Belmont came to forever etching their name into NCAA tournament lore alongside Coppin Sate and Santa Clara, Bryce Drew and Mouse McFadden.

With just four seconds left, and with presumably every red-blooded basketball fan in the country watching from the edge of his or her seat, Renfroe stood on the baseline of his own basket, his Bruins trailing the blue-blooded Duke Blue Devils 71-70. His mission: Throw a lob pass to teammate Shane Dansby, who, as had happened whenever they'd run the play in the past, would go up, attempt a tip-in and, at the very least, draw a foul.

Instead, Duke senior DeMarcus Nelson broke through a Harris screen, intercepted the pass and dashed what would have been one of the most memorable upsets in tourney history.

"The game is almost over -- it's right in front of you. You just need one thing to happen to get it," said Renfroe. "Unfortunately, that one thing didn't happen."

Instead, the Blue Devils advanced to Saturday's second round -- but it was the Bruins who left the floor of the Verizon Center to a standing ovation.

As the game had progressed, with the underdogs continually hanging within just a few points of the West Region's No. 2 seed, all but the three sections of Duke fans in the arena had begun cheering louder and louder for the tiny school from Nashville (whose supporters included front-row spectator Vince Gill).

When Renfroe -- as he'd done on numerous occasions throughout his 15-point night -- drove to the basket, he drew a foul from Duke guard Nolan Smith, hit a free-throw to put his team up 58-56 with just more than 10 minutes remaining and the building erupted. And when the Bruins reclaimed the lead for the last time, 70-69 with 2:02 remaining, chants of "Let's Go Belmont" reverberated throughout the crowd of 17,000-plus.

"The last two to three minutes of the game, I was just looking around thinking, 'We really can win this game. This is Duke,'" said Harris. "Once we realized we were so close to winning, throughout your brain, you're just thinking, 'Wow.'"

In the opposite huddle, said Blue Devils sophomore Jon Scheyer, "We just kept telling each other, 'We're gonna win, we're gonna win.' That's a big key when 90 percent of the arena is rooting for you to lose."

For much of the game, Duke had looked downright flustered by Belmont's attacking style. Oftentimes tourney upsets involve the Cinderella raining one three-pointer after another, but the Bruins hit just 8-of-23 from behind the arc. Their upset formula was far simpler: Their players simply beat the Blue Devils to the basket again and again.

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