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No Big Surprises

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The Associated Press

Published: March 20, 2009

Updated: 03/20/2009 12:55 am

With their coach in the hospital, A.J. Price and Hasheem Thabeet scored 20 points apiece to lead top-seeded Connecticut to its first postseason win in three years, a 103-47 victory over Chattanooga, as the Goliaths ruled the Opening Day of the NCAA Tournament.

UConn coach Jim Calhoun missed the game because he wasn't feeling well and was hospitalized for tests. He was scheduled to be kept overnight for observation, but was well enough to call into his players after the game ended.

"He was upbeat about everything," Price said. "He told us he couldn't wait to join us again. We can't wait to have him back."

North Carolina, without star point guard Ty Lawson, also had an easy time in a 101-58 rout of Radford.

But while the Davids in the field didn't score any big upsets, they did give some big schools some trouble.

Memphis needed a career day from Roburt Sallie to defeat Cal State Northridge. The sophomore guard had 35 points in the Tigers' come-from-behind 81-70 victory. His 35 in the first-round win was almost one-fourth of his season total of 150 coming in.

He knocked Larry Kenon, who led then-Memphis State to the 1973 championship game against UCLA, out of the school record book for points in an NCAA Tournament game, and set an NCAA high for 3-pointers in a first-round game with 10.

No. 3 seed Villanova had problems with American, trailing at one point by as many as 14 points before coming back for an 80-67 victory. No. 6 seed UCLA held off Virginia Commonwealth 65-64, but only after the Rams' Eric Maynor missed a potential game-winning shot at the buzzer.

Two No. 10 seeds provided minor upsets as Maryland beat California 84-71, and Michigan won its first tournament game since 1998 with a 62-59 win against Clemson, but that was all on a quiet first day.

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