By MITCH STACY AP Sports Writer
DAYTON, Ohio — Jamarius Burton made a go-ahead jumper with 10 seconds left and Pitt edged Mississippi State, 60-59, in a back-and-forth First Four game Tuesday night that featured 21 lead changes – the most in the NCAA Tournament in five years.
Mississippi State had a great chance to win at the end, but Shakeel Moore missed a wide-open 3-point attempt from the corner with two seconds remaining off an inbounds play. D.J. Jeffries’ tip-in attempt was off-target just before the buzzer.
Nelly Cummings led Pitt with 15 points. Greg Elliott scored 13 and Blake Hinson added 12 as the Panthers (23-11) won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2014.
They slot into the Midwest Region bracket as the 11th seed and advance to face No. 6 seed Iowa State on Friday in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“We showed toughness, resiliency,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “We were who we’ve been all year, and it wasn’t pretty – but it was beautiful.”
A layup by Tolu Smith gave Mississippi State a 59-58 advantage with 32 seconds left, but Pitt – after a three-minute scoring drought – grabbed the lead back on Burton’s short jumper.
Guillermo Diaz Graham blocked Smith’s driving layup attempt out of bounds with 2.7 seconds left, setting up the final sequence.
“I did a block – I don’t even know how – with my left hand,” the exhausted 6-foot-11 freshman said. “I usually don’t use my left hand. And I blocked it, and I knew it was a big play, so I just let the energy go out.”
Dashawn Davis had 15 points for the Bulldogs (21-13), and Moore scored 13.
Burton, who spent nearly seven minutes on the bench after picking up his fourth foul, said he knew his last shot was going in.
“When I had the ball in my hands the last 30 seconds or so, I just told myself I was built for it,” said Burton, who finished with six points. “And I just got to a spot and let it go, and I had complete confidence in myself. That was pretty much everything that went down.”
FROM DEEP
The 3-pointers were being launched right away as the teams combined for 13 in the first half.
Mississippi State, not a good outside shooting team, hit four in the first five minutes but cooled off after that. The Panthers went 8 for 13 from beyond the arc in the opening period.
The teams hit just one each from long range in the second half.
“Every team is going to make adjustments at halftime, so I think we had to make the same type of adjustments and realize what type of game we were in and take what the defense was giving us,” Cummings said.
A GOOD LOOK
Mississippi State coach Chris Jans – whose team scored 30 points in the paint – said he couldn’t quarrel with the choices his players made in the last few seconds.
“It was a heck of a look,” Jans said of Moore’s missed 3-point try. “Fortunately we got it off quick enough where we had at least one tap at it. I don’t think the second one was probably in time, but at that point, it’s all you can ask for, a chance – the ball is in the air – to win an NCAA Tournament game and still have enough time to get a putback.
“When you outright rebound someone 49-28, you usually expect to win. But you’ve got to give Pitt a lot of credit, they obviously played well enough to win. We struggled in the first half to guard them. We just couldn’t contain the 3, and it was still a one-point game.”
TEXAS A&M-CORPUS CHRISTI 75, SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE 71: Isaac Mushila had 15 points and 12 rebounds as Texas A&M-Corpus Christi held off Southeast Missouri State to earn the first NCAA Tournament win in program history.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi went 3 for 4 at the free-throw line in the final 15 seconds to ice the game and advance to play top-seeded Alabama in the South Region on Thursday in Birmingham, Alabama.
The 16th-seeded Islanders (24-10), winners of the Southland Conference, returned to the First Four for a second straight season and led for all but 23 seconds in the opening game of this one.
Southeast Missouri State (19-17) erased a 10-point deficit and tied it at 64 with 3:07 left.
Jalen Jackson led the Islanders with 22 points. Trevian Tennyson scooped in a slick layup off the glass to give Texas A&M-Corpus Christi a 72-69 lead with 22 seconds remaining.
Chris Harris scored 23 points before fouling out for the Redhawks, the Ohio Valley Tournament champions. Phillip Russell came up short on a good look at a potential tying 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds to go.
Southeast Missouri State went 9 for 20 at the free-throw line.