GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Siena's Brendan Coyle buried a 3-pointer, then raised his arms emphatically to the crowd.
Teammate Gavin Doty followed minutes later with his own 3, running downcourt with his hand raised to his ear as though making a call.
Siena rolled into its first March Madness game since 2010 with fearless confidence that kept growing with every made shot and each point tacked onto an expanding lead. Only this was in the most improbable
of settings: as a 16-seed in the NCAA Tournament, rolling out just five players — and sticking it to No. 1 overall seed Duke.
Ultimately, the Saints couldn't complete an all-timer of a tournament shocker, fading late as the Blue Devils rallied from 13 down before finally putting away a 71-65 win in Thursday's first round of the East Region. But they made the afternoon theirs in South Carolina, thrilling a curious-turned-buzzing crowd while forcing the Blue Devils to confront the possibility that the unthinkable could really happen.
“We believe!” a Siena fan yelled from the stands during one first-half surge.
And the Saints gave them every reason to.
“I’ve been doing this a long time. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of any group of kids I’ve been around,” Siena coach Gerry McNamara said. "I think the world and college basketball saw what I’ve been so grateful and thankful to be around all season: a group of kids that love each other, that compete at the highest level and play for each other."
The NCAA Tournament is known for upsets, the kind of little-guy-takes-down-the-giant moments that capture the nation's imagination every spring. And yet, what nearly transpired Thursday is the kind of moment that rarely happens.
The No. 1 seeds entered the week with a 158-2 record against 16 seeds in the tournament, the outliers being Virginia’s loss to UMBC in 2018 and Purdue’s loss to Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023.
And Duke — a blueblood with five NCAA titles — spent much of Thursday in serious danger of being added to that list.
Nothing deterred Siena. Not Duke’s size. Not the matchup with a high-end NBA prospect in first-team Associated Press All-American Cameron Boozer. Not even playing just a five-man lineup to the final seconds thanks to a combination of eligibility and injury issues.
“Keep going!” one player yelled as the team came back to the bench for a timeout
“Oh yeah!” another responded.
Instead, the Saints applied steady game pressure on the favored Blue Devils, who looked uncomfortable, tight and even flummoxed by the resistance.
“We thought it was going to be a cakewalk going into this game,” senior forward Maliq Brown said on the halftime interview during the CBS game broadcast.
Instead, the Saints shot 54.8% in the first half against a defense ranked among the national elite. They also improbably managed to close the first half with an edge on the glass and points in the paint against a team that had pummeled foes with an inside-out approach since January.
And they led 43-32 at the break.
“When we came out of the gate hot, we were playing to our potential and we knew we could do it,” Siena big man Riley Mulvey said. “We just didn't play scared.”
And so much of it started with matching the energy of the man on the sideline.
McNamara, the second-year coach, is perhaps best known for his time as a starter on the Carmelo Anthony-led Syracuse team that won the 2003 national title. The energy is still there now, with him seemingly living and dying with every possession as he watched from near the scorer's table.
That continued during every stoppage on the bench, as though trying to will his team to stay on its shocking course.
During one timeout, he excitedly tapped Coyle on the right knee and told him, “You've got to take it!”
During another, he pressed the 7-foot Mulvey to stay locked on details, saying: “We need you! We need every second of you!”
Along the way, the crowd grew more energized with every passing minute in the first half. That included fans wearing Ohio State red — the Buckeyes lost to TCU in the earlier game — and the lighter blue of Duke rival North Carolina.
There was nothing short of total belief that the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champions could do it, felt so tangibly that Duke coach Jon Scheyer said McNamara “outcoached us” and called it “one of the hardest moments for me in sport, period, to not have your best stuff.”
“We saw a young man at Siena, who almost beat Duke playing five players,” St. John's Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino said from his Red Storm's site across the country in San Diego. “Never heard of that before. Playing five players.”
Eventually though, Duke wore down the Saints with size and a withering second-half performance on the glass (30-13). Doty's third 3 gave Siena a 61-56 lead with 7:53 left, but Duke ran off 11 unanswered points.
During that stretch, Siena went scoreless for nearly seven minutes, missed eight straight shots and finished 8 for 34 (23.5%) after halftime.
By the end, Duke would win despite leading for just 8:30 of game action.
“We all had that (halftime) understanding that we only have 20 minutes guaranteed,” Duke freshman point guard Cayden Boozer said of the second-half rally.
When it was over, Siena's players solemnly filed to the tunnel, Mulvey fighting back tears and Coyle pulling up his jersey to briefly cover his eyes.
Multiple players shrugged off postgame questions about the significance of the near-upset, saying they weren't into moral victories.
It was still unforgettable, all the same.
“I’m just really going to take this all in tonight and just think about it,” guard Justice Shoats said. "But I'm glad we were able to come out here and compete.
“I mean, when’s the last time you heard Siena in the March Madness game, especially competing against the No. 1 team in the country and actually keeping up with them?”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
