Seconds after Allen Graves’ go-ahead 3-pointer put Santa Clara ahead by three points with 2.1 seconds left in regulation, Herb Sendek recognized the need to stop play and set his team’s defense before Kentucky could inbound the ball. 

Sendek raced down the sideline signaling for a timeout as referee Todd Austin ran ahead of him in the same direction with his back turned to the Santa Clara coach. 

What happened next on Friday afternoon will live forever — in Sendek’s nightmares and in NCAA tournament lore. Kentucky’s Otega Oweh received the inbound pass on the run, charged up court and banked in a game-tying 32-footer as the buzzer sounded, sending a thrilling first-round NCAA tournament classic to overtime and paving the way for seventh-seeded Kentucky to escape with an 89-84 victory.

When asked about the sequence by reporters after the game, Sendek said, “I unequivocally called timeout, but they didn’t grant it.” 

“I mean, I think the video evidence is clear,” Sendek continued. “And anybody’s able to pull it up. Which is a likely response after Allen hits the 3 that the coach would be calling timeout to set the defense, which I tried to do and was successful in doing other than that it wasn’t acknowledged or recognized.”

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The video evidence shows Sendek hesitates briefly after Graves’ 3-pointer but does begin signaling for a timeout just before Kentucky gets the ball inbounds. The referee on the far side of the floor appears to be looking right at Sendek but opts to allow the play to continue rather than awarding Sendek the timeout. 

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As former Santa Clara coach Kerry Keating pointed out on social media, Sendek also could have increased his chances of getting the timeout had he been positioned differently. 

“Make sure you are standing as close to half court as possible, NOT at the end of your bench,” Keating wrote in a “pro tip” to young coaches. “Refs can’t see you when the ball is past you!”  

Had Santa Clara been able to stop play and set its defense, Sendek might have instructed his players to foul intentionally rather than giving Kentucky a look at a game-tying 3-pointer. Santa Clara forward Elijah Mahi admitted later that “there was just so much going on in those last seconds” that the Broncos players on the floor didn’t even consider that possibility. 

Oweh, a player with a long history of late-game heroics, made Santa Clara pay for giving him the chance to extend the game. When he raced down court, he pulled up right beside Kentucky head coach Mark Pope. As the ball left Oweh’s fingertips, Pope said he heard his star guard say, “That’s a bucket!” 

Oweh led Kentucky with 35 points, including a pair of game-tying baskets in the final seconds of regulation. His ability to get to the rim put Kentucky in a position to win the game, as did the shot blocking and interior defense of center Brandon Garrison. 

While Kentucky moves on to face the winner of Iowa State-Tennessee State, Santa Clara heads home after its first NCAA tournament appearance in 30 years. The Broncos can take pride in pushing a blue blood to the brink of an early exit but they’ll also have to live with the sour taste of knowing the outcome might have been different if Sendek’s timeout were granted.

“It was a really euphoric high,” Sendek said, “followed by a tough one to swallow.”

Maliq Brown was delightfully candid with CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson when asked to explain how the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 overall seed trailed 16th-seeded Siena by 11 points at halftime.

The Duke forward said that the Blue Devils were “nervous” playing on an NCAA tournament stage for the first time. Then Brown admitted that Duke also may have entered Thursday’s game overlooking a little-known opponent.

“We thought it was going to be a cakewalk,” Brown told Wolfson. 

The lingering question after Duke’s come-from-behind 71-65 first-round victory is whether that’s all that was wrong with the Blue Devils. Did this loss expose flaws that could bite Duke against stronger opponents? Or was this just an early-round wakeup call?

The answer, as so often is the case, is somewhere in between. While Duke’s nonchalance likely played a role in its struggles, that wasn’t the only reason that the Blue Devils had to stage a furious rally to escape an inferior opponent.

As Duke showed in the ACC tournament, it can still win while missing two starters, but the Blue Devils’ margin for error is no longer so high without Patrick Ngongba and Caleb Foster. They’re vulnerable against opponents who can pack the paint and tempt them to shoot over the top. And they’re less smothering on defense when the rim protector lurking in the paint is anyone other than Ngongba. 

The Blue Devils’ biggest concern should be how discombobulated they looked during the first half when Siena crowded the paint and sent multiple bodies at national player of the year-to-be Cameron Boozer anytime he touched the ball within 15 feet of the rim. A Duke offense that is typically paint-dominant began uncharacteristically settling for rushed 3s. 

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More than half of Duke’s first-half shots came from behind the arc even though the Blue Devils only sank two of them. Duke finished the game 5-for-26 from behind the arc, the worst the Blue Devils have shot from 3-point range all season. 

“They did a great job protecting the paint,” Cameron Boozer said. “They make you settle for 3s. We took the bait on that.”

Duke’s renowned defense didn’t look a whole lot better as Siena built its lead over the course of the first half. A Saints team that entered Thursday among the worst in the nation at 3-point shooting suddenly couldn’t miss from behind the arc and also gashed the Blue Devils in the paint.

Some of it was deft passing and torrid shooting from Siena. Some of it was slow Duke rotations and the absence of Ngongba to alter shots at the rim.

The game flipped with Duke down 13 early in the second half, its largest deficit of the season. Siena’s Francis Folefac had a contested dunk carom hard off the back rim. Isaiah Evans chased down the long rebound and finished with a dunk of his own at the other end, igniting an 11-0 Duke run that lifted the Blue Devils back into striking distance.

Rather than posting Cameron Boozer up and allowing Siena to double team, Duke adjusted by using its superstar freshman as a driver and allowing him to attack. Cayden Boozer, only starting because of Foster’s fractured foot, was also sensational as the Blue Devils’ primary perimeter creator, racking up a career-high 19 points and five assists. 

Thirteen of Evans’ 16 points also came after halftime. His acrobatic driving layup with 4:25 to go gave Duke the lead for the first time since early in the first half. Dame Sarr helped make sure the Blue Devils stayed in front for good by soaring to block a Siena dunk attempt a few minutes later.

Duke coach Jon Scheyer called trailing Siena by double figures at halftime the “toughest position I've ever been in in the tournament, no question about it.” Scheyer described himself as proud of the resilience Duke showed but admitted that Siena coach Gerry McNamara “had his guys way more ready to play than I did.” 

“He outcoached me, he outcoached us,” Scheyer said. “That's one of the hardest moments for me in sport, period, to not have your best stuff.”

One big question for Duke heading into its second-round matchup against TCU on Saturday is whether Nnongba will be healthy enough to return. His interior defense will be critical for the Blue Devils surviving a loaded East region, let alone making a title push. 

A closer-than-exected first-round win certainly doesn’t mean that Duke is destined to flame out early in this NCAA tournament. There are numerous examples of national championship teams who survived an early scare. 

But the illusion of invincibility that Duke once possessed is now gone.

On the opening Thursday of the NCAA tournament, the No. 1 overall seed unexpectedly looked very beatable.