Texas Longhorns Survive NC State Thriller in NCAA First Four: Tramon Mark Plays Hero

Dayton, Ohio, has a funny way of making grown men sweat out half their body weight before the real NCAA Tournament even begins. The First Four is college basketball’s ultimate purgatory—you’re invited to the big dance, but you have to win a bar fight in the parking lot just to get inside the building.

Texas Lands The Final Blow

On Tuesday night, the Texas Longhorns and the NC State Wolfpack stepped into that parking lot. For 39 minutes and 58 seconds, they traded haymakers, missed free throws, and exchanged agonizing defensive stops. But when the dust finally settled inside a raucous University of Dayton Arena, it was sixth-year senior Tramon Mark who held the golden ticket.

With exactly 1.1 seconds left on the clock, Mark elevated from the right wing, completely unbothered by NC State’s Tre Holloman draped all over him, and buried a fadeaway jumper to give the 11th-seeded Longhorns a pulse-pounding 68-66 victory.

If you didn’t have a heart attack watching it, you probably weren’t paying close enough attention.

The Lefty Dagger: Tramon Mark Calls Game

Let’s set the scene. Texas had blown an eight-point lead in the final two minutes. The Wolfpack, who couldn’t buy a three-pointer for the first 38 minutes of the game, suddenly remembered they were a high-octane ACC offense. Paul McNeil Jr. and Darrion Williams started raining fire from the perimeter, tying the game at 66 with just 20.8 seconds remaining.

The momentum had completely flipped. You could practically hear the Texas faithful groaning through their television screens. The moment was getting heavy, and the pressure of a sudden-death elimination game was suffocating the arena.But Tramon Mark? The guy operates with ice water in his veins.

Mark calmly caught the ball, stared down the defense, and unleashed a twisting, left-handed screwball of a shot. Texas forward Nic Codie, battling for a rebound underneath the rim, didn’t even bother boxing out. “I’m just used to getting T-Mark’s rebounds and how they come off the rim,” Codie said afterward. “And that just looked like it was straight butter.”

It was the fifth game-winning, buzzer-beating shot of Mark’s collegiate career. Finishing with a team-high 17 points, he silenced an arena that was actively rooting for his team’s demise.

A Rock Fight Dressed as a Basketball Game

If you looked at the stat sheets before tip-off, you would have expected a track meet. Both of these squads average over 80 points a night. But the NCAA Tournament does funny things to jump shooters, transforming the rims into carnival hoops that refuse to accept the basketball.

Instead of a shootout, we got a gritty, grind-it-out rock fight. Texas shot a miserable 36.8% from the floor. NC State wasn’t much better at 39%. For an eight-minute stretch in the second half, the Longhorns couldn’t buy a field goal to save their lives.

But what Texas lacked in offensive rhythm, they made up for with sheer, unadulterated grit. You have to talk about Chendall Weaver. Generously listed at 6-foot-3, the senior guard played like a man possessed, snagging a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with his 11 points—his first career double-double. Weaver was diving on the floor, fighting big men in the paint, and refusing to let his team pack their bags.

Meanwhile, big Matas Vokietaitis threw his weight around down low, contributing 15 tough points and eight boards before fouling out with seven minutes left in the game. When he left the floor, Texas had to hold on for dear life.

Sean Miller and the Dayton Boos

It’s worth noting the hostile environment Texas head coach Sean Miller walked into. The Dayton crowd, padded with Xavier fans who drove an hour north just to boo their former head coach, gave Miller a less-than-warm reception during warmups.

Miller took the jeers in stride. He knows that in March, winning ugly is still winning. “This might be the first game that I can really look at and say we won because of our defense,” Miller noted, visibly exhausted but relieved. “As often is the case in this tournament, players make plays. If [Mark] didn’t make either of those late shots, I don’t know if we win.”

Next Stop: Portland and the BYU Cougars

Survive and advance. It’s the most cliché phrase in sports, but it’s the absolute truth.

The Longhorns don’t have time to celebrate, nor do they have time to ice their bruised knees. They are immediately hopping on a plane to fly across the country to Portland, Oregon, where the No. 6 seed BYU Cougars are waiting for them in the first round of the West Region.

Texas will need to shoot better. They will need to clean up their late-game execution. But for tonight, they are still breathing. And as long as Tramon Mark has the ball in his hands with the clock winding down, you’d be foolish to bet against them.