Tramon Mark's late heroics secured Texas a nail-biting win over NC State, saving them from a late collapse and propelling them into the NCAA Tournament.
The Texas Longhorns struggled to advance the ball as they almost lost a late-game nine-point lead against North Carolina State in Tuesday's First Four matchup.
But in the end, UT did indeed advance in Dayton, Ohio as senior guard Tramon Mark hit two clutch shots late to send the Longhorns to the full NCAA Tournament with aa 68-66 win.
"We don’t have extra possessions, quite frankly, because we just have two or three really head-scratching turnovers,'' he said. "And that’s really plagued us towards the end of the year.''
Miller added, "We have to clean that up."
Indeed, the first-year Texas coach will surely focus on practicing on how to beat the press in the coming days ahead of UT's next game. The 11th-seeded Longhorns will now play the No. 6 seed BYU at Moda Center in Portland on Thursday at 6:25 p.m. CT.
Throughout the game, Texas had no problem grabbing big leads ... even as much as 10 points in the first half, but UT usually couldn't hang onto those leads.
The Longhorns almost fell victim to that trend late, when two Chendall Weaver free throws gave Texas a 62-53 lead with 2:56 to play. But then came the press.
UT didn't execute breaking the press, but was eventually saved first by Mark's late-game 17-foot jumper and then, with 1.1 seconds left, the shot to win it, a step back 19-foot jumper.
"This one is definitely first for me,'' Mark said when asked to rank the importance of his big-shot effort.
Mark finished with 17 points, which in the end gets to register as slightly more important than UT finishing with 12 turnovers.