NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Prince of a Game: Hoyas Escape With a 50-49 Win

Alonzo Mourning’s free throw with 23 seconds to play gave second-ranked and top-seeded Georgetown a 50-49 victory over Princeton Friday night as the Hoyas avoided what would have been the biggest upset in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament history.

The 16th-seeded Tigers had two final chances for the seemingly impossible victory in the first round of the East Regional, but Mourning, who had tied the game, 49-49, by making two free throws with 1:41 left, blocked a three-point attempt with six seconds left and tipped away a final shot as the buzzer sounded.

The 16th-seeded Tigers, outmanned and outsized as badly as any team in the NCAA tournament, had no key player over 6 feet 7 inches.

“Princeton did everything possible to deserve to win this game,” Hoya Coach John Thompson said. “Those kids definitely showed a lot of courage and fortitude.”

Princeton forward Matt Lapin said: “Before the game I would have said we would have been happy being so close. Now, there’s a hollow feeling because we saw we could have won it.”

Mourning’s final free throw gave the Hoyas the lead for only the third time in the game.

Princeton still wasn’t done. The Tigers rebounded the miss of Mourning’s second free throw and called time out with 15 seconds left.

The ball found its way to Bob Scrabis, and the Ivy League player of the year had a three-point attempt blocked by Mourning. The ball went out of bounds, and the Tigers had a final chance with one second left.

Kit Mueller got off a turnaround shot, but it missed as Mourning leaped out at him, and Princeton fans in the sellout crowd of 12,106 at the Providence Civic Center were awakened from a dream.

“We tried to get the ball to Bobby and we did,” Princeton Coach Pete Carril said. “He came off the screen, and Mourning made a nice defensive play to deflect the shot.

“On the last shot. I don’t know if he got fouled; that’s left to conjecture, and we’ll have to take that up with God when we get there.”

Mueller said it was hard to say if it was a foul.

“He may have hit my hand,” he said.

Mourning said it was close, “but I know I didn’t hit him.”

The biggest previous upsets in NCAA tournament history have been the five times the 14th-seeded team has managed to beat the third-seeded team in a regional.

It happened twice Thursday as Middle Tennessee State defeated Florida State and Siena beat Stanford.

Georgetown (27-4) was the second No. 1-seeded team in two days to escape with a one-point victory. Oklahoma, seeded first in the Southeast, rallied to edge East Tennessee State, 72-71, Thursday.

Mourning, with 21 points, was the only Hoya in double figures. The 6-10 freshman grabbed 13 rebounds and had seven blocked shots.

Scrabis led the Tigers with 15 points, while Lapin had 12.

Princeton executed its game plan to perfection in the opening half, spreading the court, eating up the 45-second clock and frustrating the Hoyas into poor outside shots and uncharacteristic turnovers.

“The biggest thing that happened was what I didn’t want to happen, we had to chase them,” Thompson said. “Every coach in the country knows when you have to chase them you’re in trouble.

“The script went according to plan for them.”