Michigan Has an Outside Shot, Which Means Davidson Doesn’t

Michigan briefly interrupted all the talk about its heavy equipment Friday when it rode to a first-round NCAA tournament victory on a . . . go-cart?

Believe it. Davidson did after watching Michigan guard Robbie Reid connect on five three-point shots to keep the sometimes-dozing Wolverines out of trouble in their 80-61 victory over the Wildcats.

Michigan (25-8), as befitting a third-seeded team playing a 14th-seeded team, towered over Davidson (20-10). But it was outrebounded by four.

The difference was not the celebrated 300-plus pounds of Michigan’s Robert Traylor, but the 180-or-so pounds of Reid.

Early in the second half, moments after Davidson had closed the gap to 39-30 and Traylor had picked up his third personal foul, Reid took over.

He made a three-pointer from the top of the key. Then a three-pointer from the corner. A couple of minutes later, he swiped the ball and laid it in to give Michigan a 16-point lead, ending all threat.

“It’s good to get the monkey off our backs,” said Reid, referring to the fact that none of these Wolverines had won an NCAA tournament game.

Reid, son of former Brigham Young coach Roger Reid, a late-summer transfer here after a two-year mission, also continued to rid himself of some bad karma.

Four games ago, against Wisconsin, he missed all seven three-point attempts and there was talk that he was not steady enough to lead these big men very far into the NCAA tournament.

Since then, he has made 15 of 23 three-point attempts and put a scare into everyone who thinks Michigan can be stopped if you can stop them under the basket.

“We’d get the ball down low to Robert and Maceo [Baston], they would be covered, they would kick it out to me,” Reid said. “We need that kind of outside shooting to go far in the tournament.”

Not that Michigan didn’t also scare in other ways. It shot 53%, had six blocked shots, 13 steals and generally caused havoc with an quick game executed with huge bodies.

Louis Bullock, who is able to move to a shooting guard with the presence of Reid, led the Wolverines with 20 points, while Traylor added 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Kentucky 82, South Carolina State 67--The second-seeded Wildcats, not as frenetic a squad as in the past, were neat and nimble in the first round of the South Regional at the Georgia Dome.

Kentucky, which has won 11 of its last 12 games, worked the ball crisply to its big players, turned up the wick on defense when it had to, and weathered South Carolina State’s scintillating perimeter shooting.

The 15th-seeded Bulldogs (22-8) got all but eight of their points from three red-hot outside shooters. Roderick Blakney had 23, Tyler Brown 22, and James Jones 14.

Under first-year Coach Tubby Smith, Kentucky (30-4) is less talented this season than Rick Pitino’s consecutive Final Four teams--so is every other team in America--but is more balanced, less dependent on the full-court press, and more efficient.

The Wildcats, who will play Saint Louis in the second round here Sunday, made 31 of their 52 shots--that’s 59.6%--dominated down low, and whenever South Carolina State made a mini-run, shut the Bulldogs down tight. An 11-point deficit late in the first half was as close as South Carolina State got the rest of the way.

“We shot the ball well, we can shut people down, we were passing the ball well--we had 25 assists--we blocked 11 shots,” Smith said.

“We’re doing the types of things a championship-caliber team has to do to move on in the tournament.”

Six-foot-10 junior center Nazr Mohammed led Kentucky with 18 points--on only seven shots and eight-for-eight free throw shooting--six rebounds, three blocked shots and four assists. Three other Wildcats scored in double digits.

“We’ve played Duke, South Carolina and Clemson,” South Carolina State’s Brown said, “and [Kentucky] gave us the hardest game.”

Said Blakney, “They’re a very well balanced team.”

Saint Louis 51, Massachusetts 46--For 35 long minutes, this was a sluggish five on five.

Then it became a brilliant one on none.

The one was Saint Louis’ Larry Hughes, arguably the best freshman in the country.

The none was seemingly the chance that Massachusetts had of stopping him.

Hughes scored the last nine points for the Billikens (22-10), moving his 10th-seeded team past seventh-seeded UMass (21-11) and into a second-round matchup with Kentucky.

“You don’t want to get caught watching him,” Ryan Luechtefeld said of teammate Hughes. “But you do.”

Here’s what Georgia Dome witnesses saw from the 6-foot-5 guard, beginning with five minutes remaining and UMass leading, 44-42:

* Hughes made a three-point shot in the face of defender Chris Kirkland.

* He scored on a breakaway dunk after a steal.

* He drove, spun, and made an off-balance 10-footer.

* He sank a fall-away 16-foot jumper.

This was even more impressive considering that Hughes scored as many points in those final five minutes as in the previous 35 minutes.

In the first half, he scored four points on one-of-seven shooting.

“I take it in stride,” Hughes said. “If I thought I couldn’t make a shot because of what happened earlier in the game, we wouldn’t [win].”

Saint Louis Coach Charlie Spoonhour certainly didn’t lose confidence in him, spreading the floor in the final minutes so Hughes could take over.

“We try to get off his road,” Spoonhour said. “When he walked in here on the first day, he was the man, and we’ve all understood it.”

It helped that while Hughes was finally finding his shot, UMass was still looking. The Minutemen shot 29% and missed all 11 three-point attempts.

“They hit their big shots,” UMass guard Charlton Clarke said. “We didn’t hit our shots.”