Notre Dame's Luke Harangody

*Dime’s NCAA Tournament Day 1 coverage*

Luke Harangody, a.k.a. “The Other Tyler Hansbrough,” a.k.a. “The Other White Meat,” a.k.a. “Lenny,” just saw his career at Notre Dame end with a whimper.

The most decorated and accomplished player the Fighting Irish have had since Austin Carr, ‘Gody was a 20-and-10 beast for three of his four years. But he’d only been past the NCAA Tournament first round once, and his team missed the tourney altogether last year. On his way to another Big East P.O.Y.-caliber campaign as a senior (22.4 ppg, 9.2 rpg), Harangody suffered a knee injury in February and clearly wasn’t close to 100 percent going into the Big Dance.

In today’s upset loss to 11-seed Old Dominion, Harangody only put up four points and seven rebounds. Not much more than a decoy, he couldn’t do anything about his teammates’ inability to buy a three-pointer. The Irish went 6-for-26 beyond the arc, including some crucial misses down the stretch.

So what’s next for ‘Gody? Is he an NBA player? I think so. If you ask me, he’s exactly like Jon Brockman, who had to overcome the “undersized” and “unathletic” label to crack the rotation in Sacramento as a rookie. ‘Gody might as well not go to the pre-draft camps, because he’ll only hurt himself with his agility, speed and vertical leap test results, and there’s a chance he measures out to be shorter than his listed 6-foot-8. He should let his body of work over the last four years speak for itself. And as NBA teams continue to undervalue and miss out on guys like Brockman, Leon Powe, Paul Millsap, DeJuan Blair and the rest, maybe one of them will finally wake up and pick a proven player based on his production more than his potential.

* Florida fought back from a 13-point deficit in the second half to set up a double-overtime finish with BYU. Jimmer Fredette lived up to every bit of hype he had going into the game, dropping 37 points and ensuring lifelong comparisons to Steve Nash. Fredette has this little mini-Steve Smith move in the lane that he used to set up at least 4-5 layups against Florida, and a scoop shot straight from Nash’s playbook. He used one of those Smitty/Nash combos to tie the game up with 20 seconds left in regulation.

In the first overtime, Fredette stepped aside while Michael Loyd Jr. briefly took over for BYU. Loyd averaged 4 ppg this year, but scored 26 today, dropping threes like Stephen Curry and breaking out spin moves like Monta Ellis. Tied up on the last possession of OT, Florida came out of a timeout with a terrible “play” that ended with Kenny Boynton double-teamed 30 feet from the rim and throwing a prayer pass that never had a chance. Boynton fouled out in the second OT, and that was the beginning of the end for Florida; Boynton (26 pts) was not only their top scorer, he was the one guarding Fredette and at least making him work for everything he got. Fredette and the Cougars dominated the second OT to get the win.

* On the flip side of crunch time play-calling, Jay Wright drew up a beauty. Villanova was tied with Robert Morris (they were lucky to even get that far) with two seconds left and inbounding under their own basket. They got 6-foot-11 Maurice Sutton on a lob running to the rim after losing his man on a back-pick, but Rob-Mo got a miracle when one of their guys knocked it out of Sutton’s hands at the last moment. Rob-Mo coach Mike Rice also deserves credit for masking whether or not he actually peed his pants when he saw Sutton going after that alley-oop.

‘Nova kept looking like they were going to run away with it in OT, but Rob-Mo would always get a three or a steal to keep it close. With about 20 seconds left, ‘Nova was up three when Reggie Redding got a TD pass for what should have been the punctuation-mark dunk, but he’s been playing too much Madden and held the ball to kill time before Rob-Mo fouled him. The announcers were speechless; like, one of them just went, “AAAAAAARRGH!” when Redding didn’t take the dunk. Redding split the free throws, and Rob-Mo answered with a three to cut the lead to one, but after two more ‘Nova free throws, they couldn’t hit on the last play.

Scottie Reynolds shot 2-for-15 from the field but finished with 20 points, going 15-of-16 from the line and hitting a huge three in overtime.