It's March, and that means that moments like this are supposed to happen.

And only four days in, the college basketball world saw a buzzer-beater that might be impossible for anyone to top this postseason.

It came in the semifinals of the Atlantic Sun Conference women's tournament, when Stetson's Victoria McGowan connected on what was roughly a 50-foot heave to give the Lady Hatters a wild 48-46 victory over Belmont.

Just a couple hours after top-seed East Tennessee State was upset by Jacksonville in the other semi, Belmont was on the verge of knocking off the tourney's No. 3 seed. Just before McGowan provided the heroics, Belmont's Shaunda Strayhorn had put the Lady Bruins ahead with an old-fashioned three-point play.

McGowan had enough time for a few steps before the desperate toss.

"I didn't think I'd have enough time to get a shot off," she said afterwards. "I thought the rotation was good, and I felt like it was going in, but I was praying for it."

The play was reviewed, and

Iowa State's Fred Hoiberg continues to push more and more chips out onto the table, but it's hard to blame him.

The first-year Cyclones coach has proven this season that he can squeeze every last drop out of a limited roster. His team is just 3-12 in the Big 12, but it won't finish below .500 overall, plays very hard and the players genuinely seem to enjoy being on the floor together.

The next challenge will be showing that he can take a team full of transfers in 2011-12 and generate the same cohesion and competitiveness. And, above all with the major influx of talent, win.

On Wednesday, Hoiberg added his fourth transfer from the Big Ten, landing former Michigan State guard Korie Lucious.

After taking over for the injured Kalin Lucas as the Spartans' starting point guard mid-way through last year's NCAA tournament run, Lucious was suspended indefinitely 18 games into this season for breaking an unspecified team rule.

The Milwaukee native was also coveted by Marquette and Baylor.

Not much went right for UConn on Wednesday night at West Virginia, as the Huskies suffered their third loss in four games, 65-56.

They trailed by only two at halftime and stayed within range of the Mountaineers until the final minutes. But their "It's just one of those nights" moment came pretty early, when sophomore forward Alex Oriakhi stepped to the free-throw line with a couple of minutes left before the intermission.

Oriakhi has improved this season on his 53.7 percent free-throw shooting from last year, though even now at 60.8 percent, misses are not necessarily rare for him.

But how many charities would Oriakhi have to attempt before getting this to happen again?

Until Wednesday, it seemed unlikely that anyone this season would top the strange free-throw attempt of Idaho State's Kamil Gawrzydek, whose shot hung out for a while on the front of the rim before dropping in during a loss at Utah State in December.

This one might get the nod, though, because the ball's momentum came

Maybe Harrison Barnes needed to struggle like he did early in the season to be able to play like this when it counts.

As the first freshman to ever be named a preseason AP All-American, it almost seemed like North Carolina's 6-foot-8 swingman was destined to not live up to the hype.

The last time The Dagger checked in on Barnes, it was after he downed a clutch game-winner at Miami in a 74-71 win on Jan. 26. Between then and right now, Barnes has quietly played his best ball of the season, seemingly thriving now that the national spotlight/heat lamp is no longer directly over him.

His latest exploits included another clinching 3-pointer from atop the key to finish off an 18-point performance in a 72-70 win at Florida State on Wednesday night.

Down by one with less than 10 seconds to play, the Tar Heels ran a clear-out for Barnes up top about 30 feet from the backer. The frosh slowly moved in with FSU's Michael Snaer back-pedaling, then casually flipped in the shot as he toed up to the

Malcolm Delaney certainly didn't want to end his home career at Virginia Tech the way he did on Tuesday night.

Now, the Hokies' star senior just hopes that it actually was his last game in Blacksburg.

Some — Dick Vitale, most emphatically and probably prematurely — were proclaiming Virginia Tech as an NCAA tournament lock after they knocked off top-ranked Duke at Cassell Coliseum on Saturday night.

But just three days later, plenty of the good that came from that signature win was undone in an embarrassing 76-61 loss to fellow bubble-dweller Boston College.

Virginia Tech looked tired, distracted and emotionless early on, falling behind quickly by 17, but a late spurt got the hosts back to within eight points at halftime.

A closely-contested second stanza was blown wide open with 11:33 left when frustrations boiled over for the Hokies and never simmered back down.

First, coach Seth Greenberg was assessed with a technical foul with Tech trailing 53-41. Over the next four minutes, B.C.

The day before NCAA tournament games, team shoot-arounds held at each site are open to the public. If American University can somehow win the Patriot League tournament this week and secure an automatic bid, the Eagles will add a wildly exciting twist on one of the postseason's more mundane exercises.

AU junior reserve Joe Hill and senior starter Steve Luptak went viral this week with a trick shot compilation video that will rival anything of its kind that you've seen this season … or maybe ever.

The duo's personal favorite among the ridiculous makes is the last one on the video, where a seated Hill lobs a ball striaght up from the 3-point line, then Luptak throws another ball at it, forcing the original ball towards the hoop.

That's the shot that, earlier this season, started it all.

Sort of.

"We were out on the road, either in California at the Cable Car Classic or at Pitt," Luptak recalled. "When we were

His team still had yet to hit rock bottom when Kansas State All-American guard Jacob Pullen delivered one of the more memorable quotes of the season.

Following an unsightly eight-point home loss to Colorado on Jan. 12, which dropped the Wildcats to 12-5 overall and 0-2 in the Big 12, the subject of the team's potentially disastrous fall into the NIT came up.

"This is my last go-around," he said at the time. "I'm not going to the NIT. I won't play basketball in the NIT. I'm saying that now. if we lose, and we have to go to the NIT, I will not play."

Six weeks and one stunning turnaround later, it's now all but guaranteed that we'll never know if Pullen would have eaten his words or not.

The latest step in K-State's rise from the ashes was a 75-70 upset of No. 7 Texas in Austin on Monday night. Pullen scored 20 points in the win and gutted out the final few minutes while playing essentially with one hand.

"I don't think I have to play basketball in the NIT now, so people can just leave

All Washington had to do was win a couple of home games to close out the regular season, and it could cruise into the NCAA tournament clean and under the radar.

A brutal 80-69 home loss to Washington State on Sunday night, though, ripped off the bandage and uncovered what, when looked at closely, is a suspect résumé.

Here, now, is what there is to see on the Huskies' profile ...

• Underachieving marks of 19-9 overall and 10-6 in the thinned-out Pac-10, including a 4-5 record on the road in conference play.

• An RPI ranking of 36, but only two wins against RPI Top 50 teams. Those two were a home blowout of Arizona and a victory at UCLA. Their best non-conference win? Take your pick between Long Beach State, Portland and Virginia. None of those were true road games, too.

• A schedule that ranks 63rd in strength. Not awful, but not great.

It's not quite time to panic in Seattle. Due to a severe lack of more qualified candidates to fill out the field of 68, Washington is still pretty