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Among its many wonderful traits, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has a way of creating indelible moments and making heroes of the people at the center of them.
It took only the fourth game of the first full day of the 2026 NCAA Tournament for such a moment to arise.
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High Point pulled off the first upset of the tournament, with the No. 12 seed Panthers getting a bucket from Chase Johnston with 11.2 seconds remaining to earn an 83-82 victory against No. 5 seed Wisconsin on Thursday, March 19.
REQUIRED READING: ‘Nobody would play us’: High Point coach gives fiery interview after Wisconsin upset
As impressive as High Point’s players were in earning the win, it was the team’s coach who stole the show in the minutes after the victory.
In a postgame interview with TBS, Panthers coach Flynn Clayman used the opportunity to talk up not only his own team, but other talented mid-major programs who struggle to get non-conference games against squads from the sport’s Power Five (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and SEC) that don’t want to risk a loss to a team from one of college basketball’s smaller conferences.
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“It looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors during the season,” Clayman said. “Because they said we ain’t played nobody? We played somebody now.”
When later asked about how the win felt, he added that “It feels unreal, because nobody would play us, just like they wouldn’t play Miami (Ohio). But they got to play us in this tournament.”
The soundbites earned widespread attention and acclaim on social media, with college basketball fans won over by Clayman’s passion and the points he made.
As High Point moves on to face Arkansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday, here’s a closer look at Clayman:
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Who is High Point basketball coach?
Clayman is in his first season as High Point’s case, having assumed the role after Alan Huss left after last season to become the associate head coach and head-coach-in-waiting at Creighton, his alma mater.
Clayman had been Huss’ top assistant for the previous two seasons, a time in which the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/flynn-clayman-march-madness-star-010304353.html
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Publish date : 2026-03-20 01:03:00
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