March Madness 2026: The Best and Worst from Day 3

Saturday gave us three absolute thrillers and nearly one of the greatest March Madness moments of all-time.

Let’s get to it.

March Madness’ 3 best games of Day 3

1. (4) Nebraska 74, (5) Vanderbilt 72 (South)

Nebraska-Vandy wasn’t just the best second round game of Saturday, it was one of the best second round games the tournament has ever seen.

Advertisement

Playing in front of what seemed like 75,000 Go Big Red fans, the Cornhuskers and Commodores put on a shot-making show for the ages in the second half, one which came tantalizingly close to giving us one of the all-time buzzer-beaters in March Madness history.

The two teams — who both seemed incapable of missing for long stretches of the second half — traded the lead four times over the game’s final two minutes. Nebraska seized the advantage for the final time with 2.2 seconds remaining when Pryce Sandfort, the team’s leading scorer, passed up the opportunity to play hero in favor of finding teammate Braden Frager for a driving layup that sent Paycom Center into a frenzy.

That is an all-time first weekend crowd pop right there.

Advertisement

The same crowd was nearly sent to its collective knees moments later when Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner came as close as you can possibly come to making a halfcourt buzzer-beater without actually making a halfcourt buzzer-beater.

This shot somehow did not go through the basket.

View Link

Absolute madness.

Three days ago Nebraska was the only power conference program that had never won a game in the NCAA Tournament. Now, they’re the talk of the tournament and guaranteed to be one of the last 16 teams standing.

A lifetime of changes can happen over these first few days of the tournament. Or, in the case of this particular game, over the course of a split second.

Advertisement

2. (4) Arkansas 94, (12) High Point 88 (West)

The tournament’s final shot at having a bonafide mid-major Cinderella came crashing down in the final hours of Saturday as John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/march-madness-2026-best-worst-120013765.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-22 12:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.