Ja Morant Shows Shades of March Madness Legends in Historic Round 1 Performance

Ladies and gentlemen: Meet Ja Morant.

On a Thursday afternoon loaded with would’ve should’ve could’ve performances by Cinderella candidates, there was nothing close about Morant and No. 12 Murray State destroying No. 5 Marquette by an 83-64 final score.nfl football jerseys wholesale

The soon-to-be top-five pick—whose actual first name is Temetrius, so don’t be taken aback if you hear that early on draft night—finished with 17 points, 16 assists and 11 rebounds, notching the first triple-double in the NCAA tournament since Michigan State’s Draymond Green did it against LIU-Brooklyn in 2012.

Even before the TBS broadcast crew began mentioning the possibility of Morant doing something that hadn’t been accomplished since Green, he was already making us reflect on the NCAA tournament run of a current Golden State Warrior. nike nfl football jerseys

It wasn’t Green, though.

It was Stephen Curry.discount nfl football jerseys

When he was a sophomore at Davidson, Curry propelled the Wildcats from a No. 10 seed to the 2008 Elite Eight. He began that run with a 40-point outburst against Gonzaga in the first round, showing the “I only watch in March” college basketball fans what the diehards had known for a while: This kid was special.chinese nfl football jerseys

Flash forward to the present day, and it was a sophomore from a minor conference stealing the show once again, courtesy of step-back jumpers, a rim-rattling dunk and passes that make you wonder just how many eyes Morant has.cheap nfl football jersey

Par for the course for anyone who made it a point to watch Murray State games this season, but an eye-opening performance to those just tuning in to see how their bracket is doing.

From the moment on Selection Sunday when we found out about this pairing, it instantly became the first-round matchup everyone wanted to watch. Maybe not so much from a team vs. team standpoint, but the individual battle between Morant and Markus Howard promised to be worth the price of admission—or perhaps the price of cutting out from work a few hours early to get comfy on the couch in time for tipoff.

Howard (25.0) and Morant (24.6) entered the day ranked sixth and eighth, respectively, in points per game this season. They were No. 1 and No. 2 among players who made it into the NCAA tournament.official nfl football jerseys

Howard finished with 26 points, doing his best to keep the Golden Eagles in this contest.