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"It's tough when things don't go your way," said Primm, who led the Bulldogs with 18 points. "In college basketball, sometimes you have to play everybody in the building, you know. But I feel like that at that point in time the crowd definitely got behind us. Because, you know, everyone loves to see a 16 beat a 1. It didn't happen tonight."
There was no talk of moral victories, not from a team that had talked Wednesday of making history.
"You know, we're not satisfied. We came in the game to win," Primm said. "Like I said, I personally felt like the better team didn't win tonight. That's my opinion."
Syracuse (32-2) will play eighth-seeded Kansas State in the third round on Saturday. The Wildcats (22-10) beat Southern Mississippi 70-64 behind Rodney McGruder's 30 points and the Jordan Henriquez's 15 points, nine rebounds and six blocks. Neil Watson led Southern Mississippi (25-9) with 16 points
In the other doubleheader, second-seeded Ohio State beat Loyola, Md. 78-59 and seventh-seeded Gonzaga defeated West Virginia 77-54.
Deshaun Thomas had a career-high 31 points for Ohio State (28-7), which dominated the Greyhounds inside, finishing with a 49-24 rebound advantage. Erik Etherly had 19 points for Loyola (24-9).
Gonzaga won its opening game in the tournament for the fourth straight year and it was the Bulldogs' second-largest margin of victory behind a 27-point win over Valparaiso in 2004. Robert Sacre and Gary Bell Jr. both had 14 points for Gonzaga (26-6). Kevin Jones had 13 points for the Mountaineers (19-14) in their worst NCAA loss under coach Bob Huggins.
Asheville led 34-30 at halftime but the Orange took the lead for good with 6:17 left on a turnaround jumper by reserve James Southerland, who had 15 points and a season-high eight rebounds.
Southerland, who scored 13 points in the second half, had three of the Orange's five 3-pointers.
"James came in, gave us a huge lift off the bench," Boeheim said of the 6-8 junior.
Kris Joseph and Dion Waiters both had 12 points for Syracuse, which played its fourth game this season without Melo, who missed three games in January over academic issues. The Orange are 3-1 without him.
"We (would) love to have him, but it's about us playing the game," Jardine said. "We got a lot of guys that stepped up today."
Jaron Lane added 16 points and Jeremy Atkinson had 12 for the Bulldogs, whose leading scorer, Matt Dickey, went 1 for 13 from the field, 1 of 9 from 3. Asheville went 9 of 23 from beyond the arc.
"The excitement of the game was crazy. It was March Madness at its finest," Dickey said. "It was awesome and we'll cherish this moment and the opportunity that we had, but we'll always look back at this moment and say we should have won or could have won, but that's not enough."
Boeheim earned his 46th win in the NCAA tournament, breaking a tie with Bob Knight for seventh on the career list.
[Associated Press;
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