DAYTON, Ohio — Eian Elmer scored 22 points as Ohio’s Miami University beat SMU 89-79 in a First Four matchup of No. 11 seeds Wednesday night for the RedHawks’ first victory in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament in 27 years.
Elmer went 6-of-9 from 3-point range as the RedHawks (32-1), undefeated during the regular season before losing in the Mid-American Conference tournament quarterfinals, advanced in the Midwest Region to play No. 6 seed Tennessee (22-11) of the Southeastern Conference in the round of 64.
Brant Byers added 19 points, including four 3s, and Luke Skaljac had 17 points for Miami, making its first NCAA tourney appearance since 2007. The RedHawks finished 16-of-41 from 3-point range against SMU.
“The message I gave our guys before the game was they should leave no doubt with who the more attacking team was,” Miami coach Travis Steele said. “I thought that was very evident from the jumpball all the way to the end of the game.”
Jaden Toombs led SMU (20-14) with 20 points and 11 rebounds, while Jaron Pierre Jr. scored 18 points and Boopie Miller had 15 for the Mustangs, who reached the NCAA tourney for the first time in nine years. They’re still looking for their first victory in the event since 1988.
Miami went 31-0 during a captivating regular season. The RedHawks were the only D-I men’s team to go unbeaten in 2025-26 and just the nation’s eighth undefeated regular season in the past 50 years.
After they lost their MAC tournament opener to Massachusetts, though, it seemed to put their March Madness hopes in jeopardy because of a schedule that ranked 339th in overall strength and featured no Quadrant 1 games.
Some analysts and critics questioned whether they belonged in the field with an at-large bid, but Miami silenced some skeptics Wednesday with a rousing victory over an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent.
“We’re not really focused on proving whether we belong, honestly,” Elmer said. “Everybody in the locker room thinks we do. I just think if anything we’re just going to go out there, play our hardest and have fun.”
Elmer had 14 points and went 4-of-6 from 3-point range in the first half. Byers hit back-to-back 3s to give Miami an 11-point lead.
“They put five guys on the court that can shoot the 3, so they’re hard to guard,” SMU coach Andy Enfield said. “We outscored them in the paint 46-20 tonight, which was our game plan to really try to score the ball in the lane.”
SMU missed its first seven 3-point attempts before Pierre connected with 7:02 remaining in the first half. The Mustangs went 5-of-19 from long distance.
Almar Atlason hit a pair of 3s to give the RedHawks a 63-50 advantage early in the second half. He scored 12 points.
Skaljac’s transition 3 extended Miami’s lead to 71-57.
SMU had a size advantage, but foul trouble negated some of that. Samet Yigitoglu, the team’s 7-foot-2 center, fouled out with 1:31 remaining. He finished with eight points and six rebounds.
The undersized RedHawks matched SMU with 35 rebounds and 17 second-chance points.
“Listen, our group is uberconfident,” Steele said. “We know we belong. I told our guys afterwards, man, I’m happy, but the job is not finished. We want to continue to advance in this thing.”
Peter Suder had the assist of the night when he gathered an outlet pass from Skaljac and bounced a pass across the paint to Elmer, who caught it and scored with one hand to put the RedHawks ahead 20-13.
“That’s like some March magic,” Skaljac said.
Suder had six assists, but that one caught Elmer by surprise.
“I was expecting a lob,” he said. “Peter was running full speed, so I was just trailing. He made an amazing pass, and I got lucky, honestly.”
Steele hopes the RedHawks’ victory will earn more respect for mid-major programs.
“I mean, we had to basically be perfect in the whole regular season to get an at-large (NCAA tournament berth),” he said. “There’s a lot of good teams. Those teams can compete with anybody, but they don’t get the opportunities in the regular season to put them in a position to where they can get an at-large bid.”
With the First Four in Dayton, fewer than 50 miles from Miami’s campus, the crowd was decidedly in the RedHawks’ favor.
“Home game for Miami,” Enfield said. “They probably had 12,000 fans here, it felt like. So they were loud and they fed off the energy.”
Miami plays Tennessee on Friday in Philadelphia, where the support isn’t likely to be quite the same.
The RedHawks closed out this year’s First Four, with Wednesday’s first game matching 16 seeds as Prairie View A&M beat Lehigh on the same court. In Tuesday’s games in Dayton, Texas beat North Carolina State 68-66 in the matchup of 11 seeds (and advances to face West No. 6 seed BYU on Thursday in Portland, Oregon), while Howard beat UMBC 86-83 in the matchup of 16 seeds (and advances to face Midwest No. 1 seed Michigan on Thursday in Buffalo, New York).
Prairie View A&M 67, Lehigh 55
Dontae Horne scored 25 points and Cory Wells added 19 with11 rebounds as Prairie View A&M earned its first NCAA tourney victory.
“Definitely gratifying,” coach Bryan Smith said. “A heck of a basketball game. We’re definitely excited to survive and advance and move on to the first round on Friday night.”
Lance Williams added 10 points for the Panthers (19-17), making their third tournament appearance after going 5-27 last season. They advance to face Florida (26-7) — the South Region’s No. 1 seed and the reigning national champion — on Friday in Tampa, Florida.
“As basketball players, you watch every NCAA tournament,” Well said, “and just to think that you’re here now and you’ll be playing the team who just won last year — we’re going to go out there and compete regardless.”
Horne also had seven rebounds and four steals. Horne, Wells and Williams played all 40 minutes.
Lehigh’s leading scorer this season, Nasir Whitlock, went scoreless for more than 26 minutes and finished with five points. The Patriot League tournament MVP was 2-of-15 shooting.
The last time Whitlock did not reach double digits in points was Nov. 9, when he had two in a 69-47 loss at West Virginia.
“Definitely not the way I think anybody up here thought it was going to go,” Whitlock said. “But that’s just basketball. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. Today is one of those days where I thought we couldn’t really get too much going.”
Hank Alvey led Lehigh (18-17) with 23 points and 15 rebounds. He was the only scorer in double digits for the Mountain Hawks.
Prairie View A&M has won eight straight games, including a 72-66 victory over Southern in the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament championship game.
Lehigh, part of March Madness for the sixth time, won the Patriot League tourney by beating Boston University 74-60 in the title game. The lone NCAA tourney victory for the Mountain Hawks was an upset of Duke in 2012.
Andrew Urosevic hit consecutive 3-pointers, the second benefiting from a kind bounce, to give Lehigh its largest lead at 23-15. Just when it appeared Lehigh might start to pull away, Wells scored five straight points — including a 3 — to help the Panthers get back into the game.
Lehigh led 29-27 at halftime despite Whitlock, who averages 21 points per game, being scoreless. The Mountain Hawks were 3-for-13 from 3-point range in the opening half.
Whitlock missed his first nine shots before connecting on a 3 with 13:12 remaining.
“We’ve got a great player in Nasir Whitlock, but he had somebody blanketed in front of him all night long,” Lehigh coach Brett Reed said. “It was harder for him to get angles and opportunities to really finish at the rim or get the separation that he needed.”
With the Mountain Hawks’ top scorer held in check, the Panthers extended their lead to 51-41 on a jumper by Wells with 8:34 left.
“I think the first time we were here in 2019, we got off to a great start,” Smith said. “I think we were up by 11 on Fairleigh Dickinson at halftime, but we didn’t finish. The main thing was to finish, and I think we did that. I think we defended. We flew around.”
The Panthers mostly credited Williams for shutting down Whitlock.
“We had to shout out to Lance Williams, our pit bull,” Horne said. “Lance don’t care about stats. He don’t care about scoring. He did his job tonight.”