MM Round 1 Recap: Eddie Munyak is the GOAT

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Round 1 is done and it delivered some incredible moments, like VCU's flutist single-handedly bringing them back from a 19-point deficit against UNC.

she is playing the hell out of that flute 🫡

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— CJ Fogler (@cjzero.bsky.social) March 19, 2026 at 8:57 PM

While you were asleep, Tarris Reed Jr. of UConn had a monster game against Furman. He finished with 31 points on 12-15 shooting and 27(!) rebounds. Since 2005, only seven other players have recorded 27 rebounds in any game, tournament or otherwise.

In NCAA tournament history, a 30-point, 25-rebound game hasn't been accomplished since 1968.

Elvin Hayes was on another level on those Houston teams and more importantly, he had that shit on whenever he put on a uniform.

636 players recorded at least one minute during the first round and it's my mission to find the most absurd box scores in that group.

There were three "trillion" games with at least 4 minutes played. Those are games where the only stat recorded was minutes. No points, rebounds, assists, blocks, or steals. But also no bad stuff like turnovers, fouls, or missed shots so it'd be unfair to call these bad...probably some high-IQ players that know their game.

1. Mantas Juzenas (G, St. Mary's) - 6 minutes
2. Youssouf Singare (F, High Point) - 4 minutes
3. Brandon Noel (F, Ohio State) - 4 minutes

Here are our favorite ball hogs – the highest scoring games without recording a single assist.

Morez Johnson Jr. gets a pass from me because he literally did not miss. He went 8-8 from the field, including a three. It would have been stupid for him to pass it to anyone else.

There's a saying that shooters shoot. Shooters don't necessarily make. These players attempted the most shots without making one. In my opinion, it's not good to have two of the top three players on this list.

It's easy to focus too much on points as the primary statistic, so I'd like to take minute to recognize a few players who are contributing in all the other stuff. These players didn't score a point but showed up all over the rest of the box scores.

There was only one non-standard double-double in the first round. Rob Martin of High Point had 23 points, 3 rebounds, and 10 assists. Three guys had what I'm calling Balanced Double Doubles, where the number of points and rebounds are the same.

One of the best moments of the tournament came in the closing seconds of Arizona's victory over Long island when walk on Eddie Munyak checked into the game and immediately banked in a 3 for his first career bucket.

I have even better news for Eddie. That bucket put him at the top of the list of highest scorers per minute played in this tournament, which is a flawless metric that shows raw scoring ability.

Eddie finishes his career with three total minutes played and three total point scored. For anyone that needs to brush up on their long division, that's good for one point per minute played.

Name your favorite college basketball player ever.

Unless your answer was Pete Maravich, Eddie Munyak is a better pure scorer than them according to the statistics. I didn't look back through every college basketball box score ever but I feel confident saying that Eddie belongs in the GOAT conversation.