By Cody Stark Assistant Sports Editor

NEW ORLEANS - The first round only made the NCAA men's basketball tournament's case stronger that this is the greatest championship there is.

Small schools that most of the country have never heard of, with the exception of the die-hard college basketball fans out there, have a chance to show they truly belong on the big stage.

There were five double digit-seeded teams which pulled off first-round upsets Thursday, and there should have been six.

Sam Houston State wasn't given much of a chance when it got paired with third-seeded Baylor in a first-round matchup at New Orleans Arena in the South regional.

As the national media scrambled to get in as much pre-tournament coverage as possible between the time the pairings were announced Sunday to the opening tip of the first sessions Thursday, most experts didn't even bother breaking down the Bearkats and Bears.

After finishing third in the Big 12 and making a run to semifinals of the conference tournament, Baylor was all of a sudden the cheerleader everyone wanted to take to the dance. It was a popular pick to pencil the Bears into the Final Four and that was warranted.

On paper, Baylor has all the makings of an NCAA championship team. The Bears have two solid guards in Tweety Carter and LaceDarius Dunn and three 6-foot-10 or taller post players, including Michigan transfer Ekpe Udoh.

The matchup just didn't add up for Sam Houston. The Bearkats needed to mix things up to catch the Bears off-guard. Sam Houston head coach Bob Marlin and his staff came up with the perfect plan.

Two days before the 14th-seeded Bearkats were set to play the Bears, Marlin decided to add a defensive scheme that Sam Houston had never run - the triangle-and-two - while the team was practicing at Tulane's rec center.

The move paid off. Baylor wasn't sure what to do and the Kats had the Bears on the ropes for most of the game.

But the reason Sam Houston did not join tournament crashers Ohio, Murray State, Washington, Old Dominion and Saint Mary's on Thursday was because its offense failed to deliver.

The Bearkats went 2 of 16 from behind the arc in the first half. It was not so much what Baylor was doing defensively. Sam Houston found cracks in the Bears' zone. The shots just wouldn't go down.

Seniors Corey Allmond and Ashton Mitchell, two expert 3-point shooters, went a combined 0 for 9 from long range in the first 20 minutes. They weren't remodeling New Orleans Arena with bricks either. A majority of those shots rimmed out.

Sam Houston finished the game 6 of 31 from 3-point range and eventually lost to Baylor 68-59 in a game that was a lot closer than the final score. It was a four-point contest with a minute and a half to go.

To topple Baylor, the Bearkats knew they had to have a 3-point shooting night close to the 18 treys they dropped on Kentucky in a 102-92 loss at the beginning of the season .

As good as its defense was with Mitchell and Josten Crow shutting down Carter and Dunn for most of the day, Sam Houston could have blown Baylor out of the water in the first half had more of those 3s hit the bottom of the net.

Forwards Gilberto Clavell and Preston Brown were able to stretch out the Bears' big guys, and combined to score 25 points in the first half to give the Kats a 31-30 lead at the break.

Mitchell and Allmond finally connected from 3-point land in the beginning of the second half. It looked like the shooting funk was over, but Sam Houston managed only two more 3s the rest of the way.

Baylor was able to pull away in the final two and a half minutes to escape the upset bug that bit in other parts of the country Thursday.

The Kats needed the exact type of game 14th-seeded Ohio had against third-seeded Georgetown on Thursday. The Bobcats drilled 13 3-pointers to send the Hoyas home early.

What really stings is that Sam Houston had a legitimate chance of making it to the Sweet 16.

The Kats would have faced Old Dominion in the second round today. The 11th-seeded Monarchs stunned sixth-seeded Notre Dame 51-50 in the first game at New Orleans Arena on Thursday.

Old Dominion has size, but Sam Houston's quickness would have given the Monarchs fits much like it did Baylor.

What could have been is tough to swallow, but the Bearkats do not have any reason to hang their heads. It was a remarkable season, one of the best in school history.

Mitchell, Allmond, Brown and senior Arthur Zulu went out the way many wish they could, with dancing shoes on their feet and rings on their fingers.

As for the rest of the Kats, things look promising for 2010-11.

Clavell, who capped his first year at SHSU with 23 points against Baylor, is the best scoring post player in the Southland. Crow is a lock-down defender who can hit big shots and has all the intangibles a good leader needs.

Lance Pevehouse, Drae Murray, Antuan Bootle and Marco Cooper will continue to make plays, and hopefully freshmen Aaron Thompson and Kelly Lawson will develop into solid players.

With a few pieces added to the puzzle, the Kats could very well make it back to the NCAA tournament next season.