PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Baylor entered the NCAA Tournament hoping to wipe away the raw feelings from its first-round exit a year ago on a last-second shot.

It left with another heartbreaking loss.

Taurean Prince scored 28 points, but the fifth-seeded Bears were unable to stop Makai Mason and lost 79-75 to Yale on Thursday. Mason had a career-high 31 points, including six of the Bulldogs’ final nine points.

Baylor (22-12) lost its tournament opener last season on a last-second 3-pointer in Georgia State’s memorable victory.

“I thought Yale did a great job in the second half making things tough for us to score,” Bears coach Scott Drew said. “We only shot 38 percent. But I thought Mason really controlled the game. We had a difficult time matching him.”

Johnathan Motley added 15 points and seven rebounds for Baylor, which shot 44 percent from the field.

The Bears kept pace with an energized Yale team in the first half, trailing by five at the break. They quickly tied the game in the opening minutes of the second half, but were also dominated inside and trailed by as many as 13 with about seven minutes to play.

“We just got outrebounded and they played harder than us the whole 40 minutes,” Prince said.

Yale (23-6) earned its first NCAA Tournament victory. It comes in its first appearance since 1962.

Justin Sears scored 18 points for the Bulldogs, and Brandon Sherrod finished with 10.

“This was bigger than us, and we wanted to do it for all the Yale faithful out there,” Sears said. “It’s great right now. I don’t think it’s really hit us how big this is yet.”

Expelled Yale captain Jack Montague, dismissed last month because of a sexual assault allegation, was in the stands. He was present as a fan and sat across from the Yale bench.

Yale will play No. 4 seed Duke on Saturday.

Little Rock-Ark. 85, Purdue 83

DENVER — All looked lost for Little Rock. An underappreciated but no-longer-unknown guard named Josh Hagins wasn’t quite done playing.

Celebrating his 22nd birthday, the 6-foot-1 senior made a 3-pointer from the edge of the half-court logo to send the game into overtime, a high looper off glass to send it into double-overtime, then kept right on scoring — 31 points in all — until his team had beaten Purdue 85-83 and grabbed a spot in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Don’t ever count the little guys out,” first-year coach Chris Beard shouted toward press row as he ran off the court after his team joined Yale as the second No. 12 seed to beat a 5 on Thursday.

Hard to blame anyone who did, though.

The Trojans (30-4) were trailing by 13 and going nowhere with 3:33 left in regulation.

Suddenly, the champions of the Sun Belt Conference — yes, the same league that gave us Georgia State and coach Ron Hunter falling off his chair in last year’s tournament — started making shots and injecting the madness into this March.

“I’m a senior,” said Hagins, who added seven rebounds, six assists and five steals to his career-high point total. “I’ve waited 22 years, to be honest, to get to this point, this one game. I wasn’t going to go out like that. I wasn’t going to go without a fight. I made shots, missed them. I was going to go out swinging.”

Trailing 68-64 with 33 seconds left, Hagins missed a 3 badly, but it rimmed sharply to the corner, and into the hands of 6-foot-11 Lis Shoshi. His 3-point attempt struck iron, bounced straight up and dropped.

Vince Edwards, who led the Boilermakers (26-9) with 24 points, hit two free throws to extend the lead back to three. Then Hagins worked the ball across half court looking only for one thing — a shot. Working against Purdue’s P.J. Thompson, Hagins couldn’t find room until he backed to the edge of the “March Madness” logo, about 30 feet away, and launched. It went with 5.1 seconds left.