Kentucky (7:10 p.m. vs. Saint Peter’s), UCLA (approximately 9:50 p.m. vs. Akron) and Kansas (approximately 9:57 p.m. vs. Texas Southern) are among the blue bloods scheduled to be in action tonight.
Follow along for live updates and highlights from March Madness.
6:06 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: Add another page to Richmond’s remarkable NCAA tournament history.The 12th-seeded Spiders’ 67-63 defeat of fifth-seeded Iowa marks the sixth time in the program’s 10 NCAA trips that it has won a game. But it hasn’t come easy; each of those six postseason trips with a victory has included one upset of a No. 5 seed or better.1984: No. 12 Richmond 72, No. 5 Auburn 711988: No. 13 Richmond 72, No. 4 Indiana 69 1988: No. 13 Richmond 59, No. 5 Georgia Tech 551991: No. 15 Richmond 73, No. 2 Syracuse 691998: No. 14 Richmond 62, No. 3 South Carolina 612011: No. 12 Richmond 69, No. 5 Vanderbilt 662022: No. 12 Richmond 67, No. 5 Iowa 63The Spiders (24-12) have a pair of Sweet 16 trips to their credit, in 1988 and again in 2011. After Jacob Gilyard’s 24-point, six-rebound, six-assist game against the previously sizzling Hawkeyes, Richmond has only fourth-seeded Providence between it and a third regional semifinal appearance.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
Halftime: Gonzaga 35, Georgia State 33
No. 16 Georgia State went into the locker room trailing top-seeded Gonzaga by one possession, despite shooting 29 percent from the floor in the first half. Perhaps dampening the Panthers’ excitement at that proximity is how they will start the second half.
Georgia State big men Eliel Nsoseme and Jalen Thomas together collected five fouls in the first half. Compounding that issue is the status of Nsoseme, a 6-foot-8 forward who averages close to a double-double per game but was ruled out for the second half after an injury to his left knee.
While they were on the floor, both helped create the second-half chances that kept the game close. Gonzaga relied on star forward Drew Timme and senior guard Rasir Bolton for the bulk of its offensive production.
Halftime: North Carolina 53, Marquette 25
Eighth-seeded North Carolina took a commanding lead, 53-25, over No. 9 Marquette at halftime Thursday of their first-round East Region matchup in Fort Worth.
Sophomore guard Caleb Love led the 24-9 Tar Heels with 21 points on 6-of-12 shooting, with all six makes coming from three-point range, while teammate Brady Manek chipped in with 13 points and eight rebounds. Freshman forward Olivier-Maxence Prosper had 11 points for the 19-12 Golden Eagles, but the team’s leading scorer, freshman forward Justin Lewis, had zero points on 0-of-8 shooting.
UNC dominated Marquette in rebounds, 32-16, and also held significant edges in assists (15-9), free throws (11-0) and three-point percentage (45.5-23.1). The winner will take on top-seeded Baylor, which beat Norfolk State earlier in the day.
Hubert Davis’s first NCAA tournament game as North Carolina’s head coach got off to a start that had to be pleasing for the former Tar Heels star. He was matching wits with Shaka Smart, the former Final Four coach with VCU who left Texas last year to over Marquette’s program.
Richmond and Nathan Cayo knock out Iowa in first-round upset
No. 5 seed Iowa was expected to make an impression in the NCAA tournament after its impressive run to the Big Ten tournament title less than a week ago.
Thanks to poor shooting and a gritty, streaking Atlantic 10 foe, the Hawkeyes won’t get the chance to make a second impression, after No. 12 Richmond jettisoned the Big Ten champs in a 67-63 first round upset in Buffalo.
Neither team shot particularly well in the first half but Iowa’s struggles were especially pronounced, as the Hawkeyes hit only 30.3 percent of their shots from the field and 7.7 percent from beyond the three-point line.
Iowa tried to close the gap in the early moments of the second half but Richmond seized momentum as the final buzzer neared. Richmond’s Jacob Gilyard drained a three-pointer to put the Spiders up by eight, the largest lead of the game for either team, with just over six minutes to play.
As Iowa again pulled close, Richmond forward Nathan Cayo came up big.
He made a wraparound layup, driving baseline then drawing a foul to put the Spiders up by three with 84 seconds left. Richmond got away with a foul on Keegan Murray’s missed three-pointer on the other end, and moments later, Cayo drove past Murray for another score and foul. Richmond, which won four straight to win the Atlantic 10 tournament, will next face No. 4 Providence.
5:12 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: There’s only so much to say about underseeded Tennessee’s 88-56 thumping of Longwood.The Volunteers (27-7) shot 60 percent from the floor, 58.3 percent from three-point range and had five players reach double figures (led by Santiago Vescovi’s 18 points, seven assists and one turnover in 29 minutes).And with that, Tennessee recorded the most lopsided NCAA tournament victory in coach Rick Barnes’s long career, which includes 26 appearances with four schools (Providence, Clemson, Texas and Tennessee):32: Tennessee 88, Longwood 56, 2022 first round26: Tennessee 73, Wright State 47, 2018 first round21: Texas 82, UNC Asheville 61, 2003 first round21: Texas 75, N.C. State 54, 2006 second round20: Texas 74, Austin Peay 54, 2008 first round20: Texas 82, Stanford 62, 2008 Sweet 16One game, of course, won’t be remembered if the Vols flame out before the Final Four. Nonetheless, this was a continuation of two stellar months for Tennessee, which is 16-2 with an SEC tournament title since getting pounded 107-79 at Kentucky on Jan. 15.There is a lot for Big South champion Longwood (26-7) to celebrate about its first Division I tournament trip. But the Lancers definitely drew a short straw in having to deal with the Vols in the first round.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
Tennessee dominates Longwood, 88-56, to move on to the second round
The SEC champions picked up where they left off last week as No. 3 Tennessee blew out No. 14 Longwood, 88-56, in the first round of the NCAA tournament. A year ago, as a five seed, Tennessee was upset by 12-seed Oregon State in the first round of the tournament. This time around the Volunteers made sure that didn’t happen.
Longwood started off strong in the school’s first tournament appearance ever, hung around with the Volunteers for the first few minutes of the game and countered every Tennessee basket with a basket of their own. A basket by Longwood’s Isaiah Wilkins with 11:34 remaining in the first half trimmed Tennessee’s lead to 16-15. But that was as close as the Lancers would get.
The Volunteers finished the half outscoring Longwood 38-14 and built a 25-point halftime lead. The momentum from the first half carried into the second half as Tennessee continued to build its lead and eventually pulled away.
Tennessee is one of the top defensive teams in the country, 24th in scoring defense, and continued that on Thursday by holding Longwood to 38.5 percent from the field for the game. The Volunteers on the other hand finished shooting 60 percent from the field and had five players score in double figures. Tennessee starting guards Josiah-Jordan James, Kennedy Chandler and Santiago Vescovi scored 48 points as a group to anchor the Volunteers.
Tennessee will take on No. 11 Michigan for a spot in the Sweet 16 after the Wolverines upset No. 6 seed Colorado State in the first round. The two teams last played in the Sweet 16 in 2014, a contest Michigan won by two.
4:48 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: Let’s appreciate top-seeded Baylor’s 85-49 drubbing of Norfolk State for what it is: The rarer-than-you-think first-round blowout by a defending national champion.Consider how the last 10 defending champs fared in the following tournament:2021: Virginia (2019 champ) lost to Ohio, 62-582019: Villanova beat Saint Mary’s, 61-572018: North Carolina beat Lipscomb, 84-662017: Villanova beat Mount St. Mary’s, 76-562016: Duke beat UNC Wilmington, 93-852015: Connecticut missed tournament2014: Louisville beat Manhattan, 71-642013: Kentucky missed tournament2012: Connecticut lost to Iowa State, 77-642011: Duke, beat Hampton, 87-45It’s the most lopsided first-round victory for a defending champ in 11 years, and only the third since then by double figures. Even those weren’t on cruise control immediately. Villanova led Mount St. Mary’s by a point at halftime in 2017. North Carolina was tied with Lipscomb with less than four minutes to go in the first half in 2018.Baylor? Even while dealing with injuries, the Bears (27-6) bolted to a 16-5 lead over the MEAC champion Spartans (24-7) and led by double figures for the final 32:44 behind Matthew Mayer’s 22 points.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
Halftime: Richmond 29, Iowa 28
No. 5 Iowa, less than a week removed from its Big Ten tournament title, trailed 12th-seeded Richmond, 29-28 at halftime of their first-round contest in Buffalo.
Neither team shot particularly well, especially from the perimeter, where Iowa made just one of 13 shots (7.7 percent) to Richmond’s 2-for-9 (22.2 percent). Iowa entered the game as one of the best offensive teams in the country, but shot just 30.3 percent from the field. Richmond’s Tyler Burton scored a game-high 14 points. Iowa had three players with at least five points, led by Keegan Murray’s 10.
Baylor begins title defense with 36-point victory over Norfolk State
Baylor, the defending champions, kicked off their run to repeat with an 85-49 victory over Norfolk State in the opening round of the East Region. The Bears led the whole way against Norfolk State, leaving no chance for the rare 1-16 upset in the first round.
Baylor will play the winner of Marquette-North Carolina on Saturday.
Baylor entered Thursday without leading scorer LJ Cryer, who has been out with a foot injury since Feb. 16. He was ruled out for this weekend, but Scott Drew didn’t rule him out for next weekend. Even without Cryer, the Bears had five players finish in double figures, including senior guard Matthew Mayer who led the way with 22 points. Forwards Flo Thamba and Jeremy Sochan added 29 combined to pace Baylor.
Norfolk State, a 16-seed last year as well, lost in the first round for the second straight year; Norfolk State lost to Gonzaga a year ago. Senior guard Joe Bryant Jr. scored 15 and was the only Spartan to score in double figures.
Baylor is attempting to become the first repeat champion since Billy Donovan’s Florida teams in 2006 and 2007 led by Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer. Of the past five champions, excluding Virginia whose following year was canceled by covid, only one of them made it out of the opening weekend the following year (2015-2016 Duke).
4:25 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: For those who might not have seen much (or any) of Memphis over the course of the season, the ninth-seeded Tigers’ 64-53 defeat of Boise State in Portland, Ore., in Thursday’s first round offered a good glimpse of what Penny Hardaway’s team is about.Memphis’ most striking facet is its athleticism, which it unleashed to claim a 19-point halftime lead. But it is also bedeviled by turnovers, and it had 10 in the second half to allow the eighth-seeded Broncos (27-8) to close within five on a couple occasions.That extended history of giveaways — Memphis ranks 352nd out of 358 teams in KenPom.com’s turnover percentage metric — makes it hard to fully trust the Tigers against truly elite competition.But that’s a problem for another day — quite possibly Saturday, when the Tigers (22-10) are likely to play top-seeded Gonzaga.For now, let’s acknowledge Memphis for what it is: A defensively gifted team (though not as stingy as last season) that has won 13 of its last 15 and just notched its first victory over a higher-seeded team since the 1995 second round (a 6/3 defeat of Purdue). The Tigers stand one victory away from their first trip to the second weekend since 2009, John Calipari’s final year with the program.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
Memphis staves off strong second half from Boise State to advance
No. 9 Memphis continued its late-season hot streak Thursday, beating No. 8 Boise State, 64-53, in the first round of the tournament behind 14 points from DeAndre Williams and a Jalen Duren double-double (10 points, 11 rebounds). The win marks Penny Hardaway’s first NCAA tournament triumph as the head coach of his alma mater and the program’s first win since their last tournament appearance in 2014.
Memphis dominated the first half, doubling Boise State’s point total and jumping out to a 38-19 lead behind eight points apiece from Duren and Williams. The Tigers would need that lead as the Broncos made a strong comeback attempt in the second half.
Boise State looked completely lost in the first half offensively, shooting 29.2 percent from the field, but flipped a switch to begin the second half. Boise State went on an 8-2 run in the opening four minutes and Hardaway called a timeout to calm his team down.
Even with the pause, Memphis started 1-for-8 to begin the second half and their offense struggled to function smoothly after guard Alex Lomax injured his ankle on a three-point attempt toward the end of the first half. The Tigers went over 10 minutes without a field goal made and Boise State shrunk the lead to seven.
The Broncos continued to chip away at the lead, trimming the lead to five behind 20 second-half points by Abu Kigab and 10 second-half turnovers from Memphis. But in the end, Boise State ran out of gas and Memphis was able to get enough stops.
The Tigers have won 13 of their last 15 games including Thursday’s victory and will face the winner of No. 1 Gonzaga and No. 16 Georgia State on Saturday in the West Region.
Halftime: Tennessee 54, Longwood 29
The No. 3 Volunteers are out to a huge lead in the first half of their first-round matchup in the South Region against No. 14 Longwood. Tennessee guards Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi combined for 27 points in the first half, carrying the scoring load for the SEC champions.
Longwood, in their first tournament appearance ever under coach Griff Aldrich, came out ready to play early. The Lancers were only down 16-15 with 11:31 remaining before Tennessee turned up the intensity on both ends of the floor. Isaiah Wilkins leads Longwood with seven points.
Tennessee lost in the opening round to Oregon State a year ago and looks to be on track to advance this year barring a second-half collapse. The Volunteers are shooting 20-for-30 (66.7 percent) in the first half and 8-for-13 (61.5 percent) from three.
Halftime: Baylor 43, Norfolk State 27
Defending national champion Baylor, the top seed in the East Region, had little trouble with No. 16 Norfolk State in the first half of Thursday’s first-round game, storming out to a 43-27 lead.
The Spartans entered the game allowing opponents to shoot only 28.8 percent from three-point range, one of the best marks among tournament teams. But the Bears scored 21 points off three-pointers, nearly matching the Spartans’ total point output in the first half. Matthew Mayer led Baylor with 10 points, capping the half with a breakaway dunk at the buzzer. Jeremy Sochan added nine points, hitting both of his three-pointers, while Adam Flagler and James Akinjo added eight points apiece for the Bears, who got points from all seven players who played and had assists on 14 of their 15 total field goals.
Joe Bryant Jr. led Norfolk State, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion, with nine first-half points.
Halftime: Memphis 38, Boise State 19
Penny Hardaway and his staff have their team firing on all cylinders through the first twenty minutes. No. 9 Memphis leads 38-19 at the half against No. 8 Boise State, the Mountain West Champions. The Tigers are seeking their first tournament win since 2014.
The Tigers are shooting 16-of-28 (57.1 percent) from the field in the first half of action, led by Jalen Duren and DeAndre Williams who have each scored eight in the first half. On the other end of the floor, Memphis is holding Boise State to 29.2 percent shooting and the Broncos have only made one of their six three-point attempts.
Emoni Bates, one of the top recruits a year ago who has missed the last 12 games with a back injury, has played three minutes of game action so far as the Tigers have cruised early.
2:56 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: No one with the possible exception of Wisconsin is at home in tight games this season as Providence, and it surely helped the fourth-seeded Friars when they found themselves in a predictably tight first round game against Summit League champ South Dakota State.But more than any intangible, Providence has defended far more often than not this season, and it has that end of the floor to thank for its 66-57 victory in Buffalo.The 13th-seeded Jackrabbits (30-4) easily led the country with a 44.9 three-point shooting percentage and had won 21 in a row coming into the day. But Providence held them to 7 of 23 from the outside, a modest-by-nearly-any-standard 30.4 percent day.It was a methodical day for a methodical team. Providence led by as many as 14, saw the advantage trimmed to three a couple times in the closing minutes and then finished off yet another tight victory.Bottom line: Providence is now 16-2 in games decided by single-digit margins. And they’re not done with what is arguably already the program’s most memorable season in a quarter-century — if not since its 1987 Final Four run.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
2:39 p.m.
Patrick Stevens: The 11-over-6 spot on the Bingo card got crossed off in a hurry, and Michigan offered up a microcosm of its up-and-down, traction-free season as it took down Colorado State, 75-63. The 11th-seeded Wolverines (18-14) didn’t play well in the slightest in the first half, understandably sloppy with starting point guard DeVante’ Jones sidelined after getting concussed in practice. Michigan fumbled away nine turnovers in 32 possessions in the first half, and it is little wonder it trailed by 15 at one point.But by taking better care of the ball (six second-half turnovers), finally making a few timely three-pointers (4 of 7 from three in the second half) and forcing the Rams into more outside shots than they’d like, the Wolverines made it through to the second round.Michigan has alternated wins and losses for its last 11 games, which is hardly a vote of confidence for Saturday, but the Wolverines did ensure a No. 11 seed made it into the round of 32 for the sixth consecutive tournament. No. 11s are now 12-9 against No. 6 seeds in that span.
Patrick Stevens
,
College sports
