Live Coverage
How to Watch or Stream: CBS, truTV, TNT, TBS, ncaa.com, and the NCAA March Madness Live app.
No. 1 Seeds: Villanova, North Carolina, Gonzaga and Kansas. Here’s the first-round schedule.
The N.C.A.A. tournament has tipped off. The first game is underway in Buffalo, with Princeton against Notre Dame.
If these were U.S. News’s national university rankings, we’d have No. 1 (Princeton) vs. No. 15 (Notre Dame). But even in basketball, both fifth-seeded Notre Dame and 12th-seeded Princeton have more than creditable teams this season.
Notre Dame made it to the A.C.C. final over the weekend behind versatile forward Bonzie Colson, who had 29 in the narrow loss.
Princeton put together one of the best Ivy League seasons of recent times, going 14-0 and winning the inaugural conference tournament. The team fits the stereotype of the Ivies in some ways, not being especially good at rebounding for example, but excelling on defense.
The Ivy entrant has won in the first round four of the last seven years, with the losses coming by 9, 2 and 2 points.
This year, Notre Dame led Princeton at halftime, 36-30. Colson led the team with 10 points.
Thursday’s Top Story Lines
Wildcats’ Wait is Almost Over: Northwestern fans have waited 78 years, so they can wait a little bit longer to finally see the Wildcats in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Fortunately, it will not be too late: No. 8-seeded Northwestern faces No. 9 Vanderbilt at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Do you think there might be some purple in the crowd in Salt Lake City? When CBS visited Evanston, Ill., for the first time earlier this month for a game against Purdue, the broadcaster Jim Nantz said it was the highest decibel level at a game he has ever covered.
Star guards: Guard play is always a key factor in the N.C.A.A. tournament, and there are some studs in action Thursday. Iowa State’s Monte Morris again leads the N.C.A.A. in assist-to-turnover ratio — he has nearly 1.5 more assists than the player ranked second. Winthrop’s Keon Johnson is averaging 22.5 points per game, and he is only 5-foot-7. How about Mount St. Mary’s Junior Robinson? The 5-foot-5 point guard scored 23 points in a win over New Orleans on Tuesday. West Virginia’s Jevon Carter is a nonstop workhorse, averaging 13.1 points and a Big 12-best 2.6 steals per game. And Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-Goss, a former McDonald’s All-American who transferred from Washington, has given the Bulldogs stability and leadership from the point.
Early Upsets: Las Vegas actually favors the No. 12-seeded Middle Tennessee State over No. 5 Minnesota, but expect their game at 4 p.m. Eastern to go down to the wire. Two other No. 5 seeds, Virginia and Notre Dame, also appear vulnerable in their early afternoon matchups against U.N.C.-Wilmington and Princeton, respectively. Both those games tip off in the noon hour. And at night, high-energy Florida Gulf Coast is an intriguing matchup against Florida State, making its first tournament appearance in five seasons, in Orlando.
Biggie vs. Small: As far as individual matchups go, the contrast of Purdue’s formidable frontcourt versus Vermont’s strong perimeter play could be a fascinating cat-and-mouse game. Led by Caleb Swanigan, a national player of the year contender known as Biggie, and 7-foot-2 center Isaac Haas, the Boilermakers are 17th in the nation in rebounding margin at nearly seven per game. Vermont does not have anybody taller than 6-8, but the Catamounts shot 49.6 percent from the field this season. And they have pulled off a miracle as a No. 13 seed before. Remember, Syracuse?
