What games to watch for Friday’s NCAA tournament first round

Loyola Chicago’s Lucas Williamson heads to the basket as Drake’s Tremell Murphy defends in the championship sport of the Missouri Valley Convention match on March 6, in St. Louis. The Ramblers will tackle Ohio State within the first spherical of the NCAA match.

(Jeff Roberson / Related Press)

Anybody who grew up obsessive about March Insanity has their tales of how they managed to observe the NCAA match from faculty or the workplace. In highschool, I snuck a transportable handheld TV that my mother had — this was the mid-Nineteen Nineties — and grabbed a glimpse of the CBS feed each time I might.

Right this moment, in fact, we're spoiled. The entire video games are on a cable community or the March Insanity streaming app. I’ll have 4 screens going till there’s solely a necessity for 3, three till there’s solely a necessity for 2, and so forth.

However some might not be on my stage. For these of you who may have the bandwidth for one sport at a time, right here’s my greatest guess for what would be the sport to observe throughout every a part of the day all through the early a part of the match.

No. 7 Ohio State vs. No. 10 Loyola Chicago, 9:15 a.m., Ch.2: The day will get began with among the best matchups. Ohio State misplaced to No. 15 seed Oral Roberts final yr and is out to regain misplaced respect. Loyola Chicago was a Cinderella in 2018, making the Closing 4, and in 2021, knocking off No. 1 seed Illinois within the second spherical. Can Sister Jean deliver dwelling one other massive win over a proud Massive Ten program?

No. 6 Texas vs. No. 11 Virginia Tech, 1:30 p.m., TBS: The Hokies obtained scorching final weekend, successful 4 in a row within the ACC match, together with North Carolina and Duke. They'll hope to remain scorching, however Texas received’t be a straightforward out. Chris Beard led Texas Tech to the nationwide championship sport in 2019, and he introduced the identical nasty model of protection to Austin after final season.

No. 2 Duke vs. No. 15 Cal State Fullerton, 4:10 p.m., Ch.2: Will this be Coach Okay’s final sport? A possible Cinderella from our neck of the woods has a say in it. Sufficient stated.

No. 7 Michigan State vs. No. 10 Davidson, 6:40 p.m., Ch.2: That is presupposed to be Tom Izzo’s month, however the Spartans have been weak of late. Davidson coach Bob McKillop has had his personal March successes, and this group of Wildcats might have what it takes to advance previous Michigan State to face (theoretically) Coach Okay’s Blue Devils.