clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Madness Is Upon Us - NCAA Tournament First Thursday Open Thread

Time and Television information for today's NCAA Tournament games, as well as an open thread following along with the first full day of the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

By Patroclus
Let's hope his day ends today - so he gets time to ponder other things.
Let's hope his day ends today - so he gets time to ponder other things.
Geoff Burke-US PRESSWIRE

Yes, I know. Today is technically the second round, and third day of the NCAA Tournament, coming after two days of opening round games in Dayton, Ohio. But really folks, today is the beginning of the real March Madness. Sixteen games spread over twelve hours in four cities. And we get to do it all over again tomorrow!

With all due apologies to the late, great Luther Vandross, and with the knowledge that Duke does not play until Friday morning, today gives me another chance to break out the real anthem of March Madness (NSFW, unless your boss also hates Duke).


Looking back, it seems funny that at one point I thought about going to Duke (law school, not undergrad. Stop laughing, especially you folks who went to grad school at SC...).

As has been the case for the past several years, the games will be streamed online via March Madness Live for those away from a TV or people wanting to keep track of multiple games at once. The streaming process has changed a bit this year - in order to get unlimited streaming, you need to be a subscriber to one of several cable/satellite TV companies, and sign in the same way that you would to gain access to many of ESPN's streams of those of the Pac-12 network.

If you are not a subscriber and/or can't dig up the right login information, you can get 4 hours of streaming (games broadcast by CBS are not subject to this limit). The trick is that 4 hours is calculated per-browser or per-mobile device.

Your first task upon getting into the office this morning: Convincing IT that you are working on a project which requires that you have immediate access to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and/or any other desktop browsers you can think of. That should at least get you through the end of this week.

If you are an old school Tournament watcher, today's game broadcasts are split evenly between four TV networks - CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV.

The schedule of 16 games breaks into a pair of 8-game groupings roughly falling into AM/early PM and late PM hours in the Pacific time zone. Within each of those 8-game pairs, each network corresponds to one sub-regional site and a single broadcasting crew. If when looking at the schedule of games further down the post you want to know where the game is being played, you can simply refer to these assignments:

Morning-Early Afternoon Games:

CBS - Auburn Hills, MI: Verne Lundquist/Bill Raftery/Rachel Nichols.

TBS - Salt Lake City, UT: Spero Dedes/Doug Gottlieb/Jamie Maggio.

TNT - San Jose, CA: Brian Anderson/Dan Bonner/Marty Snider.

TruTV - Lexington, KY: Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel/Allie LaForce.

  • Valparaiso (14) vs. Michigan State (3), 9:15 a.m. PT (CBS)
  • Bucknell (11) vs. Butler (6), 9:40 a.m. PT (TruTV)
  • Wichita State (9) vs. Pittsburgh (8), 10:40 a.m. PT (TBS)
  • New Mexico State (13) vs. Saint Louis (4), 11:10 a.m. PT (TNT)
  • Saint Mary’s (11) vs. Memphis (6), 11:40 a.m. PT (CBS)
  • Davidson (14) vs. Marquette (3), 12:10 p.m. PT (TruTV)
  • Southern (16) vs. Gonzaga (1), 1:10 p.m. PT (TBS)
  • Oregon (12) vs. Oklahoma State (5), 1:40 p.m. PT (TNT)

Late Afternoon-Evening Games:

CBS - Auburn Hills, MI: Verne Lundquist/Bill Raftery/Rachel Nichols.

TBS - Lexington, KY: Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel/Allie LaForce.

TNT - Salt Lake City, UT: Spero Dedes/Doug Gottlieb/Jamie Maggio.

TruTV - San Jose, CA: Brian Anderson/Dan Bonner/Marty Snider.

  • North Carolina A&T (16) vs. Louisville (1), 3:50 p.m. PT (TBS)
  • South Dakota State (13) vs. Michigan (4), 4:15 p.m. PT (CBS)
  • Belmont (11) vs. Arizona (6), 4:20 p.m. PT (TNT)
  • California (12) vs. UNLV (5), 4:27 p.m. PT (TruTV)
  • Missouri (9) vs. Colorado State (8), 6:20 p.m. PT (TBS)
  • Akron (12) vs. VCU (5), 6:45 p.m. PT (CBS)
  • Harvard (14) vs. New Mexico (3), 6:50 p.m. PT (TNT)
  • Montana (13) vs. Syracuse (4), 6:57 p.m. PT (TruTV)

There are a pair of games that might be of particular interest to Bruins getting their tournament fix today: Butler v. Bucknell at 9:40 am on TruTV; and VCU v. Akron at 6:45 pm on CBS. You can probably guess why. Also of note are the three Pac-12 teams are playing today: Arizona, Cal and Oregon.

As a last reminder, we have a Bruins Nation bracket group on Yahoo. The info that you need to join is in this post; you have until 9:15am pacific time to join the group and complete your bracket.

This is your NCAA Tournament first day open thread.

GO BRUINS!

More From Bruins Nation