Sweet 16 Open Thread: Eye on Wichita State

For the fifth year running, the Bruins will not appear past the first weekend of the tournament. Ben Howland has fairly and rightfully accepted the consequences of this failure, and although most of our attention has been fixated on who the next coach will be, the tournament rolls on. And, there are some games we need to keep an eye on.

Today we will have East and West regional Sweet 16 action. The West region is a total trainwreck right now with a 2, 6, 9, and 13 seed appearing at Staples Center. 9 seed Wichita State will go up against 13 seed La Salle, ensuring at least one of them an Elite Eight berth, while 2 seed Ohio State hopes to take advantage of Gonzaga's early exit and take out untested Arizona. Where the West is wild, the East is totally boring, with all top four seeds surviving. Miami will take on Marquette in one matchup and Indiana will go up against Syracuse.

None of the three coaches remaining from our Final-4 are up today but Wichita State's head coach Gregg Marshall is someone we may want to keep an eye on just in case.

• Miami vs. Marquette - 4:15 PM PDT on CBS
• Ohio State vs. Arizona - 4:47 PM PDT on TBS
• Syracuse vs. Indiana - 6:45 PM PDT on CBS
• La Salle vs. Wichita State - 7:17 PM PDT on TBS