UNC, West Virginia top list

[ad_1]

March Madness 2025: The Dos and Don’ts for filling out your NCAA Tournament bracket

March Madness is finally here and Mackenzie Salmon has tips to help you fill out your NCAA Tournament bracket.

Sports Pulse

Now, March Madness can officially begin.

We’ve soldiered through another First Four, in preparation for the NCAA Tournament’s first round on Thursday, the date that many observers still consider to be the real start of the tournament.

First, though, we had a trimming of the fat on Tuesday and Wednesday to whittle the bracket to 64 teams.

Here are the winners and losers from the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio:

Winners

North Carolina, Xavier

First Four victors make for good sleeper-team candidates.

In 12 of the past 13 years featuring these First Four games, at least one team that played its way into the 64-team field advanced to at least the second round.

VCU (2011) and UCLA (2021) went from First Four to Final Four.

That history bodes well for North Carolina and Xavier. Those two No. 11 seeds that won their play-in games now will face No. 6 seeds Ole Miss and Illinois, respectively.

Upset alert, anyone?

Dunk enthusiasts

If you enjoy points in the paint, then you loved Mount St. Mary’s 83-72 win against American that featured a handful of rim-rattling jams.

Mount St. Mary’s offense functioned beautifully. Big men Jedy Cordilia and Dola Adebayo each supplied 22 points with unstoppable dominance at the rim, and some inside-out kick-outs resulted in nine 3-pointers for the Mountaineers, who looked better than your garden variety 16-seed.

Bubba Cunningham

North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham served as the chairman of the tournament selection committee that just so happened to choose the Tar Heels for the final at-large bid. Cunningham will be due a bonus in excess of $75,000 for the team’s NCAA selection, per the terms of his contract.

Rules dictate that Cunningham not be in the room while the rest of the committee members discussed North Carolina’s tournament candidacy,…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2025/03/20/march-madness-first-four-bracket-north-carolina/82545800007/

Author :

Publish date : 2025-03-20 04:14:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.