NCAA Tournament First Round: No. 2 UConn men’s basketball vs. No. 15 Furman| 10 p.m., TBS

UConn men’s basketball (29-5) is set to begin its 2026 March Madness journey on Friday night as the 2-seed Huskies travel down to Philadelphia for an East Region first round matchup with the SoCon champion and 15-seed Furman (22-12) at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The Paladins finished tied for fifth in the SoCon regular season standings, but ran through the conference tournament as the 6-seed at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina to cut down the nets and clinch the program’s eighth bid to the NCAA Tournament. Head coach Bob Richey has been guiding the team since 2017 and led the Paladins to the big dance for the second time during his tenure after Furman hadn’t made it since 1980. They come into Friday ranked No. 188 in KenPom.

Advertisement

The Huskies sit at No. 11 in KenPom and have made the NCAA Tournament in six consecutive seasons since rejoining the Big East in 2020, a program record. UConn failed to clinch the automatic qualifier, falling to St. John’s in the Big East title game on Saturday, but more than comfortably got in as an at-large. Dan Hurley has a dominant track record in Mach Madness since getting to Storrs, boasting a 13-3 record over the past five seasons with two national championships.

UConn is a part of a loaded East Region this year, with schools like Duke, Michigan State, Kansas, St. John’s and UCLA in the bracket. Should the Huskies advance over Furman, they would take on either the 7-seed Bruins or 10-seed UCF on Sunday.

The Huskies have advanced past the Round of 64 in 22 of their past 25 tournament appearances going back to 1990, only failing to do so in 2008 against San Diego, 2021 against Maryland and 2022 against New Mexico State. Can UConn keep the trend rolling and move on to the second round?

Date/Time: Friday, March 20, approximately 10:00 p.m.

Advertisement

TV/Stream: TBS, HBO Max, March Madness app

Radio: UConn Sports Network, Sirius XM 204, Sirius/XM online streaming

Odds: UConn -20.5, O/U 136.5

Location: Xfinity…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ncaa-tournament-first-round-no-102000958.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-20 10:20:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.