COLUMBUS – On the opening weekend of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournament, Columbus is the center of the college basketball universe.
Value City Arena is hosting women’s games from Thursday through Monday while men’s first- and second-round games are being played at Nationwide Arena.
Third-seeded Ohio State faces No. 14 James Madison in a first round game at 1:30 Saturday afternoon and St. John’s will play North Carolina at 4:00 p.m. after 11th seed St. John’s knocked off Purdue 66-64 in a First Four game at Value City Arena Thursday.
Big Ten eyes women’s NCAA tourney breakthrough
Although the Boilermakers are out of the running, the Big Ten has is hoping for a breakout year in the women’s tournament after several years of disappointment.
Only once since 2005 has the league gotten a team to the Final Four, and that was Maryland in its first year joining from the ACC in 2015.
But the Big Ten has three of the top eight seeds in this year’s bracket, and four of the top 12, led by No. 1 seed Indiana.
It also has favorable matchups all the way to the Elite Eight, raising hopes that this could be the year the Big Ten finally gets back to the big stage in women’s hoops.
The women’s NCAA Tournament will hold its Final Four in Dallas
Bracket-busting
Nationwide Arena witnessed an historic upset Friday as Fairleigh Dickinson became only the second No. 16 seed in history to win an NCAA men’s Tournament game, beating No. 1 seed Purdue 63-58 in one of four first-round games in the East Regional played in Columbus on Friday.
In the day’s other games, No. 7 seed Michigan State clamped down defensively on No. 10 seed Southern California in the second half for a 72-62 win, Florida Atlantic beat Memphis 66-65 in a rugged, back-and-forth game for the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win and Marquette beat Vermont 78-61.
The winners advance to Sunday’s second round and a chance to reach the Sweet 16 in New York City.
Las Vegas, Kansas City, Missouri and Louisville are also hosting Sweet 16 games.
The Final Four takes place in Houston on April 1, with the championship game on April 3.
In a men’s tournament that saw a 2 and a 4 seed lose on Day 1, only a relative handful of brackets were still intact when Fairleigh Dickinson knocked off Purdue, sending any remaining perfect brackets into trash cans everywhere.
Victories by double-digit seeds Princeton, Penn State and Furman on Thursday had done early damage in the quest for the perfect bracket.