Sweet 16 Friday Open Thread

The second half of the paring down of the "Sweet 16" down to the "Elite 8" in the NCAA Tournament takes place today.

CBS has the Eastern Regional games from Newark, NJ, while TBS has the Southwest Regional games in San Antonio, TX, which features Kansas, the only team from west of the Mississippi River.

North Carolina (28-7), who eliminated Washington 86-83 in the Charlotte sub-regional, starts the afternoon off at 4:15 PDT against Marquette (22-14), the only non top 4 seed left in the East, with top seed Ohio St. (34-2) facing Kentucky (27-8) to follow.

The story in the Southwest is the top seeded Jayhakws and the three Cinderellas. Big XII Champion Kansas (34-2) meets the twelfth seed Richmond Spiders (29-7), who finished third in the Atlantic 10 14, in the first game, with the other surprise team from the city of Richmond, the eleventh seeded Virginia Commonwealth University Rams (26-11), who had to defeat USC 59-46 in the Play-on playoff round to even get into the field of 64, but have reeled off three consecutive double digit blowouts, taking on the Florida St. Seminoles (23-10), who stunned Notre Dame, the Southwest's second seed, 71-57 late last Sunday night, in another blowout that was no where near as close as the score indicated.

There may be as many Richmond residents in San Antonio tonight as are back at home, as the city has equaled the entire Big East Conference in the number of teams advancing to the Sweet 16. Certainly more than have ever been in the home of the Alamo at once any time in history. It will be interesting to see if they fare better than the first set of visitors from north and east did.

Here's the complete broadcast info.:

Here's the place to add your expert analysis, become a Richmond resident for a night, or maybe salvage your bracket with some chalk.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com