— There are seven teams who are in the top 25 in both eFG% and eFG% defense, which is something national champs have done recently.
Arizona
Duke
Florida
Houston
Iowa State
Louisville (best player is hurt)
Michigan
— I’m picking Arizona to win the national championship this year; in four years with the Wildcats, Tommy Lloyd hasn’t gotten Arizona to the Elite 8, but I think they’ll win the title this time around.
— Miami OH 89, SMU 79
Miami wins play-in game, shuts lot of people up.
Redhawks were 16-41 on the arc, scored 1.34 ppp
SMU lost six of its last seven games.
Miami advances to play Tennessee on Friday
— Prairie View 67, Lehigh 55
Panthers win their eighth game in a row.
Three guys on Prairie View played the whole game.
Dontae Horne was 11-22 shooting, had no assists.
Prairie View advances to play Florida on Friday
— Queens, Cal Baptist are only teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament who are in the Field of 68 for the first time.
— No team that lost their first conference tournament game has ever won a national title, which is bad news for Alabama, Illinois, Michigan State, Nebraska.
— There are 13 teams in this year’s tournament who have a head coach who is in his first year at that school- that seems like a lot.
— Last year, all four #1-seeds made the Final Four, only the second time that happened.
— Famous birthdays, March 19th:
Ursula Andress, 91
Glenn Close, 79
Mike Norris, 71
Bruce Willis, 71
Andre Miller, 50
Steve Gleason, 49
Clayton Kershaw, 38
EJ Manuel, 36
— Philadelphia Eagles are trading a 7th-round draft pick in next year’s draft to Carolina for 38-year old QB Andy Dalton, who started seven games in three years for the Panthers.
Eagles already have Jalen Hurts, Tanner McKee in their QB room; Dalton gives them more of a veteran presence. The trade saves Carolina $2.1M in salary cap space in 2026 and $4M in cash.
— Shaquille O’Neal must still be making a boatload of money; he does a lot of commercials.
NIT games
— Wake Forest 82, Navy 72
Deacons shot 73.1% inside the arc.
Navy finished 26-8; they won the Patriot League regular season title.
Think Tim Duncan/David Robinson had a bet on this game?
— Dayton 80, Bradley 66
Flyers led 47-30 at halftime.
Dayton won eight of its last ten games
— Illinois State 79, Kent State 58
Redbirds led 45-25 at halftime.
Kent State shot 32.8% from the floor.
— George Washington 79, Utah Valley 78
George Washington led by 16 early in 2nd half, hung on for the win.
Next: George Washington plays New Mexico in Albuquerque Sunday.
— Nevada 89, Murray State 75
Wolf Pack shot 57.7% inside the arc.
Nevada was +10 (15-5) in turnovers.
— California 91, Ill-Chicago 73
Cal shot 15-28 on the arc, scored 1.28 ppp
Chris Bell scored 31 points, shot 7-8 on the arc.
— New Mexico 107, Sam Houston 83
Lobos shot 65% inside arc, scored 1.41 ppp.
New Mexico was +9 (14-5) in turnovers.
— St Joe’s 69, Colorado State 64
Derek Simpson scored 13 points, had 9 rebounds for the Hawks
St Joe’s moves on to play California in Berkeley Sunday.
