{"id":32483,"date":"2024-03-22T17:19:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/32483\/ncaa-mens-tournament-2024-highlights\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T17:19:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:19:40","slug":"ncaa-mens-tournament-2024-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=32483","title":{"rendered":"NCAA men&#8217;s tournament 2024: Highlights from first round of March Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NCAA men&#8217;s tournament 2024: Highlights from first round of March Madness\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The 2024 men&#39;s bracket is reduced to 48 teams, and Kentucky is not one of them.  This glaring absence is just one headline among many for a tournament that already lives up to the name March Madness: four double-digit seeds advanced in a series of upsets.  We still have 16 games left in the first round.  Let&#39;s take a quick look at how Thursday&#39;s games influence the path forward for each region.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Eastern Region: <\/strong>No. 11 seed Duquesne&#39;s dream run continued with an upset of No. 6 seed BYU, and Washington State won its first NCAA Tournament game since 2008 \u2014 but l &#39;Illinois and Iowa State remain the favorites to face off in a Sweet 16 matchup between No. 2.  offense in the country (the Illini) and the No. 2 defense in the country (the Cyclones).  Terrence Shannon Jr. may be playing better than any guard in <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/college\/\"   title=\"college\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">college<\/a> basketball right now, but Iowa State has held nine straight opponents to less than a point per possession. <em>&#8211;Jeff Borzello<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#39;s Choice<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p><strong>South region: <\/strong>We&#39;re going to have a double-digit seed in the Sweet 16. No. 11 seed NC State continued its momentum from the ACC tournament to beat 6 seed Texas Tech and 14 seed Oakland , stunned the sport by knocking out 3.-seed Kentucky.  Don&#39;t count out Greg Kampe and the Golden Grizzlies either.  I don&#39;t think Jack Gohlke will hit 10 3s again, but this is a battle-tested group.  The bottom half of the stand also opens up a bit.  Is Marquette&#39;s \u2013 or Florida&#39;s \u2013 road to the Elite Eight getting easier? <em>&#8211;Jeff Borzello<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Midwest Region: <\/strong>You can call the Midwest the quiet region.  Barely.  Kansas engaged in some nervy moments against 13th-seeded Samford, but the Jayhawks, Tennessee, Creighton and every other unnamed South Carolina favorite advanced.  No. 11 Oregon took the Gamecocks&#39; spot, and now Thursday&#39;s winners look forward to Purdue&#39;s expected arrival.  Things didn&#39;t go so well the last time the Boilermakers were a No. 1 seed in the round of 16.  Assuming Matt Painter&#39;s group fares better this year, the focus will shift to Purdue&#39;s Round of 16 opponent.  Will it be Utah?  State or TCU? <em>-John Gasaway<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>West Region: <\/strong>With his team&#39;s victory against Mississippi State, Tom Izzo reached the second round of the NCAA tournament for the 20th time in his career.  Michigan State excelled offensively (44% from the 3-point line) and defensively and now more clearly poses a threat to top-seeded North Carolina (+3.5 favorite).  The Spartans were 2-5 in their last seven games heading into the NCAA Tournament.  On Thursday, however, they looked like the team many expected them to be when they began the season as a preseason top 10 team. <em>&#8211;Myron Medcalf<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Relive the day&#39;s action across the country below and come back Friday for day two of the first round. <\/em><\/p>\n<h2\/>\n<aside class=\"module-iframe-wrapper \">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"arena-liveblog-iframe\" height=\"2000\" width=\"100%\" class=\"frame iframe-embed\" src=\"https:\/\/go.arena.im\/embed?publisher=espn-69077&amp;event=9qsWVLH&amp;v=2&amp;consent=F&amp;theme=light\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"false\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"false\" mozallowfullscreen=\"false\" and=\"\" scrolling=\"no\" seemless=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NCAA men&#8217;s tournament 2024: Highlights from first round of March Madness\u060c The 2024 men&#39;s bracket is reduced to 48 teams, and Kentucky is not one of them. This glaring absence is just one headline among many for a tournament that already lives up to the name March Madness: four double-digit seeds advanced in a series [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1061,12092,3217,3903,4884,2341],"class_list":["post-32483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-highlights","tag-madness","tag-march","tag-mens","tag-ncaa","tag-tournament"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32485,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32483\/revisions\/32485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}