| Higher Seed | Lower Seed | Spread |
| UNC-Central | Texas Southern | -2.8 |
| Arizona St. | Syracuse | 1.9 |
Tournament Schedule
All Times Eastern Daylight
| Wednesday, Mar 14, 2018 | ||||
| TIME | Higher Seed | Lower Seed | City | TV |
| 6:40 PM | 16 UNC-Central | 16 Texas Southern | Dayton, OH | truTV |
| 9:10 PM | 11 Arizona St. | 11 Syracuse | Dayton, OH | truTV |
| Thursday, Mar 15, 2018 | ||||
| TIME | Higher Seed | Lower Seed | City | TV |
| 12:15 PM | 7 Rhode Island | 10 Oklahoma | Pittsburgh | CBS |
| 12:40 PM | 3 Tennessee | 14 Wright St. | Dallas | truTV |
| 1:30 PM | 4 Gonzaga | 13 UNC-Greensboro | Boise, ID | TNT |
| 2:00 PM | 1 Kansas | 16 Penn | Wichita, KS | TBS |
| 2:45 PM | 2 Duke | 15 Iona | Pittsburgh | CBS |
| 3:10 PM | 6 Miami (Fla.) | 11 Loyola (Chi.) | Dallas | truTV |
| 4:00 PM | 5 Ohio St. | 12 South Dakota St. | Boise, ID | TNT |
| 4:30 PM | 8 Seton Hall | 9 North Carolina St. | Wichita, KS | TBS |
| 6:50 PM | 1 Villanova | 16 Radford | Pittsburgh | TNT |
| 7:10 PM | 5 Kentucky | 12 Davidson | Boise, ID | CBS |
| 7:20 PM | 6 Houston | 11 San Diego St | Wichita, KS | TBS |
| 7:27 PM | 3 Texas Tech | 14 Stephen F. Austin | Dallas | truTV |
| 9:20 PM | 8 Virginia Tech | 9 Alabama | Pittsburgh | TNT |
| 9:40 PM | 4 Arizona | 13 Buffalo | Boise, ID | CBS |
| 9:50 PM | 3 Michigan | 14 Montana | Wichita, KS | TBS |
| 9:57 PM | 6 Florida | 11 St. Bonaventure | Dallas | truTV |
| Friday, Mar 16, 2018 | ||||
| TIME | Higher Seed | Lower Seed | City | TV |
| 12:15 PM | 7 Texas A&M | 10 Providence | Charlotte | CBS |
| 12:40 PM | 2 Purdue | 15 Cal St. Fullerton | Detroit | truTV |
| 1:30 PM | 4 Wichita St. | 13 Marshall | San Diego | TNT |
| 2:00 PM | 2 Cincinnati | 15 Georgia St. | Nashville | TBS |
| 2:45 PM | 2 North Carolina | 15 Lipscomb | Charlotte | CBS |
| 3:10 PM | 7 Arkansas | 10 Butler | Detroit | truTV |
| 4:00 PM | 5 West Virginia | 12 Murray St. | San Diego | TNT |
| 4:30 PM | 7 Nevada | 10 Texas | Nashville | TBS |
| 6:50 PM | 8 Creighton | 9 Kansas St. | Charlotte | TNT |
| 7:10 PM | 3 Michigan St. | 14 Bucknell | Detroit | CBS |
| 7:20 PM | 1 Xavier | 16 UNCC/Tex Sou. | Nashville | TBS |
| 7:27 PM | 4 Auburn | 13 Charleston | San Diego | truTV |
| 9:20 PM | 1 Virginia | 16 MD-Baltimore Co. | Charlotte | TNT |
| 9:40 PM | 6 TCU | 11 Ariz.St./Syracuse | Detroit | CBS |
| 9:50 PM | 8 Missouri | 9 Florida St. | Nashville | TBS |
| 9:57 PM | 5 Clemson | 12 New Mexico St. | San Diego | truTV |
Note: Virginia’s outstanding 6th Man De’Andre Hunter is out for the season, and this will knock the Cavaliers down a few notches in our criteria. If you have not submitted your brackets yet, you might take this into consideration, as the Cavaliers have lost a potent weapon that could play anywhere on the floor. He was to Virginia what John Havlicek was to the Boston Celtics in the 1960’s, the 6th man that was the secret sauce of Red Auerbach’s extended success. Without Hunter, Virginia reverts back to a great defensive team that lacks enough offensive power to beat an athletic opponent the likes of Arizona or Cincinnati. Hunter was instrumental in helping the Cavs secure two wins over Syracuse, and road wins against Miami and Virginia Tech.
The PiRates New Criteria Shows Beginner’s Luck
Did you read our lengthy piece yesterday pertaining to our brand new paradigm? The PiRates scrapped our old, archaic system of picking brackets and debuted our new mostly statistical metric based criteria.
We were not sure how successful it might be in the first year of its existence, and we are sure we will need to tweak it some in the ensuing years, but we started out with a bang last night.
We hit both games and basically called how St. Bonaventure would send the Sons of Westwood home to SoCal. We wrote that we believed the Bonnies would force turnovers on the Bruins, which would be the deciding factor in the game, and it was spot on.
We are reminded that a broken watch is also correct twice a day.
The Pi-Rate Ratings 