And so began the Madness, right on schedule. Sometimes bizarre, occasionally inexplicable, always March. This is what the first full day of the NCAA Tournament should look like . . .
A scoop of upsets. Four double-digit seeds moving on.
A big dollop of scoring, three teams hitting 100 points in the same afternoon. That happened only twice the entire tournament in 2025.
A compelling dose of unexpected heroes, two of the most impactful performances of the day being delivered by cast members off the bench.
A dash of history, such as Nebraska's 76-47 exorcism against Troy. Yes, the Cornhuskers have now done what 246 schools had accomplished before them – win an NCAA Tournament game.
A nice, steady flow of turbulence.
North Carolina can’t hold a 19-point lead, bushwhacked by a VCU reserve who has started only two games in two seasons. Terrence Hill Jr. enters the game to take 23 of his team’s 66 shots and score 34 points. The entire Rams’ starting lineup scores 40.
The Tar Heels go from leading by 56-37 with 14 minutes left to missing all six shots in overtime to fade away and match the largest comeback loss in the first round of the tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams 41 years ago. They like to make history in Chapel Hill, but not that kind.
👉 Check out VCU vs. UNC full OT
Duke has to rally from 13 down against Siena. The Saints’ 11-point lead at halftime is the largest ever for a No. 16 seed over a No. 1; UMBC was tied with Virginia. What are the Blue Devils to say at such a moment? Forward Maliq Brown does one of those halftime TV interviews when nothing much is ever said and admits into the camera, “We thought it was going to be a cakewalk.”
Siena does not give up the lead until the final five minutes and has tried to pull off the shocker with the Marathon Five, not subbing until the last 10 seconds. Whether it is fatigue or the Duke defense or both, the Saints miss 26 of 34 shots in the second half and fall 71-65.
AJ Dybantsa, the nation’s top scorer in the nation and one of those freshmen who has been streaking across the college basketball sky all season, scores 35 points for BYU. All his other teammates combined to score 36. They lose 79-71 to Texas
Texas? Having limped into the bracket in 10th place in the SEC and loser of five of six, the Longhorns mark up their second NCAA Tournament win in 48 hours. They have revived themselves faster than you can say Matas Vokietaitis, who goes for 23 points and 16 rebounds against BYU. The victory for the 11th-seeded Texas is the 13th time in 15 years that a First Four survivor has gone on to win its next game.
A 26-year-old High Point reserve who hasn’t made a 2-point shot all season and tried only one in 10 games suddenly finds himself with an open layup for the biggest field goal in school history. Chase Johnston, whose mission has been to come off the bench and put up 3-pointers, finds himself shockingly behind the Wisconsin defense with a sight he so seldom has seen -- close to the basket with the ball in his hands. He gets his first 2-point basket in his 33rd game of the season – his first 68 were all from behind the arc -- to send the Big Ten Badgers careening out of the tournament, and the 12th-seeded Panthers to the next round.
🏀 Watch the final four minutes of Highpoint vs. Wisconsin
He says later he was high enough to maybe dunk it, but why take the chance? “I was just trying to finish it, honestly. To be down one, get the ball thrown up to me, I was just like, get this in the rim. We can go shock the world if we do this.”
The upset gods tease with Michigan ahead of Howard by only four points at halftime. It ends 101-80 as the Wolverines' big men Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara combine to make 16 of 18 shots and block four. Which means they swat more Howard shots than they miss of their own.
TCU leads Ohio State by 15 points at halftime, squanders it all, then escapes 66-64 on a basket in the final four seconds by Xavier Edmonds, the youngest of nine kids. That’s the first game of the day. “It’s never going to be easy,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon says afterward. The mood of the tournament is set.
Louisville, without injured star guard Mikel Brown Jr. to break the press, coughs up 22 turnovers against South Florida and watches a 23-point lead melt to four, but holds on. “It was the longest ten minutes of my life,” coach Pat Kelsey says.
Gonzaga, the fifth-best shooting team in the nation, can make only 39.7 percent against Kennesaw State but gets by 73-64. So does Vanderbilt, after going down 11 early to McNeese.
Saint Mary’s, normally one of the most efficiently purring offenses in the land, has as many turnovers as field goals against Texas A&M and is drubbed 63-50.
Michigan State has 33 baskets in a romp over North Dakota State, and 26 assists. Tom Izzo smiles.
Nebraska finally gets rid of the 0-8 all-time NCAA record stigma. The players celebrate with their radio play-by-play man, Kent Pavelka. Why? He started calling Cornhusker games in 1974. “He's been here for so long. This is the only thing that he still hasn't seen,” Rienk Mast explains.
Saint Louis scores 66 points in the paint and buries Georgia, 102-77. The Bulldogs still aren’t quite up to this round ball sport. They have won two national football championships since 2002, but not one NCAA Tournament game.
Illinois puts on a display of frightening offensive power over Penn. The Illini pile up 105 points and commit only three turnovers.
Arkansas scores 97 in a romp over Hawai’I but only seven points come off the bench. The Houston defense starts on cue, limiting Idaho to 29 percent shooting.
All in all, not a bad opening Thursday.
Click or tap here for the interactive bracket
Anything out of the ordinary in the air for Friday? Well, the littlest of the little guys were in the arena for practice in St. Louis on Thursday, accompanied by their inspiration, Buddy. May there always be room in March for a team from a school of 1,500 students that brings a porcelain German Shepard to its press conference the day before playing Purdue.
Coach Grant Leonard can explain.
“We want them to embody the street dog mentality of fighting for everything you can get. The player -- not the one that scores the most points, but the player that does the tough things, that takes charges, that dives on the floor -- that's the player that is awarded Buddy for that game. “
Two issues for him to settle. Who’s in charge of Buddy? “We have a young man, Matt, who carries Buddy through the airport. I think he likes the attention.”
And where is Buddy during games? “Usually on the water cooler right behind our bench. Have to keep him hydrated.”
Don’t you love a school like Queens playing in its first NCAA Tournament? And just where is it, anyway? Charlotte. A TV station had asked some of the Purdue players, and Oscar Cluff guessed New York. Well, he’s from Australia, how should he know?
“We definitely saw that,” guard Nasir Mann says. “At first it was a little disrespectful, then we realized, probably a year or two ago, before we came to Queens, we didn't know where it was either.”
A 15-seed with its own porcelain dog going against a Big Ten powerhouse that recently lost in the first round to Fairleigh Dickinson and Saint Peter's?
Yeah, that’s promising.
