The Latest on the NCAA Tournament (all times Eastern):
7:45 p.m.
Tournament betting favorite Villanova is rolling against Radford in the first round.
The top-seeded Wildcats thrashed No. 16 Radford in the first half of their NCAA Tournament game.
The Wildcats lead 44-23.
It could have been much worse. At one point, Big East player of the year Jalen Brunson had 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting. Radford? Just 10 points on 4 of 20 from the floor.
Villanova started the game shooting 81 percent. For those who struggle with math, that’s a crisp 81 percent.
Radford won a First Four game to advance to Pittsburgh. The Wildcats just won the Big East Tournament in New York. With more shooting performances like this one, they’ll win much, much more in March.
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6:40 p.m.
Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann gave a special shoutout after his fifth-seeded Buckeyes beat No. 12 seed South Dakota State 81-73, saying his players were motivated by bracketeers saying they would lose.
Holtmann said in a postgame TV interview Thursday that he gets the hoopla over upsets and his team may have fed into it with some mixed results.
But fans weren’t fading the Buckeyes nearly as much as he thinks – more than three-fourths picked Ohio State to win in the first round, better backing than fellow No. 5 seed Clemson.
The upset many fans called was Loyola of Chicago, which beat Miami on a last-second 3-pointer to reward 36 percent of the brackets filled out on ESPN and Yahoo.
5:30 p.m.
Loyola Chicago’s Donte Ingram drained a 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds left to help the 11th-seeded Ramblers defeat No. 6 seed Miami 64-62 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Miami had one last chance, but the Hurricanes had to go the length of the court and couldn’t get a shot off.
The Ramblers won the Missouri Valley Tournament to reach the NCAAs for the first time since losing to Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in the Sweet 16 in 1985. It was Loyola’s 11th straight win.
Loyola advanced to play No. 3 seed Tennessee on Saturday.
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5:20 p.m.
Seton Hall and North Carolina State have decided defense is optional in their first-round game.
Desi Rodriguez poured in 14 points, Khadeem Carrington added 13 and the Pirates shot 61 percent from the field in taking a 51-41 lead over the Wolfpack into halftime.
Seton Hall scored on its first eight possessions, building an early led it kept most of the half.
Al Freeman led three Pirates in double-figures scoring with 14 first-half points.
The winner gets top-seeded Kansas in the Midwest Region’s second round Saturday.
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5:15 p.m.
The first No. 12 seed over a No. 5 upset in this NCAA Tournament could be in the making in Boise.
South Dakota State, behind big man Mike Daum, was tied at 43 with Ohio State at halftime on Thursday in the West Region.
Daum has 17 points for the Jackrabbits. Keita Bates-Diop leads the Buckeyes with 17.
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5 p.m.
Kansas expects to have injured big man Udoka Azubuike for more regular minutes when the top-seeded Jayhawks play the Seton Hall-North Carolina State winner in the second round on Saturday.
The 7-footer played only three minutes, pulling down one rebound without taking a shot, in their 76-60 victory over Penn in the Midwest Region’s opening round. He played wearing a hefty brace on his left knee, where he strained a ligament in practice last week.
Jayhawks coach Bill Self said he could have played ”max five or six minutes,” but that he held him out in the second half as Kansas pulled away. The hope is to have him 80 percent for practice Friday.
”At first I was kind of getting used to my legs but after that I was fine,” Azubuike said. ”I’m going to practice tomorrow and hopefully play much more on Saturday.”
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5 p.m.
Marvin Bagley III scored 22 points and second-seeded Duke dominated from start-to-finish in a 89-67 win over No. 15 Iona in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday
The Blue Devils (27-7) will play Rhode Island in the Midwest Regional on Saturday.
The seventh-seeded Rams (26-7) beat Oklahoma 83-78 in overtime to advance.
Duke never left any doubt and is it starts it quest to win its first national championship since 2015. They led by 17 points late in the first half and got every Blue Devil played a role.
Trevon Duval scored 19 points, and Grayson Allen and Gary Trent Jr. each scored 16 points. Duval, Trent and Allen each hit four 3-pointers.
The Gaels (20-14) clapped toward their fans as they walked off the court. Roland Griffin led them 21 points.
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4:15 p.m.
Loyola-Chicago is all even with Miami at halftime of its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 33 years.
Miami’s Dejan Vasiljevic hit a jump-hook in the lane with one second remaining to tie the score at 28.
The 11th-seeded Ramblers won the Missouri Valley Tournament to reach the NCAAs for the first time since losing to Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in the Sweet 16 in 1985. They have a boisterous group of fans wearing maroon-and-gold scarves in a section across the American Airlines Center court from their team’s bench.
Burly center Cameron Krutwig leads Loyola-Chicago with eight points at halftime.
Sixth-seeded Miami is in its third straight NCAA Tournament under coach Jim Larranaga. He took No. 11 seed George Mason to the Final Four in 2006.
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4:05 p.m.
Devonte Graham ignited a sluggish Kansas offense midway through the first half, pouring in 29 points and lifting the top-seeded Jayhawks to a tough, grind-it-out 76-60 victory over No. 16 Pennsylvania in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday.
Lagerald Vick added 14 points for the Jayhawks (28-7), who trailed the Ivy League champs by 10 in the early stages before going on a 19-2 run late in the first half to take control.
Graham, perhaps atoning for a miserable performance in last year’s tournament loss to Oregon, also had six rebounds and six assists as the Jayhawks cruised into a second-round matchup with eighth-seeded Seton Hall or No. 9 seed North Carolina State in the loaded Midwest Region.
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4 p.m.
With their coach’s connections to the NBA, the Marshall Thundering Herd players think their offense is the most fun in the nation.
Coach Dan D’Antoni is the older brother of Houston Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni. Before he got the Marshall job, Dan was an assistant under his brother at various stops in the NBA.
Guard Jon Elmore said Thursday as Marshall prepared for Friday’s game against Wichita State that his team runs a lot of NBA plays.
”Everything Houston does we do, the D’Antonis of course, and you will see Golden State running our plays and we will run their plays. Then you will see Cleveland running some of that stuff and it’s very pro-oriented,” Elmore said.
Elmore says he thinks the style surprises opponents.
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3:45 p.m.
Gonzaga’s Zach Norvell Jr. hit a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left to break a tie with UNC Greensboro, lifting the Zags to a 68-64 first round win and avoiding an embarrassing NCAA Tournament exit for a team that made the final last year.
UNC Greensboro made its run midway through the second half as it pushed Gonzaga to the brink of elimination.
The game coincided with top-seeded Kansas pulling away from Penn. The Ivy League champs made an early push, but Kansas rallied to retake the lead before halftime. The Jayhawks led 69-56 with less than four minutes left.
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3:30 p.m.
CBS analyst Kenny Smith took aim at the NCAA early in Thursday’s broadcast for what he called a ”predatory” environment disguised as amateurism.
The former NBA and North Carolina star said after the first game of this year’s tournament that the current system takes advantage of the players. Co-host Charles Barkley pushed back, saying that paying players would lead to problems between the stars who generate revenue and their less-talented teammates.
But even the fact that they were discussing it was unusual. Networks often balk at criticizing their sports partners for fear of jeopardizing deals that run into the billions of dollars.
CBS is paying more than $10.8 billion to broadcast the tournament for 14 years through 2024.
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3:25 p.m.
No. 13 seed UNC Greensboro has erased a double-digit deficit against No. 4 seed Gonzaga to tie the game at 60 with four minutes remaining in Boise.
Francis Alonso is doing most of the damage. He has 16 points heading into the homestretch.
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3 p.m.
Kansas star Devonte Graham caught fire midway through the first half, pouring in 18 points to help the top-seeded Jayhawks overcome a sluggish start and take a 33-26 lead over Penn into halftime.
The Jayhawks trailed the No. 16 seed Quakers 21-11 with 7 minutes left in the half, misfiring on seven of their first eight 3-point attempts and failing to slow down Penn’s inside-outside offense.
Graham started the comeback with a putback off a missed layup in transition, then knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to cap a 19-2 run that gave Kansas a 30-23 lead in the final minute.
The Big 12 player of the year added three free throws with 3.6 seconds left heading into halftime.
No team seeded 16th has ever beaten a 1 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
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2:45 p.m.
Rhode Island is into the round of 32 for the second straight season.
The seventh-seeded Rams held off Oklahoma star Trae Young and the 10th-seeded Sooners 83-78 in overtime.
E.C. Matthews led the Rams (26-7) with 16 points, including a 3-pointer with 31 seconds left in the extra period that gave Rhode Island the cushion it needed to move on. Freshman guard Fatts Russell scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half for the Rams.
Young, the nation’s leading scorer, led the Sooners (18-14) with 28 points and seven assists but also finished with six turnovers. The freshman took and missed a pair of deep 3-pointers with the Sooners holding the lead early in overtime. The balanced Rams responded behind Matthews.
Rhode Island will play the winner of Duke and Iona on Saturday.
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2:35 p.m.
Gonzaga is slowly figuring out the UNC-Greensboro defense and slowly building a lead.
The Bulldogs scored the last five points of the first half to take a 32-23 lead into the locker room.
Greensboro’s defense is as good as advertised. Gonzaga has made only 37 percent of its shots. But the Spartans are 0 for 13 from 3-point range and are shooting 28 percent overall.
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2:25 p.m.
The first game of the round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament is heading to overtime.
Seventh-seeded Rhode Island and 10th-seeded Oklahoma are tied at 69 in their Midwest Region game in Pittsburgh. The Rams had a chance to win it at the end of regulation but Jeff Dotwin’s runner fell short and Stanford Robinson’s putback rolled off the rim as time expired.
Oklahoma star Trae Young has struggled at times but leads the Sooners with 24 points, including a pair of free throws with 14 seconds left that tied the game.
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1:30 p.m.
Kansas center Udoka Azubuike is warming up with a brace on his left knee, which he hurt during a practice just over a week ago, keeping him out of the Big 12 Tournament.
The 7-foot, 285-pound sophomore did light work in practice this week, and coach Bill Self said Wednesday that he was ”optimistic” that the team’s leader in rebounds and blocks could play a few minutes in the top-seeded Jayhawks’ Midwest Region opener against No. 16 seed Pennsylvania.
The Jayhawks romped to the Big 12 Tournament title without him, enjoying a tournament MVP effort from Malik Newman and a breakout performance from freshman big man Silvio De Sousa.
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1:00 p.m.
Thousands of fans have descended on the old downtown area of Wichita for the city’s first shot at hosting the NCAA Tournament since 1994, when Kansas Coliseum was an opening-round site.
This time, it’s the sparkling Intrust Bank Arena that is the centerpiece of the action on Thursday.
While some sites have struggled with empty seats in recent years, that shouldn’t be a problem with top-seeded Kansas in action. More than 13,000 fans showed up Wednesday for the open practices, and many of those fans stuck around to see the other teams shoot around.
The Jayhawks play Penn in the first game Thursday. Also on tap in the Midwest Region is Seton Hall-North Carolina State, and in the West Region are Houston-San Diego State and Michigan-Montana.
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12:30 p.m.
Oklahoma guard Trae Young could be playing his last college basketball game.
The phenomenal freshman leads the nation with averages of 27.4 points and 8.8 assists heading into his NCAA Tournament game against Rhode Island on Thursday. No player has ever finished a season as the per-game national leader in both scoring and assists.
Young has said he will sit down with his family after the season to discuss whether he will return to school or not. Many projections have the 6-foot-2 star who has drawn comparisons to Stephen Curry going in the first round of this year’s NBA draft if he decides to leave.
Young has achieved a great deal in a short span of time. He tied the NCAA record for assists in a game earlier in the season and has scored at least 40 points four times this season. He looked like the runaway favorite for player of the year until a string of six straight losses for the Sooners. Young struggled at times with turnovers, shooting and decision making. His teammates often struggled to finish close to the hoop or corral his expert passes.
Even with all that, he already has won the Wayman Tisdale Award as the nation’s top freshman.
It wasn’t clear Oklahoma would even make the tournament – the Sooners lost eight of their last 10 games and were bounced by Oklahoma State in the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament.
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11:45 a.m
The first major slate of NCAA Tournament games is set to begin as fans scramble to fill out brackets and get ready for a marathon of college hoops.
Sixteen games are scheduled for Thursday, starting with Oklahoma’s Trae Young, the nation’s leader in scoring and assists, leading the 10th-seeded Sooners against No. 7 seed Rhode Island.
The other early games match Tennessee against Wright State, Gonzaga vs. UNC-Greensboro and Penn against Kansas.
Two No. 1 seeds play Thursday: Kansas in the Midwest Region and Villanova in the East Region. Villanova opens against Radford at 6:45 p.m. Eastern.
Fans across the United States get in on March Madness like no other set of playoffs in sports, filling out brackets and joining office pools that challenge them to pick the winner of all the games.
Syracuse, St. Bonaventure, Texas Southern and Radford won their way into the round of 64 by winning First Four games in Dayton, Ohio.
Half the remaining field plays Thursday and another 16 opening round games will be played Friday.
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More AP college basketball: https://collegebasketball.ap.org ; https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 and https://www.podcastone.com/ap-sports-special-events
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