NCAA Tournament schedule and results: The madness is underway

With March Madness in full swing, who says the Blazers can’t be the latest team to wear Cinderella’s slipper? If you want to be one of the cool kids and have some other nice merchandise to enjoy UAB’s run with, check out the full team store over at Fanatics.

UAB and UCLA play Saturday afternoon at 12:10 p.m. ET on CBS.

The momentum was on Harvard’s side and North Carolina had scored just one field goal over the previous six minutes. But Justin Jackson answered with a quick four points, including a dunk with 27 seconds left to put the Tar Heels back ahead, setting up the final shot for Harvard

And just moments after Saunders missed, Cincinnati’s Troy Caupain made a layup at the buzzer to send the Bearcats into overtime against Purdue. The Bearcats had trailed by seven with 48 seconds remaining, but came storming back thanks to a stretch of seven seconds in which they scored six points.

Here is a thing you cannot do in a basketball game:

Cincinnati’s Octavius Ellis was ejected for that unmistakably intentional forearm to the neck of Purdue’s A.J. Hammons. He was clearly devastated after finding out he’d been tossed:

Dearest gent, why must thou weareth this bowtie that maketh ye look like a man that cometh from a century of yesteryear?

Scrub, scub away good gent. Our dearest referee wouldn’t want to solly his good pinstripes during this Villanova vs. Lafayette shellacking.

Despite being down five, VCU’s Jonathan Williams drove for a layup with a second remaining to cut the Rams’ margin of defeat to Ohio State to three points, at 75-72. Ohio State, despite being the No. 10 seed to VCU’s No. 7 seed, was favored by 3.5 points in this game.

So a shot that had no effect on the game itself probably caused thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, to change hands.

Ohio State star D’Angelo Russell led all scorers with 28 points on 10-20 shooting, and was bloodied by an elbow for his efforts late in the second half.

The Buckeyes move on and now have the pleasure of facing No. 2 Arizona, who avoided the upset bug and easily put away No. 15 Texas Southern.

D’Angelo Russell is the best player on Ohio State, one of the best three best freshmen in the country and a future top five pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. He’s a game-changing talent, and it’s VCU’s best interest to do whatever it can to neutralize him,

The Rams took that logic to its most extreme extent. VCU’s Doug Brooks hit Russell with a pretty elbow on this play, resulting in a flagrant-1 foul and a long delay as Russell bled all over the floor.

Including the First Four games, only two games have finished with margins of victory of 10 points or more, and only one other game has had a margin of victory greater than four. The upsets get the headlines, but upsets plus this many close games means the underdogs are covering at an incredible rate.

It’ll be tough for this streak to keep going much longer, but that doesn’t take away from just how impressive it is.

PITTSBURGH — Just minutes before No. 14 UAB shocked No. 3 Iowa State and about an hour before No. 14 Georgia State stunned No. 3 Baylor, Notre Dame junior forward Zach Auguste stepped to the foul line, the Fighting Irish nursing a two-point lead, in danger of becoming the first shocking goliath of the 2015 NCAA Tournament to fall.

Jerian Grant had just stripped Northeastern redshirt-junior Quincy Ford, preventing the Huskies from taking the lead or tying after Northeastern forced an improbable turnover with 30 seconds remaining. Grant’s steal led to Auguste’s trip to the stripe, with the entire CONSOL Energy Center crowd on its feet begging to witness true Madness in March.

On the bright side, an 0-4 encore on Friday would seem difficult, with No. 2 seed Kansas and No. 3 seed Oklahoma both favored by double-digits.

It looked like Bryce Alford’s game-winning three attempt was off-line and destined to miss. But SMU’s Yanick Moreira reached up and tried to swat it:

Although people have mixed feelings about the call, it does seem like this was a goaltend after looking at it from several angles -- the ball was above the rim and coming down and did still have an opportunity of hitting rim. The shot was almost certainly going to miss, but it still had a hypothetical chance of going in, and to a referee’s eyes, that’s a goaltend. If a shot is even within the realm of the rim, it is a very bad idea to try and block it, because it gives the ref the opportunity to make this call.

So you’re saying there’s still a chance.

Don’t look at me, man. My bracket just had RONDA ROUSEY written on it.

See, he shimmies before every free throw:

When the sophomore first got to Arizona, his coach told him to stop doing it. Then he missed a bunch of free throws. So his coach let him do it again. The result? Pure success. This is what success looks like:

That result also opens up the lower half of the South Region considerably. No. 11 seed Mississippi made its own late comeback against BYU in First Four action on Tuesday, and could ride the momentum to the Sweet Sixteen if it can get by Xavier. The Musketeers could be vying for their first Sweet Sixteen trip since 2012, though, and given that they got knocked out by Baylor that year they are probably happy that they won’t have to face the Bears this time.

As of right now, the top half of the NCAA Tournament bracket looks pretty normal:

There are so many layers to Georgia State’s incredible comeback. A No. 14 seed, the Panthers were down 12 to Baylor. They scored 10 straight. Baylor missed a 1-and-1. Coach Ron Hunter’s son, R.J., takes a 30-footer for the win. It goes in. Coach Hunter, who tore his Achilles celebrating the team’s tourney berth, falls off of his special coaching stool.

Everything about this is amazing.

No. 14 Georgia State was trailing No. 3 Baylor for almost the entirety of the second half in the Round of 64, but star shooting guard R.J. Hunter saved the day at the end of regulation. The coach’s son hit a clutch three-pointer to put Georgia State up one with under three seconds left.

It was so good his dad fell off his stool.

Iowa State has become a trendy Final Four pick in the South region. If they defend like this, it just might happen.