The NCAA tournament officially kicks off Tuesday, when four teams fight for two spots in the proper, 64-team field. The First Four starts with a pair of showdowns, pitting the No. 16 seeds New Orleans Privateers and Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers against each other, as well as the No. 11 seeds Wake Forest Demon Deacons and Kansas State Wildcats, for the opportunity to keep their respective seasons alive.
March Madness 2017: Times, live TV schedule for New Orleans-Mt. St. Mary’s, Wake Forest-Kansas State
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
The action kicks off at 6:40 p.m. ET when the Privateers and Mountaineers battle for the chance to play top overall seed Villanova in the first round. The winner will have the chance to rewrite history; no 16-seed has ever toppled Goliath to open up the formal part of the bracket. Mount St. Mary’s will have to find a way to shut down UNO’s dynamic forward Erik Thomas, who scored 19.5 points per game while adding nearly eight rebounds en route to league Player of the Year honors.
The pride of the Southland and Northeast Conferences will be followed by a bubble team showdown. Wake Forest and Kansas State each earned reprieve from the NIT by the skin of their teeth, and now meet in a game to decide who earns the right to face No. 6 Cincinnati on Friday.
Each team has its share of impressive wins this winter. Wake beat No. 7 Louisville and tournament teams like Virginia Tech and Miami to sneak into the bracket’s outer fringe. Kansas State has a pair of wins over Baylor and a victory against West Virginia to counterbalance its 13 defeats.
The Demon Deacons and Wildcats will be looking to follow the blueprint Virginia Commonwealth laid in 2011. The Rams went from CBI also-ran in 2010 to bubble team the following spring before reeling off one of the tournament’s most memorable runs. VCU dispatched USC to earn a spot in the field of 64, then ran through Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State, and Kansas to carve out its spot in the Final Four. Though their NCAA title dreams died there, the run was enough to convince the Atlantic 10 to add the Rams in its latest round of realignment.
The first step on an unlikely path to NCAA Tournament glory starts Tuesday night. Will the winners serve as chum for hardwood-hungry sharks like Villanova and Cincinnati? Or will the First Four serve as the starting point for an epic journey?
NCAA Tournament First Four TV Schedule
Tuesday, March 14 (all times Eastern)
6:40 p.m., truTV
No. 16 New Orleans vs. No. 16 Mount St. Mary’s
9:10 p.m., truTV
No. 11 Wake Forest vs. No. 11 Kansas State
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