March Madness 2017 schedule: Sweet 16 games for Thursday

The Sweet 16 of the 2017 NCAA tournament begins on Thursday as the tournament’s remaining teams try to advance past this weekend into next week’s Final Four.

The most intriguing matchup of the day takes place in the West Region, where the No. 1 Gonzaga Bulldogs meet the No. 4 West Virginia Mountaineers. The Zags had a late scare against Northwestern last weekend, but the region’s top seed came away with a 79-71 victory as they held off the Wildcats’ late rally. West Virginia might be one of the tournament’s darkhorses to win it all, coming off of an impressive win over Notre Dame where they had full control throughout.

The No. 2 Arizona Wildcats play the No. 11 Xavier Musketeers in the West region’s other game. Xavier made its sixth Sweet 16 in the past 10 years and are coming off of a victory over a good Florida State team. The Wildcats will try to put an end to the Musketeers’ Cinderella run, and are the Pac-12 team many believed would win the region hopes to take another step in that direction.

The Midwest region features two exciting match-ups as well. The No. 7 Michigan Wolverines, who made a surprise Sweet 16 run of their own, meet the No. 3 Oregon Ducks in what’s set to be one of the better offensive matchups so far.

The top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks will meet the No. 4 Purdue Boilermakers in the second matchup. The Jayhawks have gotten this far with relative ease, while Purdue has fought two hard battles against Vermont and Iowa State.

7:09 p.m. — No. 7 Michigan vs. No. 3 Oregon (CBS)
7:39 p.m. — No. 4 West Virginia vs No. 1 Gonzaga (TBS)
9:39 p.m. — No. 4 Purdue vs No. 1 Kansas (CBS)
10:09 p.m. — No. 11 Xavier v.s. No. 2 Arizona (TBS)