NCAA tournament Thursday open thread

The good part about playing on Friday of the opening weekend is you can get a baseline for a worst-case scenario during the chaos Thursday. Like, “damn, we lost, but at least we didn’t do the thing that Northwestern did in that final minute yesterday. You wanna talk about YIKES.”

Just speaking hypothetically. (But be careful all the same, Northwestern.)

I like Penn State-Texas A&M as the best game of the Thursday slate. Two teams rolling, plus I have a fascination with this whole thing Penn State has going on here:

Utah State and Mizzou should be a points-a-thon, so that’ll be a great way to get us started. And if Furman and Oral Roberts pull upsets, I am not gonna be mad about it.

Thursday, March 16 (Round of 64. All times Eastern)

• No. 9 West Virginia vs. No. 8 Maryland | 12:15 p.m. | CBS
• No. 13 Furman vs. No. 4 Virginia | 12:40 p.m. | truTV
• No. 10 Utah St. vs. No. 7 Missouri |1:40 p.m. | TNT
• No. 16 Howard vs. No. 1 Kansas | 2 p.m. | TBS
• No. 16 Texas A&M CC vs. No. 1 Alabama | 2:45 p.m. | CBS
• No. 12 College of Charleston vs. No. 5 San Diego St. | 3:10 p.m. | truTV
• No. 15 Princeton vs. No. 2 Arizona | 4:10 p.m. | TNT
• No. 9 Illinois vs. No. 8 Arkansas | 4:30 p.m. | TBS
• No. 9 Auburn vs. No. 8 Iowa | 6:50 p.m. | TNT
• No. 12 Oral Roberts vs. No. 5 Duke | 7:10 p.m. | CBS
• No. 15 Colgate vs. No. 2 Texas | 7:25 p.m. | TBS
• No. 10 Boise St. vs. No. 7 Northwestern | 7:35 p.m. | truTV
• No. 16 Northern Kentucky vs. No. 1 Houston | 9:20 p.m. | TNT
• No. 13 Louisiana vs. No. 4 Tennessee | 9:40 p.m. | CBS
• No. 10 Penn State vs. No. 7 Texas A&M | 9:55 p.m. | TBS
• No. 15 UNC Asheville vs. No. 2 UCLA | 10:05 p.m. | truTV