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The Breakfast Buffet: March Madness Edition

Who’s hungry for college basketball?

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

Duke got a really tough draw
This is the reward for the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament? The Blue Devils will have to beat the winner of Ohio State/TCU to get to the second weekend of March Madness and then either Kansas or St. John’s could loom in the Sweet 16. The two seed in the East Region for the Blue Devils? UConn. And the three? Michigan State. Nothing is going to come easy for Jon Scheyer’s squad over the next few weeks in its quest to reach the Final Four for the second straight season.

Miami (Ohio) will step up a weight class against SMU
The Redhawks haven’t played a power conference opponent all season and that will change on Wednesday night in the First Four in Dayton against the Ponies. SMU’s first at-large berth to March Madness in 1993 will be a pseudo road game in Ohio, but Andy Enfield’s team is plenty capable. Keep a close eye on the perimeter troika of Boopie Miller (19.2 points, 6.4 assists), Jaron Pierre (17.6 points, 4.9 rebounds), and BJ Edwards (12.7 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.9 assists), who hasn’t played since Feb. 25th since due to an ankle injury, but is expected to return to action this week. SMU’s guard core will be unlike anything that Miami (OH) has seen this season.

The Selection Committee got this right
A year ago, North Carolina’s inclusion in the NCAA Tournament was a miscarriage of justice. No such things happened this year. The 68 teams that are in the 2026 NCAA Tournament are the same 68 teams that I projected when I did my final BRACKET BREAKDOWN on Sunday morning. While there may have been some minor questions about seeding, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee deserves credit for ultimately getting the bracket right.

On The Side

  • Florida is a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back years for the first time in program history.
  • Santa Clara’s game on Friday against Kentucky in St. Louis is its first NCAA Tournament game since March 17, 1996. The amount of time between these two games? 10,960 days.
  • Friday’s Round of 64 matchup in St. Louis between Miami and Missouri is 1,062 miles from Coral Gables, but just 116 miles from Columbia.
  • Six of the 16 head coaches in the East Region have coached in the Final Four.
  • INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOW will be on CBS Sports Network today at 1 PM ET.

Leftovers