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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

Tarris Reed is dominating the NCAA Tournament
He wasn’t an All-American or the Big East Player of the Year, but the 6-10 Reed is playing like one of the best players in the sport during March Madness. In four NCAA Tournament games, Reed is averaging 21.8 points, 13.5 rebounds, and and 3.0 blocks. Those are absolutely staggering numbers. In a Final Four that features other elite big men like Michigan’s Aday Mara (11.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.6 blocks) and Arizona’s Motiejus Krivas (10.4 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.9 blocks), no remaining post player in the Final Four is currently playing at a higher level than Reed.

Ratings continue to soar in college basketball
There’s plenty of issues off the floor in our sport, but the on court product has never been better. The numbers reiterate that, too. It was announced on Tuesday that this is the most-watched NCAA Tournament since 1993, with an average of 10.3 million viewers through the Elite Eight. Nearly 19 million people watched Sunday’s Elite Eight game between Duke and UConn. College basketball continues to have incredible interest and momentum thanks to the enormous talent influx in the sport.

The Final Four should be in Indianapolis every year
Call me a creature of habit, but this is how I truly feel. The Final Four experience is always best when it’s in cities where you can walk to everything you need and Indianapolis checks all of those boxes. It’s also where the NCAA is located and always seems to have elite Final Fours as we experienced in 1991, 1997, and 2015. I don’t get the same juice out of the Final Four in other places like I do in Indianapolis.

On The Side

  • UConn has a 12-1 all-time record in the Final Four.
  • Illinois is allowing an average of just 59.8 points in the NCAA Tournament.
  • Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd is 10-4 in NCAA Tournament games as a head coach.
  • How daunting of a rebuilding job does Luke Murray have at Boston College? The Eagles haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2009.
  • There will be a LIVE edition of INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOW today at 1 PM ET.

Leftovers