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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

St. John’s needs to reach the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament
That probably isn’t an entirely fair statement considering the fact that the Red Storm are only a five seed and Kansas could be looming in the Round of 32, but it may be the utmost truth. This program hasn’t advanced to the Sweet 16 since 1999 and is a combined 59-11 over the past two seasons under Rick Pitino. The Hall-of-Fame head coach is 73 and could coach until he’s 93, but you have to wonder how many more opportunities this program is going to have to make a run during March Madness. When you have opportunities to advance in this tournament, you have to seize them and this is the second opportunity under Pitino that St. John’s — who was a two seed a year ago — has to play deep into the bracket.

Aden Holloway’s status is now a major storyline to monitor for Alabama
The Crimson Tide announced on Monday that Holloway (16.8 points) — Alabama’s second-leading scorer — has been removed from campus pending further investigation following a marijuana related arrest. It’s highly unlikely that this team goes on a deep run over the next few weeks if Holloway is unavailable. The Crimson Tide open March Madness on Friday against Hofstra.

Texas/NC State
For the second straight season, Sean Miller will begin the NCAA Tournament at the First Four in Dayton. But unlike last year, Miller is now coaching the Longhorns — the team he beat last year in this portion of March Madness — when he was coaching Xavier. This is the second meeting so far this season between these teams as Texas beat NC State earlier this season in the Maui Invitational. Tip off for tonight’s game is at 9:15 PM ET on TRUTV.

On The Side

  • Purdue’s Braden Smith had 46 assists and 10 turnovers in four games last week at the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago. That’s an assist-to-turnover ratio of 4.6:1 if you’re keeping score at home.
  • Houston has either been a one or two seed in the five of the last six NCAA Tournaments under Kelvin Sampson.
  • Tonight”s First Four matchup between in Dayton between UMBC and Howard will feature Jim Ferry’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 14 years. Ferry took LIU to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2011 and 2012.
  • I’ll say it again: The First Four in Dayton should feature the last four at-large teams and every automatic qualifier should begin the NCAA Tournament in the Round of 64.
  • A salute to Thad Matta, who announced his retirement from coaching on Monday after four seasons at Butler. Matta — who also was the head coach of Ohio State and Xavier — was as normal and pleasant of a head coach as I’ve encountered in nearly 20 years on this beat. Happy trails, my friend!

Leftovers