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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

UConn’s greatest strength is UCLA’s greatest weakness
The Huskies have a monster in the middle in 6-10 big man Tarris Reed, who torched Furman for a whopping 31 points and 27 rebounds on Friday night. It says here that he’ll tally at least half of those numbers tonight against the Bruins in Philadelphia. UCLA’s hole at center combined with its poor defensive rebounding efforts have been recurring issues throughout this season. Expect Dan Hurley to feed Reed constantly tonight as UConn sets its sight on a third trip to the Sweet 16 in the last four seasons. It’s also yet to be determined if the Bruins will have Tyler Bilodeau (17.6 points, 5.6 rebounds) — UCLA’s leading scorer — available after he missed Friday night’s win over UCF due to a knee injury. Bilodeau was listed as questionable on Saturday night’s NCAA Player Availability Report.

St. John’s/Kansas
The premier matchup of the Round of 32 features two head coaches — Rick Pitino and Bill Self — that have both won two national titles and already earned a spot in the Hall-of-Fame. The winner of today’s game in San Diego will earn a spot against Duke next week in the Sweet 16. The Jayhawks haven’t reached the second weekend of the March Madness since they won the national title in 2022 while the Red Storm haven’t advanced to the Sweet 16 since 1999. Tip off is at 5:05 PM ET on CBS.

Texas is on a magic carpet ride
11 days ago, the Longhorns lost to Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament and were firmly on the bubble on Selection Sunday. Today, they’re in the Sweet 16 on the heels of three straight wins over NC State, BYU, and Gonzaga. Sean Miller has done a lot of great coaching jobs in his career, but his performance during the past week was one of the best of his career. Texas will face the winner of today’s matchup between Purdue and Miami next week in San Jose.

On The Side

  • Darius Acuff is averaging 30.0 points and 6.5 assists in Arkansas’ first two NCAA Tournament games.
  • Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson (ankle) was on crutches and in a boot on Saturday prior to practice at Enterprise Arena and it seems highly unlikely that he’ll be available to play on Sunday against Kentucky. The 6-8 Jefferson — who suffered the injury on Friday against Tennessee State — averages 16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 4.8 assists. Tip off for today’s game is at 12:10 PM ET on CBS.
  • Houston has advanced to the Sweet 16 or beyond in seven straight NCAA Tournaments.
  • Tom Izzo is a combined 57-14 over the past two seasons with back-to-back trips to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
  • North Carolina was 24-6 with wins over Duke, Kansas, Virginia, and Kentucky prior to losing Caleb Wilson (19.8 points, 9.4 rebounds) to a season-ending injury during the first week of March. Think about that for a second before you make a decision on whether or not you think Hubert Davis deserves to remain as the Tar Heels’ head coach.

Leftovers