Your Championship “Week” Update: Thursday, March 12, 2020

UPDATE: Y’all know it was all cancelled on Thursday morning, right? Okay. Thanks for the page view, though.

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So, yesterday was fun, huh?

With so many games going on yesterday, I didn’t prewrite any of this edition of the Championship “Week” Update because so many of the games needed results from yesterday to be able to be filled in. So much of the typing was going to have to be done late that there was no point in starting early.

And then the leagues started shutting the doors to fans due to the coronavirus.

And then Rudy Gobert became Typhoid Mary, resulting in the NBA suspending its season.

It’s 7:14 am right now as I type this, and after scrolling through the overnight tweet stream, it appears that everything scheduled for today is going to continue on as planned. At this point, I 100% expect that to change one way or another, but probably not completely. So, we’ll put together this schedule of what’s supposed to happen, and then we’ll all watch the games together on TV because no one’s actually allowed in any of the buildings. It’s gonna be weird.

Congratulations to Boston University, by the way. In the midst of everything going on yesterday, they knocked off top seeded Colgate in the Patriot League championship game to secure that conference’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. For now, we presume that event will still happen, but hey, who knows??

There are no championship games today, but that has more to do with TV space being taken up by 12 different conferences having their quarterfinal rounds today. For most of those leagues, that means four games. That means a minimum of 9 hours of television locked up, and thus the area for someone to squeeze in a title game starts to get a little impossible. The flipside of that is that we get DAYTIME BASKETBALL~! in 12 different conferences, so that will keep us busy during our social distancing.

NIT Automatic Bids

Colgate (Patriot League)
Northern Iowa (MVC)
Radford (Big South)
Wright State (Horizon League)

NCAA Tournament Automatic Bids

Belmont (OVC)
Boston University Terriers (Patriot League)
Bradley (Missouri Valley)
East Tennessee State (Southern)
Gonzaga (WCC)
Hofstra (CAA)
Liberty (ASun)
North Dakota State (Summit League)
Northern Kentucky (Horizon League)
Robert Morris (NEC)
Utah State (Mountain West)
Winthrop (Big South)
Yale (Ivy)

Here’s your very very long schedule for the day, with all times Central, as always.

AAC FIRST ROUND (ESPNU)

12pm: #8 UCF vs #9 South Florida
2:30pm: #5 UConn vs #12 Tulane
7pm: #7 SMU vs #10 Temple
9:30pm: #6 Memphis vs #11 East Carolina

ATLANTIC 10 SECOND ROUND (NBC Sports Network)

11am: #8 UMass vs #9 VCU Rams
1:30pm: #5 St. Bonaventure vs #12 George Mason
5pm: #7 Davidson vs #10 La Salle
7:30pm: #6 Duquesne vs #14 Fordham

ACC QUARTERFINALS (ESPN)

11:30am: #1 Florida State vs #8 Clemson Tigers
2pm: #4 Duke Blue Devils vs #5 North Carolina State
6pm: #2 Virginia vs #7 Notre Dame
8:30pm: #3 Louisville vs #6 Syracuse

BIG 12 QUARTERFINALS (ESPN2)

11:30am: #4 Texas vs #5 Texas Tech
2pm: #1 Kansas vs #8 Oklahoma State
6pm: #2 Baylor vs #10 Kansas State
8:30pm: #3 Oklahoma vs #6 West Virginia

BIG EAST QUARTERFINALS (FS1)

11am: #1 Creighton vs #9 St. John’s
1:30pm: #4 Providence vs #5 Butler
6pm: #2 Villanova vs #10 DePaul
8:30pm: #3 Seton Hall vs #6 Marquette

BIG SKY QUARTERFINALS (Pluto.tv)

1pm: #1 Eastern Washington vs #9 Sacramento State
3:30pm: #4 Portland State vs #5 Montana State
6:30pm: #2 Northern Colorado vs #7 Southern Utah
9pm: #3 Montana vs #11 Idaho State

BIG TEN SECOND ROUND (Big Ten Network)

11am: #8 Rutgers vs #9 Michigan
1:30pm: #5 Iowa vs #12 Minnesota
5:30pm: #7 Ohio State vs #10 Purdue
8pm: #6 Penn State vs #11 Indiana

BIG WEST QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)

2pm: #2 Cal State Northridge vs #7 Cal State Fullerton
4:30pm: #3 UC Santa Barbara vs #6 UC Riverside
8pm: #1 UC Irvine vs #8 Long Beach State
10:30pm: #4 UC Davis vs #4 Hawaii

CONFERENCE USA QUARTERFINALS (Stadium)

6pm: #1 North Texas vs #9 Florida Atlantic
6:30pm: #4 Charlotte vs #5 FIU
8:30pm: #2 Western Kentucky vs #7 UAB
9pm: #3 Louisiana Tech vs #6 Marshall

MAAC QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)

6pm: #3 Rider vs #6 Niagara
8:30pm: #4 Monmouth vs #5 Quinnipiac

MAC QUARTERFINALS (ESPN+)

11am: #1 Akron vs #8 Ohio
1:30pm: #4 Northern Illinois vs #12 Miami (OH)
5:30pm: #2 Bowling Green vs #7 Toledo
8pm: #3 Ball State vs #6 Kent State Golden

MEAC QUARTERFINALS (FloHoops)

5pm: #4 Bethune Cookman vs #5 Morgan State
7:30pm: #3 Norfolk State vs #6 Coppin State

PAC-12 QUARTERFINALS

2pm: #1 Oregon vs #8 Oregon State (Pac-12 Network)
4:30pm: #4 USC vs #5 Arizona (Pac-12 Network)
8pm: #2 UCLA vs #10 California (Pac-12 Network)
10:30pm: #3 Arizona State vs #11 Washington State (FS1)

SEC SECOND ROUND (SEC Network)

12pm: #8 Tennessee vs #9 Alabama
2:30pm: #5 Florida vs #13 Georgia
6pm: #7 Texas A&M vs #10 Missouri
8:30pm: #6 South Carolina vs #11 Arkansas

SOUTHLAND QUARTERFINALS (ESPN+)

5pm: #4 Sam Houston State vs #5 Northwestern State
7:30pm: #3 Nicholls St. vs #6 Lamar

WAC QUARTERFINALS (ESPN+)

2pm: #1 New Mexico State vs #8 Chicago State
4:30pm: #4 Grand Canyon vs #5 Kansas City
8pm: #2 UT Rio Grande Valley vs #7 Cal State Bakersfield
10:30pm: #3 Seattle vs #6 Utah Valley