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Following a three-day breather after a weekend of chaos, the men’s NCAA Tournament returns to action with the start of the Sweet 16.
The first of four games in the West and East regions tips off Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET when Michigan State plays Kansas State. Following the Spartans-Wildcats clash will be Connecticut vs. Arkansas, which knocked off No. 1 seeded Kansas. Florida Atlantic, which ended the Cinderella story for No. 16 seeded Fairleigh Dickinson, will take on Tennessee in the night’s third game, and a heavyweight showdown between UCLA and Gonzaga will conclude the night.
Follow along for live updates throughout the rest of the day.
MEN’S TOURNAMENT: Complete scores and schedule
WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT: Complete scores and schedule
Las Vegas is now poised to be a hub for college sports with several NCAA events scheduled over the next several years, beginning with Thursday’s West Regional at T-Mobile Arena. From golf to bowling to hockey — the 2026 Frozen Four will also be held here — the NCAA logo will soon be as ubiquitous on the Las Vegas Strip as ads for celebrity chef restaurants and Cirque du Soleil shows.
It will all lead up to 2028, when the NCAA brings its crown jewel event, the men’s Final Four, here for the first (and probably not last) time.
“It was just getting over the stigma that it was Las Vegas,” said Jim Livengood, the longtime athletics director at Washington State, Arizona and UNLV.
— Dan Wolken
With Mick Cronin in charge, the forecast for UCLA’s storied basketball program remains perpetually sunny. The Bruins are in the Sweet 16 of the men’s NCAA Tournament for the third straight season.
Up next: a rematch against Gonzaga, which at the 2021 Final Four outlasted UCLA in overtime, 93-90.
“We’re four games away from hanging a 12th banner,” Cronin said, referring to UCLA’s 11 national championships. “That’s how we look at it. That’s how we talk about it.”
— Josh Peter
The men’s Sweet 16 round tips Thursday night, with action in the Big Apple and Sin City.
►No. 3 Kansas State vs. No. 7 Michigan State
Time/TV: 6:30 p.m. ET, TBS
►No. 4 Connecticut vs. No. 8 Arkansas
Time/TV: 7:15 p.m. ET, CBS
►No. 4 Tennessee vs. No. 9 Florida Atlantic
Time/TV: 9 p.m. ET, TBS
►No. 2 UCLA vs. No. 3 Gonzaga
Time/TV: 9:45 p.m. ET, CBS
Surprises and upsets defined the first two rounds of the men’s NCAA Tournament, sending some of college basketball’s biggest names packing – including Kansas, Purdue, Duke, Virginia and Kentucky – as Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue and Princeton topped Arizona and Missouri to write two of the top Cinderella stories in recent tournament history.
Amid this flurry of unpredictability, what happens next is anyone’s guess.
With the Sweet 16 set to begin, we detailed eight lessons learned from the first weekend of the tournament.
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