Every Single Damn Thing You Need To Know About Friday's First Round NCAA Tournament Games

Folks, we made it. It's March. It's the NCAA Tournament. We have the Barstool Sportsbook live in a handful of states and there's no better time to download it than this month. What I plan on doing on the blog each day is this preview. Everything you need to know. Schedule, storylines, picks, if you want something different let me know and I'll adjust. It's March. It's all about adjustments in order to survive and advance. Let's get into it.

Schedule

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Bracket

Yeah that's mayhem.

5 Best Games Today

Ohio State/Loyola, Virginia Tech/Texas, Davidson/Michigan State, UAB/Houston, Alabama/Notre Dame

Five Storylines/Game Previews

1. How much mayhem are we getting? - Yesterday was chaos. St. Peter's, Richmond, New Mexico State and then even UCLA/Arkansas pulling it out late. There are going to be teams that get a bracket that breaks for them. Happens every year. It could be Purdue this year with Murray/St. Peter's in the Round of 32. We could see more chaos today and it's going to lead to an Elite Eight path for someone. 

2. How does LSU look without Will Wade - I legit think this isn't being talked about enough. LSU fired Will Wade right before the NCAA Tournament and now you have a team that thrives defensively and is a mess offensively have to go out there and play. Like I keep saying, it goes 1 of 2 ways. They pack it in and lose by 100 or they come together and you see them blow out an Iowa State team that can't score. 

3. Can the Big 10 flip the thought process - The Big 10 hasn't won a title since 2000. It's bizarre because they have plenty of talent. However, you look at this year. Rutgers loses in the First Four. Indiana loses by 35 to St. Mary's. Iowa gets upset by Richmond. Michigan is the only team that looked good so far. Today they can send a handful of teams to the Round of 32 or everyone is going to be asking what's wrong with the conference. 

4. First Four winner streak - One of the weirder things in the NCAA Tournament is how successful a team from the First Four is. Obviously UCLA made the Final Four last year (VCU did it before too). But a team pretty much wins one game every single year after winning their First Four game. Indiana already lost so we have Notre Dame vs Alabama. I like that matchup despite the travel. We could see the run continue. 

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5. The Jelly show - Listen we all fell in love with Jelly Walker. He has a chance to continue a ridiculous March and become a legend again with a win over Houston. We saw Teddy Allen win the game for New Mexico State and that's what Jelly will have to do today. They need to play fast but also attack Houston's guards. 

Picks

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4-3 yesterday

Ohio State +1

Notre Dame +4

Texas -1

Illinois -8

UAB +8.5

Davidson +1

Colgate +8

TCU +1