The NCAA Tournament schedule for 2014 starts up on Tuesday night and the March Madness bracket will start getting filled out as the games go on and the college basketball matchups start just after 6:40 pm ET on truTV and experts are starting to make their picks and predictions for the tournament this season.
The First Four of the tournament in the first round will officially begin on Tuesday and that has Albany taking on Mount St. Mary's and that comes before North Carolina State and Xavier play each other and the first game will be at 6:40 pm ET and the second matchup will be at 9:10 pm ET. The NIT Tournament also starts up on Tuesday and that is sort of a consolation event for teams that didn't make it into the NCAA tournament and schools like Florida State, Minnesota, St. John's and SMU will be looking to win the title at MSG for that tourney.
The Florida Gators have the number one seed in the tournament and it comes after they won the SEC championship in the regular season and the tournament and that came in the finals over Kentucky by one point. The Gators have been one of the best teams all season and they went undefeated in the conference and were named the number one overall seed in the entire tournament and that put them ahead of other number ones, including the Arizona Wildcats, Wichita State Shockers and the Virginia Cavaliers.
The Shockers made a -sorry for the pun- shocking run to the Final Four last season and now they are the first undefeated team to enter the tournament since UNLV did it back in the day in the 90s. The team is from the Missouri Valley Conference and they haven't truly been tested by a top teams, but based on their run from last season they showed they can play with the big boys. The team got a tough draw in the Midwest bracket and they are with teams like Michigan, Louisville and Duke and many fans are excited to see if the team can stick with those teams and win their bracket.
Arizona came in as a number one seed despite losing the Pac-12 championship to the UCLA Bruins and they were the winners of the conference in the regular season. The Wildcats were number one at a point this season and now they come into the tournament with two very good players in Nick Johnson and Aaron Gordon and that could lead the team to a final four appearance. The team is strong up front and they have a tough road ahead, but they should be able to get by Weber State fairly easy and they finished in the top 10 in the final AP poll for the season.
The final number one is Virginia and they come in after winning the ACC tournament and regular season title for the first time in decades and now they have the chance to make a run. The team had the best defense in the nation on points allowed per game and they won the ACC after winning against Syracuse towards the end of the season in a head to head matchup. Now UVA looks to advance and make a run with the rest of these number one teams.
Check here for the NCAA tournament schedule and more from ESPN on the upcoming games this week.