The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s First Four continues in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday night, as four more teams fight to advance to the First Round.
During Tuesday night’s action, Wagner held off a second-half rally from Howard to advance to a First Round matchup against No.1 seed North Carolina in the West Region on Friday, and Colorado State destroyed Virginia to earn the chance to play No.7 seed Texas in the Midwest Region.
The first game on Wednesday will be between 16-seeds Grambling and Montana State as part of the Midwest Region, with the winner advancing to face No.1 seed Purdue on Friday.
Grambling won the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament over Texas Southern after winning the conference’s regular season title. Still, the Tigers are just 6-10 in nonconference play this season, which does not seem to bode well for national tournament play, even though six of those teams made the initial 68-team field.
Montana State won the Big Sky Conference Tournament over Montana and has won six of its last eight games to improve to 17-17 on the season. The Bobcats score 75.1 points per game, yet have needed every bit of it as they have allowed some high point-totals to their opponents. Luckily, Grambling is not a high-scoring team, but all bets are off in the Tournament.
The second Wednesday night game will feature 10-seeds Colorado and Boise State playing for the chance to play No.7 seed Florida in First Round action on Friday.
Colorado finished third in the PAC-12 this season and is one of four teams from the conference to make the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The Buffaloes made a run to the PAC-12 Tournament final but lost to Oregon.
Meanwhile, Boise State finished third in the Mountain West and made the Tournament despite an early exit from the conference tournament. Both teams average more than 75 points per game and have at least four double-digit scorers, so this could be a high-scoring matchup to conclude the First Four.
Wednesday’s First Four games are scheduled for 5:40 p.m. CT and 8:10 p.m. CT. Once they conclude, we will have the 64-team First Round set after eliminating four teams throughout the play-in games.
