NCAA Tournament in Philly: Tennessee trounces Miami of Ohio; Villanova eliminated in opener; Will South Philly see an upset?

SAN DIEGO — Kevin Willard going viral in the NCAA Tournament, a March tradition unlike any other. Or something like that.

In a sideline interview with Lauren Shehadi early in the first half of Villanova's 86-76 first-round loss to Utah State, Willard joked that he was going to fire his staff after the Aggies executed multiple baseline-out-of-bounds plays for easy baskets while grabbing a nine-point lead in the first half.

Willard was asked about the comment after the game and was visibly frustrated by the question, cutting off the question-asker by saying: "It's a joke."

One of Miami of Ohio's viral speedo-wearing fans was kicked out of the arena during the second half for being too undressed.

A big group of fans from Miami's swim team went to the RedHawks' First Four game in Dayton, and by all accounts were allowed to be there. But one of the team's alumni who tried to continue the bit here in Philadelphia wasn't allowed to do it by arena security.

A few of that fan's friends were also escorted out.

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes came into the game somewhat worried about his team, which went 27-11 across the regular season and SEC Tournament.

Whatever message he gave his players came through, because they showed up big in the first half — Ja'Kobi Gillespie in particular.

Gillespie poured in 22 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including 5-for-6 from three-point range, to lead the Volunteers to a commanding 51-32 lead over Miami (Ohio) at halftime.

Bryce Lindsay's hot shooting has Villanova ahead, 39-37, over Utah State at halftime at Viejas Arena in San Diego.

Lindsay's three-pointer with 40 seconds left in the first half was his fourth of the game, and the Wildcats will need more of his shooting prowess in the second half to keep their lead over the Aggies.

Utah State led by as many as nine during an early surge that saw the Aggies get easy baskets around the rim. But Villanova settled in and put together some stops.

Miami fans have shown up in force for their game against Tennessee, and to no surprise, they’ve got almost the entire arena on their side.

When Chambersburg, Pa., native Brant Byers scored the game’s opening points with a three-pointer, he was greeted with a big roar. Some of the crowd might have even known that Byers spent his senior year of high school near Philadelphia at Perkiomen School.

On a quick trip to the concourse, I ran into a RedHawks fan named Dave who wore a t-shirt with a pointed message: “I'd like to know where Bruce Pearl is right now.”

Every time Jacari White, Virginia’s latest March Madness hero, walks on the court, his fan club, the Jacarmy, stands at attention to welcome him.

The Virginia student section started wearing hunter green shirts with White’s face on them, complete with his signature white headband, earlier this year.

Dean Heflin, a current Wharton student who graduated from UVA in 2022, and his friends went to see the Cavaliers play in Charlotte earlier this year, and after White went 9-for-9, scoring 25 points, they knew they wanted to bring it back for the tournament.

It went right down to the wire, to the thrill of the big crowd in South Philadelphia, but No. 3 Virginia survived No. 14 Wright State's upset bid with an 82-73 win.

Wright State led 43-38 at halftime, 61-58 with 11:08 left in the second half, and 70-67 with 5:32 to go, thrilling everyone in the crowd who wasn't rooting for Virginia.

And that was a lot of people, with the stands full for the first game at Xfinity Mobile Arena. That was good to see, since none of the four teams in the afternoon session are box office draws.

For the first time since 2022, the Villanova men's basketball team is on the floor warming up for a first-round NCAA Tournament game.

The eighth-seeded Wildcats are getting ready to take on the West Regional's No. 9 seed, Utah State.

The winner gets a date on Sunday with top-seeded Arizona, which looked like a team ready for a deep tournament run in its 92-48 blowout win over Long Island.

When Miami (Ohio) booked its ticket to Philadelphia for Friday's games, all eyes immediately turned to the No. 11 seed RedHawks' matchup with No. 6 Tennessee as a potential upset.

But might there be one before then?

No. 14 Wright State leads No. 3 Virginia, 43-38, at halftime of the first of today's four games in town.

During a substitution timeout in Virginia-Wright State, the crowd suddenly exploded with noise out of nowhere.

Or at least, out of nowhere for those of us sitting courtside and not looking up.

It turns out they were split-screening the game here with the wild end of Kentucky-Santa Clara, where each team hit a three-pointer in the closing seconds to send the game to over time.

With Friday's coverage of the NCAA tournament underway, one veteran analyst had to call in sick.

Longtime TNT analyst Kenny Smith is "under the weather," host Adam Zucker announced at the top of the broadcast. Filling in for Smith is former WNBAer turned broadcaster Renee Montgomery.

Smith left early Thursday following the Howard vs. Michigan game. It's unclear when he'll be back, but longtime colleague Charles Barkley didn't seem to concerned about Smith's long-term health.

If you’re a March Madness devotee, you know the rhythms of the first two days by heart: four games in each of the early-afternoon, late-afternoon, evening, and late night windows. But this year, part of the routine is a problem for fans in Philadelphia.

The tip times are always spread out a bit across the day’s four host cities. This time, they’re Philly, Tampa, St. Louis, and San Diego (where Villanova is). Usually, the venues start from east to west, so that action doesn’t go too late here and doesn’t start in the morning in Mountain or Pacific time zone cities.

That made for an unwelcome surprise when the first-round schedule was revealed, and set Philly as the last of Friday’s cities to get going. St. Louis is first, then Tampa, then San Diego, then here.

For the first time in four years, the NCAA Tournament has made its way to Philadelphia, with Xfinity Mobile Arena hosting first and second round games on Friday and Sunday. College basketball fans gathered into the arena wearing their school’s merch and chanting their fight songs as they patiently waited for the madness to commence.

For 17-year-old Sean Carlson, today’s event was a family affair. He made the trip from Virginia with his father Daniel Carlson, who is a graduate of the University of Virginia, to support his brother Daniel, a cheerleader for the men’s basketball team.

“Obviously, looking around it’s not just the schools that are playing today, it’s everybody,” Carlson said. “Everybody wants basketball and everybody’s college wants to be here. So, that makes it a lot more fun that everybody can watch.”

UCLA head coach Mick Cronin is spending the weekend on a cheesesteak tour of Philadelphia, and he’s taking recommendations.

Cronin said Thursday that he started at Dalessandro’s, the Roxborough spot that earned recognition from Michelin earlier this year, after former Daily News sportswriter Dana O’Neil suggested it, and “it was excellent.” Next up is Joe’s Steaks in Fishtown, on recommendation of former Philly Daily News columnist Dick Jerardi.

“When in Philly, if you don’t eat cheesesteaks, you shouldn’t show up,” Cronin joked. “It’s almost like it would be un-American.”

As soon as Central Florida’s name came up on Selection Sunday, Johnny Dawkins knew he was in for a special moment.

The former 76ers guard has been back to Philadelphia plenty of times over the years, especially when the Knights were in the American Conference and played Temple regularly. But this time, he gets to be in town to coach in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’ve loved it here,” he said on the eve of No. 10 seed UCF’s matchup with No. 7 UCLA on Friday (7:25 p.m., TBS). “No better fans in, I think, all of the country. It’s an amazing sports place.”

It was early January when Brad Underwood knew his friend was in a good place. His Illini basketball team was visiting the Palestra for a neutral site game against Penn State when Fran McCaffery stopped by to chat.

The two coaches had spent the previous eight years helping one another navigate and endure the pressures of a rapidly evolving Big 10. Leading a major college basketball program was rapidly evolving into a careful-what-you-wish-for kind of thing. They were men from an era when coaches built legacies via relationships and culture, an era when there was something meaningful in the association between the name on the front of the jersey and the university standing behind it.

The previous spring, when Iowa fired McCaffery, the winningest coach in school history, it was another sign of the times. Except, here McCaffery was now, looking like a man who’d rediscovered something.

For the first time since 2022, the NCAA men's basketball tournament has to go through Philly.

Well, at least part of it.

The recently renamed Xfinity Mobile Arena, home of the 76ers and Flyers, will host six tournament games this year – four first-round games Friday and two second-round matchups Sunday.

Well, the dream was fun while it lasted — all two-ish hours of it.

The bid for a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket disappeared for more than 25 million people by mid-afternoon on Thursday, fueled by 12th-seeded High Point’s first-round stunner over fifth-seeded Wisconsin.

That was just the start. By the end of the first day of March Madness, fewer than one of every 2,400 entries in the ESPN bracket challenge were blemish-free.

 Villanova vs. Utah State in a college basketball arena on the sunny campus of San Diego State University is about as random as it gets, even by NCAA Tournament standards.

The Wildcats and Aggies meet Friday at Viejas Arena (4:10 p.m., TNT), and the winner likely has a Sunday date with top-seeded Arizona, which is 32-2 entering the tournament and has Final Four and championship talent.

But while the lone matchup between the two schools was in 1960 — a 73-72 Utah State victory in an NIT quarterfinal — there are some familiar threads at play Friday.

David Mirkovic had 29 points and 17 rebounds, and No. 3 seed Illinois dominated No. 14 seed Penn 105-70 on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Keaton Wagler added 18 points, seven assists, and seven rebounds for the Fighting Illini (25-8), who moved on to face No. 11 VCU in the second round on Saturday.

Kylan Boswell had 13 points, while Ben Humrichous and Tomislav Ivisic each chipped in with 12 as Illinois shot 50% from the field and made 15 three-pointers while outrebounding the much smaller Quakers 48-25.

At the beginning of this season, Villanova did not look poised to make the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats suffered disappointing losses to Fairfield and Princeton in November, and opened the 2025-26 women’s basketball season with a 2-2 record. Just four games into the season, the team already felt the urge to regroup.

When envisioning how they wanted the rest of the season to go, the Wildcats turned to two players for advice: senior forward Annie Welde and senior guard Maggie Grant. While Welde and Grant get limited playing time in games, their experience — four years in the Villanova program — has been valuable.