The NCAA Basketball Tournament will begin to fill the Final Four matchups tonight with a pair of Elite Eight games beginning with the Houston Cougars against the Oregon State Beavers in a game set to tip off at 4:15 p.m Pacific Time. The late game pits the Baylor Bears against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
It is recommended you stay for the entire venue even if Baylor builds a commanding lead against Arkansas. Seven times this season the Razorbacks have recovered from double-digit deficits to earn wins, including their Sweet Sixteen victory over Cinderella fifteenth seed Oral Roberts.
Baylor is one of three number one seeds that has advanced to the Elite Eight, and they are also one of the NCAA teams that had significant Covid-19 interruptions during their regular season. Their 18 game regular season conference schedule was cut to 14 contests due to the virus, but the Bears won 13 of those games and now have recovered from their regular season breaks to regain their rhythm.
Three Pac 12 teams have reached the Elite Eight, and in Sweet 16 action the only way to knock off a team from this conference was to have them play each other. Oregon lost to Southern California on Sunday, the same day UCLA upset Alabama in overtime. In Saturday's action, Oregon State upset Loyola of Chicago, while the Ramblers were the only team in the competition to knock off a number one seed. Loyola of Chicago downed Illinois in opening round action.
While there have been a number of upsets in this year’s tournament, a common occurrence for the NCAA centerpiece, tonight only Oregon State is in action with a seed above three. In addition to the top seed Baylor Bears, Houston is a second seed and Arkansas a third.
Our selections on tonight’s action are now posted on this site.