2014 NCAA Tournament: March Madness Day Two TV Schedule, Open Thread and Bruin Notes

Welcome back to day two of March Madness and BN's open thread for today's action. Yesterday set a high bar to live up to, opening with 11-seeded Dayton's upset of in-state power Ohio State, and followed by a pair of 12-5 upsets, 4 games that went to overtime and not too many hopeless blowouts.

UCLA and Tulsa players and coaches talked to the media during yesterday's practice session in San Diego. Tulsa head coach Danny Manning is impressed with Kyle Anderson's play:

"His versatility allows him to play in anybody’s system," Manning said. "I don’t know what position he is. To me, he’s a throwback guy. He’s just a very talented player."

Jack Wang also captured some of Steve Alford's thoughts on tonight's opponents.

"They are a lot like us," UCLA coach Steve Alford said of the Golden Hurricane on Wednesday, "where they average a lot of steals without pressing a lot."

For the record: UCLA is the No. 4 seed, and ranked fourth in the country in steals percentage. Tulsa is the No. 13 seed, and ranks 79th.

The official site has additional Bruin quotes from yesterday's presser, along with video of the session. A list of alumni watch parties for tonight's game is here - if there are any other parties or gatherings for people watching tonight's game, please leave a comment in that thread.

Per the UCLA Alumni Association, today is Freshman Admit Day. Over the next few hours, thousands of very fortunate high school seniors in California and throughout the world will find out that they have been accepted by the greatest university in the world. Congrats to all of the future Bruins out there!

Today's slate of Tournament games starts at 9:15am Pacific, with 14th-seeded Mercer taking on #3-seed Duke. Which means that it is time for this year's reminder of why Duke sucks (NSFW, unless your boss also knows that Duke does suck).

Two other Pac-12 teams will be playing today: Stanford's game against the now Alford-freed New Mexico Lobos will start at 10:40am Pacific time, and Arizona plays 16th-seeded Weber State at 11:10am. In other games of note, National POY-to be Doug McDermott's Creighton Bluejays play 14th-seeded Louisiana-Lafayette at 12:10pm; Kansas will play Eastern Kentucky at approximately 1:10pm; Cal Poly takes on #1-seed Wichita State at 4:10pm. Tony Bennett's Virginia Cavaliers will be the final 1-seed to take the court, playing Coastal Carolina in what is normally more of a (more even) baseball rivalry between the schools at 6:25pm. Remember that regardless of which TV network is showing a particular game, you can watch any game via March Madness Live, through that link or smartphone/tablet apps.

The complete schedule and TV carriers for today's game is posted below. For anyone taking part or interested in the BN bracket pool, there is a single sad bastard person still holding a perfect bracket, and five more of us that went 15/16 on day 1. You can check out previews of the upcoming Bruin match up with Tulsa by Chrissor and myself. BN's full coverage of March Madness can be found here, with full updates, previews, and commentary.

This is your open thread for day two of March Madness, leading up to the Bruin nightcap tipping off right around 7pm Pacific time. We will have our usual open thread ready before that game. Here is to the second day of the best two-day event in american sports living up to what we saw yesterday. You can use the full schedule below to help manage the madness.

Go Bruins!

Friday's Game Schedule (Times listed are Eastern)