It was business as usual for Kentucky on Thursday as they coasted to victory in their opening game of the NCAA Tournament, but there was ‘madness’ elsewhere on the opening day of the round of 64.
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The Wildcats sealed a comfortable 79-56 win over Hampton with Karl-Anthony Towns named the player of the game with 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field while he also grabbed 11 rebounds.
Kentucky will now go on as favourites in the tournament after overcome the early pressure to move to 35-0 for the season with a round of 32 meeting with Cincinnati ahead after their thrilling win over Purdue.
It was just one of five incredible endings with guard Troy Caupain hitting a tough, running lay-up to force overtime in one of the pick of the games on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Notre Dame defeated Northeastern while UAB edged out Iowa State with a similarly dramatic finish to the game. The same can be said of Georgia State’s win over Baylor while UCLA upset the odds with their victory over SMU.
Ohio State also claimed a big win with guard D’Angelo Russell shining in their game against VCU as a number of higher seeds were knocked out early despite being tipped to go through.
The result is that millions of brackets will be ruined at a very early stage although Villanova stuck to the script and crushed Lafayette as the top two seeds and teams widely regarded as the eventual winners avoided any early drama.
NCAA March Madness Results:
Northeastern 65-69 Notre Dame
UAB 60-69 Iowa State
Georgia State 57-56 Baylor
Texas Southern 72-93 Arizona
Texas 43-56 Butler
UCLA 60-59 SMU
Mississippi 57-76 Xavier
Ohio State 75-72 VCU
Lafayette 52-93 Villanova
Purdue 65-66 Cincinnati
Harvard 65-67 North Carolina
Steph. F Austin 50-57 Utah
LSU 65-66 NC State
Wofford 53-56 Arkansas
Hampton 56-79 Kentucky
Eastern Wash 74-84 Georgetown
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