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The defending national champion and No. 1 seeded Villanova Wildcats will be out for a bit of retribution on Friday night when they take on the No. 5 seed Seton Hall Pirates in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament. The Pirates ousted the Wildcats in the title game last season to secure the program’s first championship since 1993. Watching the Hall cut down the nets will most definitely be fresh on the minds of Josh Hart and company, but that still might not be enough to cover what’s sure to be an inflated spread.... 

The No. 3 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish and No. 2 seed Florida State Seminoles will get to settle the score once and for all on Friday night when the teams collide in the semifinals with a trip to the ACC tournament title game on the line. These teams split their two matchups in the regular season with each holding serve on their home floor. With this game being held on a neutral floor, we’ll now get to see which of these conference heavyweights reigns supreme.... 

The Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels possess two of the most storied programs in college basketball history. We’ve already seen Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams collide twice this season, but as the basketball gods will have it, we’ll get one more matchup in the semifinals of the ACC tournament when the No. 5 and No. 1 seeds lock horns with a trip to the championship game on the line.... 

The Kansas State Wildcats played Thursday like their NCAA Tournament life depended on it. And it probably did, that’s why the Wildcats looked sharp. KSU likely punched its ticket to the Big Dance with a victory over Baylor and can cement its status by knocking off the West Virginia Mountaineers in the semifinals. While KSU will be the underdog in this matchup, that certainly hasn’t affected the play in the tournament with two of the top four seeds going down on Thursday.... 

The Big 12 was the home of the upsets on Thursday and the biggest came from the TCU Horned Frogs, who upset the No. 1 ranked Jayhawks to advance to the semifinal round of the tournament. That victory may have helped the Iowa State Cyclones the most. ISU has a full complement of players, a victory over Oklahoma State, and faces what certainly has to be a drained club, both emotionally and physically, after TCU pulled off a pair of wins the last two days.... 

It’s been a storybook season for the Minnesota Golden Gophers and they’ll look to continue the magical ride with a quarterfinal matchup against the Michigan State Spartans. The roles have been reversed for this contest with Minnesota holding the edge as the No. 4 seed. The Gophers earned their highest seeding in the conference tournament, but Sparty is right on their heels as the No. 5 team. The Big Ten has seen plenty of changes this season and no team really stands out as the favorite to claim the tournament title, and it just might be one of these two.... 

It’s been a hectic past few days for the Michigan Wolverines, but they persevered in what coach John Beilein called a life lesson for his group. Apparently the plane mishap put things in perspective for the players, who had a quick turnaround and posted a first round victory over Illinois while wearing practice jerseys and arriving to the arena about two hours before tipoff. Waiting on the other end is the top-seeded Purdue Boilermakers, but after what UM just went through, I doubt they’ll be frightened.... 

Though the Big Ten was down in a big way this season, one of the best stories to come out of the conference was the No. 6 seed Northwestern Wildcats who look to be on the verge of going dancing for the first time in program history. All that stands in their way of advancing to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament is a feisty Rutgers Scarlet Knights team that likely had its day in the sun by upsetting a disinterested Ohio State Buckeyes squad in their Barclays Center debut.... 

The No. 3 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish will have a score to settle when they run up against the No. 6 seed Virginia Cavaliers in the quarterfinal round of the ACC tournament. The Wahoos went into South Bend earlier this season and handed Mike Brey’s Irish one of only two home defeats the team absorbed all season. Easier said than done however with Tony Bennett’s squad once again looking like the dominating bunch we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in recent years.... 

Fresh off a huge comeback in the second half to upset Wake Forest as modest underdogs, Buzz Williams’ Virginia Tech Hokies must return to the hardwood immediately to take on the No. 2 seed Florida State Seminoles in the team’s second meeting of the season. These teams went at one another in the second round of the ACC tournament the Hokies won last season. The young Seminoles will no doubt be out for retribution, but are they ready for a challenge like this?... 

The Duke Blue Devils won and covered their second round tilt with the Clemson Tigers, but hardly looked impressive. Their reward for doing so now has them matched up against the No. 4 seed Louisville Cardinals with a trip to the ACC Tournament semifinals on the line. The Cardinals won the lone meeting between these teams with ease, so Coach K’s kids better put forth a much better effort to avoid dropping a third straight game to the Ville.... 

The TCU Horned Frogs were in a tough situation entering the Big 12 Tournament opener. They had lost seven straight games coming in and desperately wanted to end that slide. But after knocking off Oklahoma in the first round, the No. 1 team in the country awaits. TCU takes on the Kansas Jayhawks in the quarterfinal round, but will have the advantage of not facing the conference freshman of the year after KU suspended Josh Jackson for Thursday’s contest.... 

The Miami Hurricanes cemented their placement in the Big Dance with a second round win and cover against the Syracuse Orange. That moved Jim Larranaga’s kids to a game over .500 on neutral courts for the season. Now they’ll be faced with what one could argue is their toughest test of the season in a neutral court matchup against the tourney’s top seed North Carolina Tar Heels who enter this tilt with revenge after getting trounced in Coral Gables at the end of January.... 

The Duke Blue Devils are one of the favorites to win the ACC Tournament even though they wrapped the regular season as the fifth best team in the conference. In playing to six games under .500 in league play and just two games up overall, it comes as no surprise to see the Clemson Tigers heavy underdogs to pull the same feat, and with that, will be getting a handful of points for this second round matchup.... 

You never want to lose games, but the Cavaliers mini downward spiral in the middle of February just might have been the saving grace the team needed to snag itself a higher seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. In being tabbed the No. 6 seed, it now gets to take on a Pittsburgh Panthers squad many would anoint the easiest opponent to face in the second round of the ACC tournament. They also get to play them unrested after just destroying them in Charlottesville this past weekend.... 

Having just run up against one another over the weekend, both the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and Virginia Tech Hokies will have a pretty good idea of how the other team will likely attack them in the second round of the ACC Tournament. While both of these teams each look to be in the Big Dance, another win here would help solidify their seed even more. With that, look for both clubs to go all out in hopes of advancing.... 

The top seeded Vermont Catamounts will look to go unblemished in conference play when they take on the Albany Great Danes in the America East Tournament championship game. The latter will be looking to punch its ticket back to the NCAA Tournament after a year hiatus, while the latter will be looking to return for the first time since 2012. These teams partook in a pair of low scorers in the regular season. That didn’t work for the Great Danes. They’ll need to score the basketball to have a shot at ending the Catamounts 20-game win streak.... 

Both the Oklahoma State Cowboys and Iowa State Cyclones enter this tilt off tough losses with the former dropping one at home on Senior Day to the No. 1 ranked Kansas Jayhawks and the latter having its six-game win streak snapped in Morgantown by the Mountaineers. These teams just met up on the last day of February in a game the Cyclones held on to win 86-83 but failed to cover. Thursday’s Big 12 Tournament action no doubt kicks off with a doozy!... 

The Indiana Hoosiers were one of the biggest disappointments in the Big Ten, but Tom Crean’s squad can take one step closer towards sweeping their regular season campaign under the rug by getting past the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 10/7 matchup of the Big Ten Tournament. These teams played to a thrilling 96-90 final won by Iowa in overtime back in late February which snapped the Hoosiers two game win streak in the recent rivalry.... 

If anyone took fliers on any other team making the West Coast Conference tournament finals than the St. Mary’s Gaels or Gonzaga Bulldogs, they didn’t stay up late taking in much west coast action throughout the regular season. To the surprise of nobody, the two top ranked seeds will square off in the championship game on Tuesday night with the Gaels looking to avoid getting owned by the Zags for the third straight time.... 

Teams like Wichita State, Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville State and Winthrop have already punched their tickets to the 2017 NCAA Tournament by winning their respective conference tournaments. The big boy tournaments begin this week which offers up a number of teams on the bubble a shot at punching theirs as well. Let’s take a look at a handful of teams that could either qualify for the Big Dance by winning it all or by making a deep run.... 

The South Dakota State Jackrabbits slayed the best team in the Summit League last time out to pull within one game of making the NCAA Tournament. To get there, they will have to knock off the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks.... 

The Milwaukee Panthers were the worst team in the Horizon League during the regular season and lost more than two-thirds of their overall games. They were expected to finish their season quietly but have had other ideas, advancing to the conference championship game against the Northern Kentucky Norse.... 

The NCAA Tournament will be welcoming one team from the Patriot League, and it’s down to the final two entrants. The top-seeded Bucknell Bison hope to exact some revenge on conference foe the Lehigh Mountain Hawks to punch its ticket.... 

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are squarely on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament, with their performance in the ACC Tournament set to determine their fate. They figure to be on the outside looking in if they can’t defeat the Boston College Eagles in the first round of the conference tournament this week....