Wade on Birmingham

Heads up: The Birmingham bracket

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basketball The Big Dance starts nationwide Thursday, and eight teams are headed to Birmingham to Step. It. Up. The BJCC Arena will play host to first-round East region games of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament on Friday and Sunday. The matchups:

Friday

  • Game A: 2. Tennessee (29-4) vs. 15. American (21-11), 11:15 a.m.
  • Game B: 7. Butler (29-3) vs. 10. South Alabama (26-6), 1:45 p.m.
  • Game C: 3. Louisville (24-8) vs. 14. Boise State (25-8), 6:10 p.m.
  • Game D: 6. Oklahoma (22-11) vs. 11. Saint Joseph’s (21-12), 8:40 p.m.

Sunday

  • The winners of Game A and B, 1 p.m.
  • The winners of Game C and D, 3:30 p.m.

(Specific times to be updated.)

The South Alabama Jaguars are the sole team in the field of 65 from the state, essentially playing a home game in Birmingham, which last held tourney games in 2003. UAB and Alabama’s men’s teams could be headed to the NIT, to be announced at 8 tonight on ESPN2/ESPNU.

Tickets for the Friday/Sunday games are still available, in three-ticket books at $153 each.

Update: Alabama State (but not Alabama) and UAB are headed to the NIT. Plus, zero Alabama women’s teams headed for the tourney.

Update 2: And the last team headed to post-season? Auburn, playing George Washington in the first round of the ladies’ tourney, 1 p.m. Saturday in Stanford, Calif.
• ESPN: 2008 NCAA tournament selections

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2 Yips for “Heads up: The Birmingham bracket”

  1. Jon
    Sunday, March 16, 2008, 9:31 pm
    1

    And wait, is that somebody other than Penn or Princeton taking the Ivy League’s one seat on the starship?

    The wife and her 15 years of Cal tickets are counting on the hope that Big Red > Cardinal.

    Good luck with all the orange SOBs coming to town. Remember – headshots are always more effective than body or limbs.

  2. Wade
    Sunday, March 16, 2008, 9:49 pm
    2

    Not only did Cornell make the men’s tourney for the first time in 20(!) years, but the women’s team will be dancing, too, for the first time ever.

    Go Big Red!

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