By Chris Marler
The first day of the NCAA Tournament was a roman candle.
Some years March Madness goes full March Madness from the jump and we get instant fireworks. We get buzzer beaters right off the bat in the early window and then a 15-seed directional mid-major beating a 2-Seed in the night games.
Thursday was not that. Yesterday was a roman candle. It was a lot of excitement without a lot of payoff, except for a brief little flash at the very end. Regardless, we get three more days of games including seven SEC games on Friday.
Here’s what you may have missed on Thursday.
Off to a hot start
The SEC finished Thursday 4-2 with their only losses coming from Missouri and Georgia. To be fair, those losses were not really close for a majority of either game. However, Auburn looked the part of the No. 1 overall seed–for the second half at least. Texas A&M looked great against one of the more popular upset picks in the entire tournament, Yale. However, the team that won the day from the Conference was Arkansas.
March-ansas Razorbacks
Patience is a virtue. Just ask John Calipari, who approaches every basketball season like Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine approached shorting the Orange Juice market in Trading Places. (Note: that’s a really good reference, and I hope you got it.)
Calipari’s teams at Kentucky and now Arkansas have done their best to lie in the weeds and wait for their moment. That moment came Thursday night as two of the best programs in college basketball’s modern era faced off. Arkansas took down the Duke of the Midwest, Kansas Jayhawks. And though Kansas had a really down year, anytime you beat a team that was preseason No. 1 and has that name across the front of their jersey, it’s a huge win.
WOOOOOOOO PIG SOOIE SAY IT BACK pic.twitter.com/8sN25yjYng
— Arkansas Razorbacks Men’s Basketball 🐗 (@RazorbackMBB) March 21, 2025
Good Lawd Jawja
It wasn’t a banner day for the Georgia Bulldogs–in multiple sports. Thursday started with two football player driving incidents, including one arrest. The basketball team capped Thursday with their best impression of a CGI house in Twister, getting their doors blown off. Georgia fans waited ten years to see their team play in the NCAA tournament.
It was 27-3 in the blink of an eye, and over shortly after that.
