What Went Down In The First Round Of The NCAA Tournament

No doubt, it’ll be the Ja Morant-Markus Howard show. But the Racers’ Shaq Buchanan will be critical. He’s the OVC defensive player of the year and will likely draw the assignment of keeping Howard in check. Morant is the future lottery pick, but Buchanan is a big reason why the Racers have their best defense in years and are in the tournament.

As for Murray State’s opponent, Marquette destroyed St. John’s (which was KO’ed from this tournament last night by Bobby Hurley’s ASU Sun Devils) in its first Big East tournament game but was otherwise playing awful before that — losing to Georgetown, Creighton, Nova and Seton Hall to end the regular season. The Golden Eagles also have a 5-foot-something scoring machine of their own in Markus Howard. Watching him face off with Ja Morant is going to be fun.

I think New Mexico State-Auburn will be a shootout, if nothing else! The Aggies are 0-8 in the tournament since 2000 — the only team without a win and at least eight appearances over that stretch. Auburn is coming in hot, having just won the SEC title. But it’ll be a shootout from the perimeter. Among tournament teams, only Villanova (53.5 percent) has a higher 3-point attempt rate than Auburn (49.6 percent). But New Mexico State isn’t that far behind (46.4 percent).