This Friday and Sunday, March 22 and 24, the Erwin Center will open its court to the biggest college basketball tourney in the world – the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship – for some select second- and third-round games.

The lack of any regional teams (with UT being excluded from the tourney all together) has lessened local interest, but their are still some good matchups for CenTex hoops fans.

The UCLA vs. Minnesota tilt on Friday has garnered some press as a possible upset for the 11-seed Golden Gophers over the 6-seed Bruins. I’m not buying it though. I’ve picked 10-seed Colorado to upset 7-seed Illinois in my personal bracket with Colorado then falling to Miami and Florida beating UCLA in the South bracket.

Here’s the schedule:
Friday’s games
(2) Miami vs. (15) Pacific: 1:10pm
(7) Illinois vs. (10) Colorado: 3:40pm
(3) Florida vs. (14) Northwestern State: 6:27pm
(6) UCLA vs. (11) Minnesota: 8:57pm

Sunday’s games:
Friday afternoon winners time TBA
Friday night winners times TBA

Single-session tickets are now on sale ($60-85). Go to TexasSports.com for details.

This article appears in March 15 • 2013.

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