The NCAA Tournament kicked off in earnest on Tuesday.
What do you need to know about what went down? We've got you covered here with three things to know going into Wednesday's action.
1. FGCU makes fairly easy work of Fairleigh Dickinson
In a brief return to the exciting roots that took the nation by storm in 2013, Florida Gulf Coast made easy work of fellow No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the NCAA Tournament's opening game. The Eagles won the uptempo battle 96-65 behind a terrific performance from Marc-Eddy Norelia, who scored 20 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out five assists.
You shouldn't necessarily expect this type of game from FGCU going forward, given that the Eagles are actually a relatively slow-paced team now under former Bill Self assistant Joe Dooley. But for one night, it was pretty fun to enjoy the stylings of the artist formerly known as Dunk City.
The Eagles move on now to face North Carolina on Thursday in the first round.
2. Wichita State finishes game on a 20-2 run to blow out Vanderbilt
This was a close content for the first 32 minutes, and then it decidedly wasn't. The Shockers beat Vanderbilt 70-50 in large part due to the performance of Fred VanVleet, who was bloodied in the first five minutes of the game by a stray, accidental Jeff Roberson elbow.
VanVleet scored 14 points and dished out seven assists, but as it so often has been this season it was the defense that led the way for Wichita State. The Shockers held Vanderbilt without a field goal for the final 8:42 of the game after a Riley LaChance jumper rolled in to make it 50-48. That's when the intensity picked up and Shockers rose to occasion while the Commodores wilted.
VanVleet, Marshall and company will now move on to take on Arizona in what should be one of the more hotly anticipated first round games. It's pretty unfair that one of these two teams is guaranteed to go home in the first round, but that's the way the cookie crumbles when a team is as vastly underseeded as Wichita State is based on talent and experience.
3. The favorites won out on Tuesday. Will the same occur in Dayton on Wednesday?
On Wednesday, Southern takes on Holy Cross and Michigan faces Tulsa in the First Four.
In the first game, Southern will be favored to beat Holy Cross, as the Crusaders under Bill Carmody have a 14-19 record after going 5-13 in Patriot League play. In the second, Michigan is favored by 3.5 points against Tulsa as the Golden Hurricane was the last team to make the field.
The second game is the one most people will be excited about, and it should actually be a pretty fun affair. These are two solid, offensively inclined teams going against defenses that tend to have their fair share of struggles. They'll play to set up an all-offense first round game against Notre Dame, yet another team that can really score as well as have problems on defense.
The games Wednesday may not feature the high-level brands of Tuesday's action, but it could at least offer a pair of closer games than the 31-and-20-point blowouts we saw Tuesday.
