The men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament begins tonight with a pair of First Four games. Howard plays UMBC at 5:40 pm, followed by NC State vs Texas at 8:15, with both games at truTV. The Howard/UMBC winner becomes the 16th seed in the Midwest Region and plays Michigan on Thursday, while the NC State/Texas winner will be the 11th seed for the West and play BYU on Thursday. Tomorrow night, SMU plays Miami Ohio and Lehigh faces Prairie View in the other First Four games.
The NBA will hold a vote next week to explore adding expansion teams exclusively in Las Vegas and Seattle, with the two new franchises being targeted to start play in the 2028-29 season. This marks the first of multiple steps toward NBA expansion. This first vote will allow the league to focus on Las Vegas and Seattle and create a bidding process for the teams. There will then be a potential final vote later in the year to finalize the move to 32 teams in the NBA. Industry executives project the bids for each new franchise will be in the $7-$10 billion range.
The World Baseball Classic concludes tonight in Miami with the USA playing Venezuela in the final. That game will be on FOX at 7 PM.