March Madness officially tips off Tuesday evening with the First Four, which will determine the last four teams in the 64-team first-round field.
Starting the night is the UMBC Retrievers (24-8, 14-2) taking on the Howard Bison (23-10, 11-3) in Dayton, Ohio. The winner of UMBC-Howard will take on Michigan in the first round of the tournament. On tap later on Tuesday night is a matchup between the Texas Longhorns (18-14, 9-9) and NC State Wolfpack (20-13, 10-8) as they vie for a chance to play No. 6 seed BYU.
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In case you were wondering, we did, in fact, have AI predict every March Madness game … and our good friend Claude has UMBC and NC State advancing to the first round. UMBC and NC State are both slight 1.5-point favorites ahead of tipoff at BetMGM.
UMBC vs. Howard start time: 6:40 p.m. ET
TV channel/live stream: TruTV
Texas vs. NC State start time: 9:15 p.m. ET
TV channel/live stream: TruTV
Follow along with Yahoo Sports for the latest out of the men’s NCAA tournament, tipping off with the First Four on Tuesday.
Live16 updatesTue, March 17, 2026 at 3:43 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:59 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
We are back for the second half and Howard has taken a double-digit lead right off the bat. We’ll see if UMBC can get back in this thing.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:40 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:34 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The Bison are shooting over 50% from the field against what’s been a stringent UMBC defense this season. Ose Okojie has 16 and Travell Bryson has 11 for the Bison.
Jah’Likai King has 10 points for the Retrievers, who trailed for the majority of the first half.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:21 PM PDT
Nick Bromberg
This is an uncharacteristically high-scoring half for a UMBC opponent. Howard has six offensive rebounds already.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:20 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The Retrievers are hanging around, but they’re going to have to find an answer for Ose Okojie. He has 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting with just over 4 minutes left on the clock.
Howard is up 39-30.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 4:09 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The Bison are putting in a lot of work at the rim. Big men Cedric Taylor and Ose Okojie have 7 points each and Howard is out-rebounding UMBC 11-7 in the first 12 minutes.
The Bison have a 28-22 lead with 8 minutes left in the first half.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 3:54 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The Retrievers and Bison have both come out shooting the ball well and have traded leads in the early going. Howard’s Cedric Taylor has six points in the opening minutes.
It’s 14-11 Howard at the U-15 TV timeout.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 3:49 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The Bison are slight favorites in the First Four opener (-1.5) and the over/under is set at 140.5.
Yahoo Sports analyst Frank Schwab picked every first-round game earlier this week. He went with the Retrievers in this one.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 3:42 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The NCAA tournament has started! Kind of…
No. 16 seeds UMBC and Howard just tipped and the Retrievers are on the board first.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 3:15 PM PDT
Caroline Fenton, Jason Fitz
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 3:00 PM PDT
Jeff Eisenberg
NC State coach Will Wade had a great response when reporters asked if he was surprised the committee sent his team to the First Four. Wade said he was “shocked” but also admitted the Wolfpack only have themselves to blame for losing seven of nine entering Selection Sunday.
“Look, we did it to ourselves,” Wade said. “I told our guys there’s no victims in the room. We have a Quad 4 loss to Georgia Tech. We didn’t handle business down the stretch. So we’re fortunate to be in.
“If we didn’t want to be in Dayton, we should have beaten Notre Dame or Stanford. That’s just the way it works.”
Read more from our ranking of every NCAA tournament team, from 1 to 68.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 2:45 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The UMBC Retrievers faced a slight travel delay on the way to Dayton for Tuesday’s First Four matchup against the Howard Bison, the team’s social media account announced.
The delays were reportedly due to severe weather, which forced 165 cancellations and delays on more than 235 flights on Monday, CBS reports.
Don’t worry, folks. The Retrievers arrived safely as of 5:47 p.m. ET on Monday, per the team’s social media account.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 2:30 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
The men’s and women’s NCAA tournament brackets are set.
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 2:15 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
Tue, March 17, 2026 at 1:50 PM PDT
Yahoo Sports Staff
Michigan, Duke and Arizona lead our annual 1-68 ranking of national championship contenders — grouped into eight tiers and ordered from most to least likely to snip the nets in Indianapolis on the first Monday in April.
Here’s where each of Tuesday’s First Four teams landed in those rankings:
40th — NC State (Tier 6 – Dangerous double-digit seeds)
43rd — Texas (Tier 6 – Danger double-digit seeds)
60th — UMBC (Tier 8 – The Pushovers)
65th — Howard (Tier 8 – The Pushovers)