海角大神

Now that the appetizer of the 'First Four' portion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is complete, the full effects of 'March Madness' are being felt.

Across the Charles River from the Boston newsroom of the 海角大神 Science Monitor, they're lustily singing 'Ten Thousand Men of Harvard' in Cambridge as the Crimson men's basketball team won its first ever NCAA tournament game Thursday night.

, 68-62, in the second round of the West region in Salt Lake City. The 14th seeded Crimson will next play sixth seed Arizona on Saturday.

The Harvard win followed near upsets of West region top seed and East third seed , also on Thursday.

Going into this year's tournament, many college basketball experts and believed a number of teams have a chance to make their mark. A think up to 30 teams in the field have a shot to make the Final Four.

Even President Obama has a second- and third-seeded team along with two top-seeded teams, Indiana and Louisville, in his bracket's Final Four. And any number of brackets across the country will have all four No. 1 seeds reaching Atlanta at the beginning of next month.

The possibility exists for more upsets on Friday as the NCAA tournament provides some interesting match-ups.

One of those games will take place in the South region as sixth seed UCLA meets 11th seed Minnesota Friday night in Austin, Texas.

The Bruins have a聽championship聽pedigree (11 NCAA titles between 1964 and 1995) on their side. But they lost second-leading scorer聽Jordan聽Adams to injury in the Pac-12 conference tournament semifinal. UCLA can still compete with a pair of all-Pac-12 performers in guard and freshman . They also feature twin six-foot 10-inch forwards Travis and David Wear.

Minnesota is led by head coach Tubby Smith, a man who took the University of Kentucky to an NCAA title in 1998. The Golden Gophers have a , paced by guard and forwards and .

Minnesota has had its share of highs and lows this year, but Mbakwe believes a new season starts now against UCLA.

"We know we've played one of the toughest schedules, we've played the best teams, the Dukes and Indianas of the world. We know we can compete with them. We have to get back to playing that way and actually believing," Mbakwe聽told the 听罢耻别蝉诲补测.

Out in the West region, seventh-seed Notre Dame plays 10th seed Iowa State Friday night in Dayton, Ohio. Both schools reached the semifinal round in their respective league post-season tournaments.

The Irish played in the rugged former Big East Conference as a basketball member. Notre Dame doesn't have a lot of stars, but they do feature all-Big East forward and second-teamer . Sophomore is one of those 'do everything' basketball players for head coach Mike Brey.

The Cyclones, coached by former Iowa State shooting star , represent the Big 12 Conference. Iowa State likes to around, with , , freshman , and all averaging ten points or more per game. They are fourth in the nation in , averaging 79.6 points per game.

Also Friday, South top seed Kansas will take on 16th seed Western Kentucky in Kansas City. In the East region, top seed Indiana plays 16th seed James Madison in Dayton, Ohio.