RTC Live is back today with a four-game slate from Queens to Berkeley. Join us for the first game this afternoon from A-10 hopeful Duquesne, after the jump.

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RTC Live tips off the first big night of the year with a couple of warm-up games. Tonight Kevin Doyle  (@KLDoyle11) travels to Athens to see how Mark Fox’s team will recover from some key personnel losses; join the conversation from SEC country below, after the jump.

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RTC Live is pleased to be back covering games from coast to coast for its fourth season. Tonight Fake Gimel Martinez (@fakegimel) will be in Lexington to check in on the latest installment of John Calipari’s young crew of Wildcats. Join the conversation about the nation’s #2 ranked team tonight, after the jump.

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RTC Live is pleased to be back covering games from coast to coast for its fourth season. Tonight John Templon (@nybuckets) from Big Apple Buckets will be in Queens to check in on Year Two of the Steve Lavin era; join the conversation from NYC below, after the jump.

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There’s only one of these a year, so you’ll excuse us if we’re coveting the opportunity to cover our first national championship game tonight in Houston, Texas, between Connecticut and Butler.  What can we say that already hasn’t been said about these two teams?  UConn, with its crusty yet fiery old coach one step away from his third national championship and collegiate immortality; Butler, with its professorial yet focused young coach one step away from the first of what promises to be many more opportunities to make an indelible mark on this game over the next three decades.  The matchup of the confident Kemba Walker, secure in the knowledge that he’s the best player in the country, versus the less celebrated duo of Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard, secure in the knowledge that wins trump hype at any level of this game.  The public northeastern school against the private midwestern one.  The regal power conference team against the aspiring mid-major.  So many angles, so many storylines.  At twenty minutes after 9 pm tonight, we’ll tip off the latest edition of what they all play for… the bright lights of Monday night.  Join us.

Welcome to the Final Four.  The Road Ends Here, so we’re told, and we honestly have trouble remembering a national semifinal pairing as odd as these two games tonight.  A couple of mid-major Cinderellas in the opener, followed by a couple of blueblooded heavyweights in the evening, each of which had an up-and-d0wn season more characteristic of a second round finisher than a national semifinalist.  Yet here we are:  Butler vs. VCU, Kentucky vs. UConn.  A veritable bubbling cauldron of coaching acumen on display — no matter the resumes of these four teams, the winner that comes from this group will have proven his chops.  Will it be one of the young guns, Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens, too green behind the ears still not even at Senator-age to understand just how difficult it is to get to this weekend (ask Gene Keady or John Chaney); or will it be an older sage, Jim Calhoun or John Calipari, each the target of investigations wrapped up in investigations, but also managing to generally avoid the eight-ball of culpability for the smoke wafting around their programs.  Absolutely none of that matters tonight, as the players on the floor will be giving their all to get a chance to taste Monday night, one step further on the road to collegiate immortality.  Join us, as RTC covers its first Final Four, in what we hope will be an epic closing weekend to a wild and woolly NCAA Tournament.

The NIT concludes Thursday night at Madison Square Garden with the championship game featuring Alabama and Wichita State. The Crimson Tide got by Colorado on Tuesday thanks to Trevor Releford’s game winning layup in the final seconds. As for Wichita State, they had no trouble with Washington State and cruised to a 31-point victory. Center Garrett Stutz posted career highs in points and rebounds against the Cougars and could play a major role again tonight opposite Alabama’s JaMychal Green. The Crimson Tide forward made 11 of his 16 shots against Colorado but will have to do a better job on the boards against Stutz and the taller Wichita State team. The Shockers destroyed Washington State on the boards, outrebounding the Cougars 52-25. Alabama usually does a good job on the offensive glass but will have to contend with a Shockers team allowing opponents to grab only 25.7% of their misses, third in the nation. Alabama will have to go right at the Wichita big men given their strengths as a team. Anthony Grant’s club gets the vast majority of their points inside and that’s likely where the outcome of this game will be determined. Be sure to follow along with RTC Live as we bring you what should be an exciting late March game between two teams that easily could have been in the NCAA Tournament if just a few more things had gone their way.

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The NIT field has been whittled from 32 to four as the semifinalists take center stage tonight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Two top seeds have made it to the Big Apple, Colorado and Alabama, and they’ll play in the nightcap. The first game features Klay Thompson and Washington State going up against Wichita State, a team that knocked off #1 seed Virginia Tech in Blacksburg nine days ago. All four teams were in the NCAA Tournament picture late into the season so this should be an exciting doubleheader. Alabama and Colorado have not been significantly challenged in this tournament and that’s a credit to both Anthony Grant and Tad Boyle for keeping their respective teams motivated in the face of what they perceived as NCAA snubs. Motivation is always a question mark in this tournament and both teams have done a nice job putting the past behind them and focusing on the here and now. Washington State has rebounded nicely from Thompson’s suspension which took them out of NCAA contention with a late season loss to UCLA. The storyline around Wichita State is whether their head coach, Gregg Marshall, will remain in that position after this tournament. Marshall will be on the lists of some prominent programs and may leave Wichita for greener pastures. Join RTC Live from the Garden tonight for what should be a fun doubleheader.

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If today’s games are at all similar to yesterday’s regional finals, we might just have to order an entirely new wardrobe of boxers.  Only one way to find out…

 

Two regional final games and not a #1 seed in sight.  But don’t be alarmed, because there’s plenty of pedigree here.  Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Butler — it reads better that you might expect for a #2, #3, #5 and #8 seed, right?  That’s because they probably are.