Ad Disclosure
March Madness: Villanova Gets Utah State, Penn Gets Illinois
Published:
The Big 5 will be represented in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons, with Villanova and Penn both getting in.
The Wildcats are an at-large team out of the Big East and the Quakers won the Ivy League tournament after an instant classic vs. Yale.
Nova is the 8 seed in the West and opens with Utah State:
USU went 28-6 and won the Mountain West regular season and tournament. They beat VCU, Tulane, and Davidson in the non-conference and will be a tough matchup in the opening round. The winner gets #1 Arizona, barring a wild upset.
As for Penn, they’re the 14th seed in the South and will play #3 Illinois:
Illinois went 24-8 and finished second in the Big 10. No lack of familiarity there for Fran McCaffery, who coached at Iowa for years. The Illini beat ranked Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas Tech this year.
As for Philadelphia, we’ll be hosting the winner of the Miami (OH) and SMU game vs. #6 Tennessee. We’ve also got Virginia, Wright State, UConn, Furman, UCLA, and UCF coming to Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com