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The Little Dances: Championship Week Day 11 Preview

notre dame neon

The NCAA Tournament doesn’t get going until March 19, but for the real college hoops fans, the days leading up to Selection Sunday is when the madness really begins. Over the next two weeks teams will fight for the postseason lives. Bubbles will burst and tickets will be punched, and Cinderellas will be born. This is the real March Madness.

If you thought yesterday was crazy, which it was, make sure you to strap your self in tight and hide all the sharp objects. This is one of those “Skip work and watch college basketball all day” types of occasion.

(CLICK HERE to browse through all of our conference tournament previews)

Here’s what to watch for on Friday.

Game of the Night: Big East Semifinals
Whatever your plans were for tonight, make sure to change them immediately. The stage has been set for a truly magical set of semifinals at the final Big East tournament before the realignment shift. One semifinal showcases a rematch of the longest game of the season, a five-overtime classic between Louisville and Notre Dame. the second semifinal pits the conference’s greatest rivals against each other for the final time. Bonus fact: three of the four semifinalists are soon-to-be-former-members, and the fourth is the keystone of the new basketball order. Friday night at The Garden. Ain’t nothing better than that.

- Watch this too: Iowa State vs. Kansas
The Jayhawks won both regular season match-ups but needed magic, luck and bad officiating to get the sweep. Iowa State had the first game won until Ben McLemore banked in a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to force overtime. Kansas squeaked by in the second match-up thanks to two horribly bad officiating blunders and Elijah Johnson’s 35-point masterpiece. A win over the Jayhawks would cement their place in the field of 68.

- Watch this too: Kent State vs. Akron
Once the hottest team in the country, the Akron Zips have lost two of their last three games, including a loss to the Golden Flashes in the regular season finale. These two bitter rivals have produced many memorable postseason clashes, including a brawl at the end of overtime in the 2011 MAC Championship game.

Player to Watch: Russ Smith, Louisville
Notre Dame has been kryptonite to Russ Smith this season, so it’s fitting that the Irish will be wearing their hideous neon green Adidas uniforms against the Cardinals today. Whether it was Smith’s 5-point performance in the regular season finale, or his numerous mental gaffes during the late stages of their fiver-overtime epic in South Bend, Smith has not had his best stuff against the Irish. Smith needs to follow up his 28-point performance against Villanova with a strong showing against Notre Dame.

He’s good too: Dez Wells, Maryland
The dynamic guard is the Terrapins most talented player, and he will need to have his best game of the season against Duke today if the Terrapins want to keep their postseason hopes alive. Wells is coming off a 21-point performance against Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament and had two good showing against Duke during the regular season.

He’s good too: Cannon Burrage, UT-San Antonio
Awesome name, better game. The senior guard has fueled the Roadrunner’s surprise run out of the No. 9-seed in the WAC tournament with a 20-point performance against San Jose State and a 26-point, 13-rebound performance in their shocking upset over heavily favored Louisiana Tech.

Miscellaneous Madness:
Friday is day-2 of the March Madness dry-run. By the end of today, 95 elimination games will have been played since Thursday morning. That’s more games than the entire first weekend of the NCAA tournament. If you want to be ready for next week, I suggest you take the day off today and get acclimated to the madness.

Friday’s Schedule:

Atlantic Coast Conference Quarterfinals
Noon - Boston College (8) vs. Miami (1)
2 p.m. - North Carolina State (5) vs. Virginia (4)
7 p.m. - Maryland (7) vs. Duke (2)
9 p.m. - Florida State (6) vs. North Carolina (3)

Atlantic 10 Conference Quarterfinals
Noon - Charlotte (9) vs. Saint Louis (1)
2:30 p.m. - Butler (5) vs. La Salle (4)
6:30 p.m. - St. Joseph’s (10) vs. VCU (2)
9 p.m. - UMass (6) vs. Temple (3)

Big 12 Conference Semifinals
7:30 p.m. - Iowa State (5) vs. Kansas (1)
10 p.m. - Oklahoma State (3) vs. Kansas State (2)
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Big East Conference Semifinals
7 p.m. - Syracuse (5) vs. Georgetown (1)
9:30 p.m. - Notre Dame (6) vs. Louisville (2)

Big Sky Conference Semifinals
7:30 p.m. - North Dakota (3) vs. Weber State (2)
10 p.m. - Northern Colorado (5) vs. Montana (1)

Big Ten Conference Quarterfinals
Noon - Illinois (8) vs. Indiana (1)
2:30 p.m. - Michigan (5) vs. Wisconsin (4)
6:30 p.m. - Nebraska (10) vs. Ohio State (2)
9 p.m. - Iowa (6) vs. Michigan State (3)

Big West Conference Semifinals
9:30 p.m. - Cal-Irvine (4) vs. Long Beach State (1)

Conference-USA Semifinals
4 p.m. - UTEP (3) vs. Southern Mississippi (2)
6:30 p.m. - Tulsa (5) vs. Memphis (1)

Great West Conference Semifinals
6 p.m. - Houston Baptist (4) vs. NJIT (1)
8:30 p.m. - Chicago State (3) vs. UT-Pan America (2)

Mid-American Conference Semifinals
6:30 p.m. - Kent State (4) vs. Akron (1)
9 p.m. - Western Michigan (3) vs. Ohio (2)

Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Semifinals
6 p.m. - Bethune-Cookman (8) vs. Morgan State (5)
8 p.m. - North Carolina A&T (7) vs. Delaware State (6)

Mountain West Conference Semifinals
9 p.m. - South Dakota State (4) vs. New Mexico (1)
11:30 p.m. - UNLV (3) vs. Colorado State (2)

Pac-12 Conference Semifinals
9 p.m. - Arizona (4) vs. UCLA (1)
11:30 p.m. - Utah (10) vs. Oregon (3)

Southeastern Conference Quarterfinals
1 p.m. - LSU (9) vs. Florida (1)
3:30 p.m. - Tennessee (5) vs. Alabama (4)
7:30 p.m. - Vanderbilt (10) vs. Kentucky (2)
10 p.m. - Missouri (6) vs. Mississippi (3)

Southland Conference Semifinals
6 p.m. - Southeastern Louisiana (4) vs. Stephen F. Austin (1)
8:30 p.m. - Sam Houston State (6) vs. Northwestern State (2)

Southwestern Athletic Conference Semifinals
3:30 p.m. - Prairie View A&M (4) vs. Jackson State (2)
9 p.m. - Alabama A&M (6) vs. Southern (1)

Western Athletic Conference Semifinals
9 p.m. - Texas State (7) vs. New Mexico State (3)
11:30 p.m. - UT-San Antonio (9) vs. UT-Arlington (4)

You can find Troy Machir on Twitter at @TroyMachir