NCAA Tournament Schedule 2015: TV Info, Dates for Sweet 16 Matchups

Not all NCAA tournament weekends are created equal. Ask any fan, casual or hardcore, and they'll say the first four days are their favorite. The never-ending stream of games Thursday and Friday, the crowning of the year's darlings Saturday and Sunday and a four-day weekend filled with almost nonstop action from noon 'til night.

The Final Four, obviously, generates the highest television ratings and makes the tournament a billion-dollar enterprise. Cinderellas get their slippers the first weekend; legends are created on the third.

All of this, weirdly, makes the second weekend an odd stepbrother. It's the comedown from the first weekend while at once being the setup for the Final Four. One could easily see it as the in-between stop for our desired destinations.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The Sweet 16 provides an intricate look at teams you didn't receive the first weekend. The deluge of games creates an atmosphere where it's hard to pay attention to everything at once. Maybe you saw a half here and a half there of UCLA; now you're seeing the full platter. Knowing these teams makes all the difference in appreciating their Final Four moments coming in Indianapolis. 

With that in mind, let's take a look at the Sweet 16 schedule and delve into what to expect.

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Date	Time (ET)	Matchup	TV
March 26	7:15 p.m.	(7) Wichita St. vs. (3) Notre Dame	CBS
March 26	7:47 p.m.	(4) North Carolina vs. (1) Wisconsin	TBS
March 26	9:45 p.m.	(5) West Virginia vs. (1) Kentucky	CBS
March 26	10:17 p.m.	(6) Xavier vs. (2) Arizona	TBS
March 27	7:15 p.m.	(11) UCLA vs. (2) Gonzaga	CBS
March 27	7:37 p.m.	(8) NC State vs. (4) Louisville	TBS
March 27	9:45 p.m.	(5) Utah vs. (1) Duke	CBS
March 27	10:07 p.m.	(7) Michigan St. vs. (3) Oklahoma	TBS

Sweet 16 Preview

Three things out of the way now: Everyone just go ahead and move Kentucky, Arizona and Gonzaga into the Elite Eight. The odds of them all covering their mammoth spreads are almost nonexistent, but it's still far more likely than any of them falling against what should be overmatched opponents.

Kentucky goes head-to-head against a West Virginia team that's unique but plays right into its hands. The Mountaineers cannot shoot a lick. They're shooting 32.0 percent from distance this season and 45.2 percent from inside the arc, both ranking 250th or worse in the country.

The three-point struggles are especially concerning given Kentucky's all-world interior defense. Juwan Staten is fantastic at weaving his way into space, but he's never had the likes of Willie Cauley-Stein and Karl-Anthony Towns to deal with on every possession. Devin Williams can bully a ton of big men around the country; doing so against the Wildcats' deluge of length just seems like it's asking too much. 

Bob Huggins' 8-2 all-time record against John Calipari is literally the only thing I can see in West Virginia's favor.

Elsewhere, similar sentiments can be echoed about both Arizona and Gonzaga's Sweet 16 matchups. Both have been elite teams all season who are going against squads with deep flaws who caught some breaks to make the second weekend.

UCLA's last-ditch comeback over SMU will go down as one of the most baffling college basketball moments of 2015. The Bruins then got what amounted to a walkover against a happy-to-be-there UAB team.

Xavier beat a Mississippi team that had just played two days earlier before being gifted Ron Hunter's Georgia State outfit. The Musketeers haven't sniffed a single-digit seed and were 9-9 in a Big East Conference that was quite a bit overrated by the masses. Taking down Arizona feels like much too tall of a task.

Wisconsin is also a pretty good bet to take down North Carolina, though not quite at the same level of guarantee. The Badgers have built a nearly unwatchable yet unstoppable offense built around Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker. They're the NASCAR of basketball teams in that nothing interesting happens until the last seconds. 

Roy Williams has done an admirable job of getting his team to peak at the right time, but the discipline just isn't there defensively. Wisconsin is going to find holes on the perimeter, and if it doesn't, it'll use 34.9 seconds to find the best possible shot. After watching North Carolina play defense all season, the Badgers have a good shot at making that happen.

Outside of those four near-locks, we have a four-game platter where anything can happen. I was tempted to move Duke into the "lock" category before realizing what team we're talking about here. Mike Krzyzewski teams have given away winnable games in too many recent tournament matchups to not give me some pause here.

That said, the Blue Devils remain a solid favorite against a Utah outfit that will need its best possible defensive effort. Jahlil Okafor is going to offer the biggest challenge of Jakob Poeltl's young career, the combination of Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones should help offset Delon Wright, and Justise Winslow adds just enough to the table that Duke has the significant talent advantage.

Utah's better than most give it credit, though, and could make this a game if Duke's outside scorers go cold.

The other three games are as close to being toss-ups as possible. Wichita State dismantled Kansas in a way that plenty of smart college basketball fans expected, and it will be a dangerous matchup against Notre Dame. The Irish have reeled off seven straight wins, four of which have come by single digits. Beating Butler and Northeastern by a combined seven points made them look susceptible to being the Shockers' latest...you know.

Louisville should beat North Carolina State based on most objective measures, but Vegas remains tepid. The line opened at only 1.5 points, per Odds Shark, which is a bit odd for a No. 4 seed taking on a No. 8. Add in the Rick Pitino factor, and you have to wonder if the oddsmakers are seeing something we're not. Or perhaps they just overreacted to North Carolina State's upset over an overrated Villanova team.

The books do, however, give credit to Tom Izzo's March excellence. His seventh-seeded Spartans opened as favorites and have remained such against third-seeded Oklahoma. I've had the Sooners as a Final Four team since the outset, but after watching Michigan State the last couple of weeks, it's hard to blame anyone who goes all-in with history.

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