NCAA Tournament Schedule 2016: Bracket, TV Coverage and Predictions for Sweet 16

The first two rounds are great, but there's still a lot of basketball to be played in the NCAA tournament.

The Sweet 16 guarantees a few things. The Duke Blue Devils are still alive in their quest to repeat as national champions. One week after a rare Indiana-Kentucky matchup, the world will get an Indiana-North Carolina clash in the East region.

And above all else, at least one double-digit seed will be guaranteed a spot in the Elite Eight. Please allow CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein to enlighten you:

Mark the dates and check your brackets. Here's a rundown of the Sweet 16.

"

 

Check out Bleacher Report's live updating bracket to track your picks along the road to the Final Four.

"

Thursday, March 24	TV and Time (ET)	Prediction
Friday, March 25	TV and Time (ET)	Prediction
Miami vs. Villanova	7:10 p.m., TBD	Miami
Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M	7:37 p.m., TBD	Oklahoma
Kansas vs. Maryland	After UM/VU	Kansas
Duke vs. Oregon	After OU/TAMU	Oregon
Virginia vs. Iowa State	7:10 p.m., TBD	North Carolina
Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin	7:27 p.m., TBD	Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Gonzaga	After UVA/ISU	Gonzaga
Indiana vs. North Carolina	After ND/WIS	North Carolina

Sweet 16 Storylines

Duke Still Can't be Trusted

The Blue Devils are still alive, but barely. Duke let a 23-point halftime lead (even led by as many as 27) nearly get away against the scrappy Yale Bulldogs, only to win 71-64 and make it back to the Sweet 16.

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski continues to ignore the depth he has as his disposal. The Blue Devils have rolled out a seven-player rotation through two games, and it's worked so far, but barely. If not for Grayson Allen and Brandon Ingram scoring at a higher rate than they're accustomed to, Duke wouldn't be in this situation.

Right now, Duke looks more like a team that's doing what it's supposed to do—win games it's supposed to win. Although the thin rotation worked last year for Duke, the Blue Devils didn't rely as much on the perimeter as they do this year. 

“Our house is on a cliff, and we hope it doesn’t rain,” Krzyzewski said, per Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated. “That’s who we’ve been.”

Now comes the time Duke has to play a top team. If Duke loses anytime soon, the "not enough depth" card will more than likely come into play. And if the Blue Devils lose to the Oregon Ducks—seeing how Oregon is the worst No. 1 seed, according to numbers from Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post—does Oregon finally get the respect of being a top seed? Time will tell.

The Ducks survived against the Saint Joseph's Hawks on Sunday, winning 69-64 to advance to the Sweet 16. It wasn't a pretty game, considering Saint Joe's had the lead late in the second half, but Tyler Dorsey and Dillon Brooks made clutch shots in the final minutes to get the win for Oregon.

Brooks especially thrived on Sunday, per Tyson Alger of the Oregonian:

Right now, Duke can't be trusted to get past Oregon, and it will be ultimately because of the depth.

Syracuse and Gonzaga Are Still Playing

There is actual proof in ESPN's Tournament Challenge of people selecting Gonzaga and Syracuse to meet in the Sweet 16.

But two weeks ago, neither of these teams seemed destined to even be playing in the NCAA tournament, let alone playing each other for a spot in the Elite Eight. But this is March, this is college basketball and this is remarkable stuff.

Had the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders not shocked the world Friday, it'd likely be the Michigan State Spartans playing Gonzaga this week. Rumblings remained after Syracuse's win over the Dayton Flyers on Friday that the Orange didn't deserve to be in the tournament, like from Chris Chase of Fox Sports:

"

The implication was that Syracuse' 19-point win validated the team's controversial at-large bid. It does nothing of the sort. It proves what everybody already knew: Jim Boeheim's team was a mediocre, up-and-down unit that could hang with good teams and get worked by bad ones. It was, and still is, a team that has no business being in the NCAA tournament.

"

Syracuse has gotten contributions from everyone. One night, it'll be Malachi Richardson scoring 21 points in a convincing victory, then it'll be Michael Gbinije scoring a game-high 23 points after a 3-of-11 performance in the first round.

The only difference head coach Jim Boeheim sees in his team is the types of opponents, per Dan Wolken of USA Today:

Gonzaga, meanwhile, may be the biggest surprise of this tournament so far. The Bulldogs took down a Seton Hall Pirates team that won its first Big East title in 23 years this year and then found a way to dominate the Utah Runnin' Utes on the glass and the scoreboard Saturday in an 82-59 win.

Domantas Sabonis has averaged 20 points and 13 rebounds in two games, but more importantly, he held Utah big man Jakob Poeltl to five total rebounds. He can score and box out with the best of them. If the Bulldogs can control the glass like they have the last two games, they'll be one win away from the Final Four.

The last time Gonzaga and Syracuse played each other, Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press called it the "Wes Johnson Game." It was a second-round game in 2010, and Johnson had 31 points and 14 rebounds in a 22-point win over the Bulldogs.

Johnson isn't leaving the Los Angeles Clippers for one day to go back to school. It'll take that kind of game for Syracuse to beat Gonzaga this time around.

Follow Danny Webster on Twitter.