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NCAA.com | February 20, 2017

Morning Madness: Monday, Feb. 20

  Florida State dropped its second game in a row, as Pitt notched a big home victory.

Here's what you need to know in college hoops for Monday, Feb. 20.

Well, the weekend went somewhat according to plan. Only two lower-ranked/unranked teams pulled off an upset in the 22 games featuring at least one ranked team that we saw on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

In case you missed it

• Those two upsets would be Pittsburgh (80-66 over No. 17 Florida State) and Vanderbilt (71-62 over No. 21 South Carolina). With their setback, five of Florida State's six losses have come on the road against unranked teams. That's ... not ideal. And while South Carolina has three Top 25 wins, it also has six losses to unranked teams, three against SEC teams. The Gamecocks are the only team in the conference besides Florida and Kentucky with double digit SEC wins, but now they need to win out (possible) and have Florida and Kentucky slip up three times each (not likely) to take the conference crown.

• In the second top 5 meeting between the two teams this season, No. 3 Kansas beat No. 4 Baylor again, 67-65 on Saturday, thanks to a magnificent comeback by the Jayhawks.

• No. 10 North Carolina picked up a major win against No. 14 Virginia at home Saturday, besting the Cavaliers 65-41 in one of Virginia's worst shooting (2-20 from 3-point range!) performances of the year. 

Watch: Celebrity appearances highlight this week's College Basketball Social Rewind

Full Friday scoreboard | Saturday Sunday

What to watch for today

• We don't have any ranked vs. ranked matchups tonight, but we still have some basketball worth watching. No. 14 Virginia (18-8) hosts Miami (18-8) in a critical matchup for both teams. After a deflating performance against No. 10 UNC on Saturday, Virginia is in the midst of its first three-game losing streak since February 2011. The Hurricanes are looking to pick up their second win this season against a ranked opponent, assuming Virginia doesn't drop out of Monday's AP Top 25. Both squads sit at 8-6 in the ACC, tied for fifth place in the conference. (7 ET, ESPN).   

• Two other ranked teams are in action tonight, but neither should have too much of a struggle. No. 9 West Virginia, coming off a 2OT win over Texas Tech, hosts a 10-17 Texas team (9 ET, ESPN), while No. 17 Florida State takes on 9-18 Boston College (7 ET, ESPNU).

• The Week 16 AP Top 25 will be released later this afternoon. The top 10 shouldn't change much, but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

• Full Monday schedule

Stat of the day

41 -- Virginia's 41 points against UNC marked the second-fewest scored by an opponent in the Smith Center's history (460 games).

Who can take an L (or 10) and still make the tournament?

Several teams waiting to hear their name called on Selection Sunday will have at least 10 losses. Some will have even more. No at-large team has ever had more than 14, though. 

Who will be the teams this year that sneak into the bracket with a double-digit number in the loss column? NCAA.com's Jack Friefelder investigates.

Bracket tip of the day: How hard is it to pick a perfect bracket?

This is your year, right? This is finally the year you nail that perfect bracket. Yeah ... not gonna happen.

MARCH MADNESS SHOP
We spoke to Jeffrey Bergen, a professor of mathematics at DePaul University, who has been crunching numbers on the topic for years. Bergen says that the chances of someone filling out a perfect bracket is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. Yikes.

NCAA.com's Janie Harris goes into more detail in this edition of the Bracket Beat.

Sign up for the Bracket Challenge Game | More Bracket Tips

Mark your calendar

Selection Sunday: March 12
First Four in Dayton: March 14, 15
First Thursday of the NCAA tournament: March 16
F
inal Four in Phoenix: April 1-3

FULL MARCH MADNESS SCHEDULETICKETS | SHOP

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