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NCAA Tournament 2022 schedule: 3 SEC teams play on Friday, March 18
By Keith Farner
Published:
After a day filled with upsets, 3 more SEC teams hit the hardwood on Friday to begin their portion of the NCAA Tournament.
Auburn opens the Friday slate at 12:40 p.m. ET, with a tilt against Jacksonville State in Greenville, S.C.. Alabama will face Notre Dame in a game set for 4:15 p.m. ET, and LSU meets Iowa State in Milwaukee at 7:20 p.m. ET.
Auburn comes in after an SEC regular season championship, but a loss to Texas A&M spoiled the SEC Tournament. Auburn is 27-5 and was 15-3 in the SEC to claim the season crown.
Alabama faces a Notre Dame team in San Diego that’s coming off of an 89-87 double overtime victory over Rutgers in Wednesday’s First Four in Dayton, Ohio. This is the first time Alabama has earned back-to-back
NCAA Tournament seeds of No. 6 or better (was a No. 4 seed in 1991 and No. 5 seed in 1992).
LSU will be led by interim coach Kevin Nickelberry after the Tigers fired Will Wade. The Tigers have been in this situation before, though. In 2019, when Wade was suspended for the regular-season finale and the postseason, they advanced to the Sweet 16 before eventually losing to Michigan State.
Nickelberry is in his third season at LSU, but he previously was a head coach at Hampton and Howard, and was heavily involved in LSU’s recruiting, so he has close relationships with several players.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
