2008 NCAA Tournament Bracket
TAMPA -- The University of South Florida and the St. Pete Times Forum will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament this Friday, March 21 and Sunday, March 23 and plenty of tickets still remain for locals in the Tampa Bay area.
Games begin at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday with No. 5-seed Drake and No. 12-seed Western Kentucky being two of the first teams to tip-off the Friday session of March Madness. That game will be followed by Big East power and No. 4-seed UConn squaring off with a team from the opposite end of the country, No. 13-seed San Diego.
The Second Session on Friday will begin at 7:20 p.m. with No. 4-seed Vanderbilt matching up with No. 13-seed Siena. The night will conclude with a very interesting pairing of No. 5-seed Clemson, who reached the ACC Championship Game, and No. 12-seed and familar conference team Villanova.
All-Session tickets, which accounts for six games of March Madness action, are $198. To purchase tickets CLICK HERE or call (813) 301-6600.
For more on the matchups, here are capsules on all the teams.
DRAKE
ST. LOUIS (ESPN.com) -- It's natural to assume there's something magical about Drake, hidden inside Keno Davis' brain, Adam Emmenecker's body or Dolph Pulliam's blue leather suit.
Adam Emmenecker's rise to Valley MVP has been just as impressive as Drake's season. Emmenecker was a three-year walk-on until this season.
When a team wins 11 more games than the year before, jumps six spots in the Missouri Valley standings, redrafts the school record book, reaches the NCAA tournament for the first time in 37 years -- earning a No. 5 seed in the West Region -- and yet still claims it doesn't know how everything went down, it might be time to check for pixie dust. Patience and persistence just don't seem like enough, especially with a roster of never-beens and never-would-bes.
But at Drake (28-4), it was enough. It had to be enough.
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WESTERN KENTUCKY
Bowling Green, Ky. — The Western Kentucky University basketball team earned the 12th seed in the 2008 NCAA Tournament and will face No. 5 seed Drake — the Missouri Valley Conference’s regular season and tournament champion — in a first-round West Region contest Friday, it was announced Sunday night.
The tip-off time for the match-up in Tampa, Fla., is still to be determined. 
The Hilltoppers, who are 27-6 and finished 16-2 in the Sun Belt Conference, earned the league’s automatic bid by claiming the SBC Tournament title with a 67-57 victory over Middle Tennessee Tuesday in Mobile, Ala. WKU has won 17 of its last 18 outings, including six in a row.
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CONNECTICUT
HARTFORD, Conn. (Hartford Courant) -- UConn received a No. 4 seed in the West bracket tonight in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. The Huskies will play No 12 seed San Diego in Tampa Friday.
San Diego upset 20th- ranked Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament final Monday, for the leagues automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.
North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas and UCLA earned the top seeds in the NCAA tournament Sunday, and the top-ranked Tar Heels got the best deal of all: Their road to the Final Four won't veer more than two hours outside their Chapel Hill campus.
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SAN DIEGO
Rob Jones and De'Jon Jackson keyed a huge second-half run for the San Diego Toreros, who stunned No. 20 Gonzaga 69-62 to win the West Coast Conference tournament championship game Monday night and clinch their first NCAA tournament berth since 2003.
Showing no effects from needing two overtimes to beat Saint Mary's on Sunday night, the scrappy Toreros (21-13) went on a 19-4 run in the second half to take control and give first-year coach Bill Grier a huge win against his old boss, Gonzaga's Mark Few.
USD had lost 13 straight to the Zags (25-7) since upsetting them in the 2003 tournament title game.
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CLEMSON
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ESPN.com) -- Before Clemson's first game in the ACC tournament, coach Oliver Purnell brought a yellow construction workers' hard hat into the locker room.
The players put it on -- along with a goofy smile -- and passed it around. It has since become a part of their pregame routine.
"We've been talking about defense the whole semester, but we didn't have anything to symbolize it," said freshman guard Demontez Stitt. "In order to symbolize it, he wanted us to put on our hard hats and go to work."
The Tigers listened and, in turn, deconstructed a few North Carolina traditions -- starting with Duke.
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VILLANOVA
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Yo, March Madness! Philly's coming, and it needed a week stuffed with surprises to bring three teams into the NCAA tournament bracket for the first time since 1999.
Villanova was an upset pick on Sunday for the 65-team field and joined Saint Joseph's as two of the 34 at-large teams in the tournament. Temple was guaranteed its first spot in the tournament since 2001, earning an automatic berth as the Atlantic 10 tournament champion.
"I was worried for either Saint Joseph's or Villanova," said Temple coach Fran Dunphy. "It makes Philadelphia better. It makes the Big 5 better."
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VANDERBILT
NASHVILLE - The Vanderbilt Commodores, the number four seed in the Midwest Region, will face off against the #13 seed Siena Saints Friday at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla. The time for the game has been set for 6:20 p.m. CT.
Vanderbilt, who is making their second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988 and 1989, will be a four seed at the tournament for the first time in the history of the school. The Commodores' highest seeding in the tournament came in 1993, when Vanderbilt advanced to the Sweet 16 as a number three seed - Vanderbilt has been a six seed twice, a seven seed once, an eight seed once, a nine seed once, and a ten seed once. This will also mark the first time Vanderbilt has faced a #13 seed in the tournament.
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SIENNA
(The Sporting News)This is a classic David vs. Goliath matchup, an SEC team that went to the Sweet 16 last year versus a squad that toils in the MAAC. Siena, a perimeter-oriented team, will attempt to take down Vanderbilt with jump shots rather than sling shots.
Siena game plan: Having beaten Stanford and lost to 2008 NCAA Tournament qualifiers Memphis, Saint Joseph's and Cornell, the Saints won't be in awe of the Commodores. Siena takes good care of the ball (11.1 TOs/game) and shoots 38.3 percent on 3-pointers. To pull the upset, the Saints will need Edwin Ubiles and Kenny Hasbrouck to produce.
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