PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Anfernee Simons scored 12 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter, Toumani Camara finished with 21 and the Portland Trail Blazers rallied from a 16-point deficit to beat the Toronto Raptors 105-102 on Sunday to snap a five-game skid.

Portland made 18 3-pointers, with Simons hitting six — four in the fourth quarter — and Camara tied his career high with five.

Deni Avdija finished with 19 points, including two free throws that capped the scoring with 5.1 seconds left, six rebounds and six assists. Shaedon Sharpe scored 17 for the Trail Blazers.

Jakob Poeltl and Ochai Agbaji scored 19 points apiece for the Raptors. Scottie Barnes finished with 16 points, six rebounds, six assists — including a pass from beyond halfcourt to Agbaji for an alley-oop layup — and six steals.

Takeaways

Raptors: Portland’s Matisse Thybulle blocked a 3-pointer by Toronto’s Orlando Robinson that could have tied the game in the closing seconds.

Trail Blazers: Thybulle made a season debut after an ankle injury kept him sidelined for the first 66 games. Thybulle, who led the Trail Blazers in steals (1.7 per game) last season, finished with two rebounds and two steals.

Key moment

After Camara scored in the paint to give the Trail Blazers their first lead since 2-0, Avdija knifed into the lane, was fouled as he threw down a dunk over the 6-foot-10 Robinson. He hit the free throw to cap a 13-0 run and make it 99-95 with 2:06 left and Portland led the rest of the way.

Key stat

Each team grabbed 19 rebounds but the Trail Blazers outscored Toronto 25-18 in second-chance points.

Up next

The Raptors take on the Suns in Phoenix and the Trail Blazers play host to the Washington Wizards on Monday.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews

Rick Pitino’s latest rebuilding project will take him to Providence, where he pulled off one of the biggest surprises in March Madness history by leading the Friars to the 1987 Final Four.

His road to another potential Final Four with St. John’s will be littered with some of the biggest coaching names in the game, including one who followed him during a successful run at Kentucky.

Pitino will be joined in Rhode Island by Kansas’ Bill Self and Arkansas’ John Calipari, putting three Hall of Fame coaches together in one site at the bottom of the West Region bracket. Add in UConn’s Dan Hurley, who has led the Huskies to consecutive national championships, and that’s quite a coaching roster in the West.

St. John’s opens against Omaha, while Calipari and Self will face off in a matchup of coaches who have combined for three national championships and more than 1,600 wins.

“I told my staff a week ago: you watch, 7 vs. 10, we’ll be playing Arkansas,” Self said on Sunday. “Ask any of them.”

Pitino has done what he does best at St. John’s by orchestrating a quick turnaround.

The 72-year-old coach pushed St. John’s back into national prominence in his second season, leading the Red Storm to their first Big East tournament title since 2000. Pitino had a similar impact in stops at Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville and Iona to become the first coach to lead six different programs to the NCAA Tournament.

“I saved the best for last,” Pitino said after St. John’s beat Creighton 82-66 in the Big East title game Saturday night.

Pitino had some of his greatest successes at Kentucky, where he led the Wildcats to the 1996 national championship and a Final Four the next year before leaving for rival Louisville. He led the Cardinals to a national championship in 2013 before being fired for recruiting violations.

Kentucky won a national championship in its first season under Tubby Smith, who spent nine seasons in Lexington before being replaced by Billy Gillespie. When the Wildcats missed the NCAA Tournament in 2009, they turned to Calipari after he led Massachusetts and Memphis on unexpected runs to the Final Four.

Calipari led Kentucky to the 2012 national championship and three Final Fours before packing his bags for Arkansas, where he led the Razorbacks back to the NCAA Tournament after missing the bracket in their last season under Eric Musselman, now USC’s coach.

“I’ve done this a long time and this may be the most rewarding season for me because they are a bunch of good kids that struggled early,” Calipari said.

Calipari’s career began as a graduate assistant at Kansas, where Self has kept one of college basketball’s bluebloods a deep shade of blue.

The former Illinois coach led the Jayhawks to the national championship in his third season in 2009 and added another in 2022. Kansas is the No. 7 seed in the West Region and Arkansas is No. 10, the winner potentially getting a shot at Pitino’s Red Storm.

“It will be a fun, competitive game,” Self said of facing Arkansas. “I know we’ll have to play really well to win and I believe they’ll have to play well to win, too.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

UC San Diego coach Eric Olen knew that his team would be good this season.

This good? Maybe not quite.

The Tritons were playing Division II ball just five years ago, when the pandemic shut down its tournament and may have kept his team from winning a national championship. The school began the transition to Division I the following year, and in its first season of NCAA Tournament eligibility, the Tritons punched their ticket by winning the Big West Tournament title.

All of that is reason for rapture in Southern California. And reason for worry in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Tritons were rewarded with the No. 12 seed in the South Region, where they will face Big Ten Tournament champion Michigan in one of those testy 5-12 matchups that always seem to bust some brackets early.

“It’s been a pretty special season, you know?” said Olen, who took over UC San Diego in 2013, when it was a mediocre DII program. “These guys deserve all the recognition that has come their way. I knew we’d have a good team. I knew we’d be good. But his has been, you know, beyond my expectations of what was possible, to be in this situation, to play at this level for so long this season.”

The Tritons have won 15 consecutive games, so they will be taking plenty of momentum into their matchup with Michigan on Thursday in Denver. And lest anyone think they will be intimidated, remember this: They took No. 11 seed San Diego State down to the wire in one of their only four losses this season,

“Teams don’t just win 30 games by accident,” said UC San Diego guard Hayden Gray, a finalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Award. “We’re going to go out there with confidence. See if they can stop us.”

It’ll be a tall task for the Tritons, literally and figuratively. Michigan will have a huge size advantage in 7-foot-1 center Vladislav Goldin and 7-foot big man Danny Wolf, and coach Dusty May’s team is just as hot as UC San Diego. It toppled three straight Top 25 teams in Purdue, Maryland and Wisconsin to cut down the nets at the Big Ten Tournament.

Still, there have been 55 times in which the No. 12 seed triumphed since the NCAA Tournament field expanded in 1985, including twice last year, when James Madison beat Wisconsin and Grand Canyon knocked off Saint Mary’s.

“The process doesn’t change. It’s still going to be the same things up on the board there before the game,” the Tritons’ Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones said. “We’re just going to go out and do what we do.”

West Region

Much like Michigan, Memphis was probably hoping for a much better seed after winning the American Athletic tourney, but it got stuck with the dreaded No. 5 seed and a first-round matchup with Colorado State, the winner of the Mountain West Tournament.

The Tigers, who are led by All-American candidate PJ Haggerty, proved they can beat anyone when they beat NCAA Tournament teams Michigan State, Clemson, Missouri, Ole Miss and UConn. But coach Anfernee Hardaway’s crew also showed they can lose to just about anyone, such as Arkansas State and Temple.

“What an incredible story,” said Colorado State coach Niko Medved, whose team will face the Tigers on Friday in Seattle. “This team, the legacy of this team, will live on forever. Just resilience and staying together. Believing in something that’s bigger than yourself and not getting ahead of yourself.”

East Region

Oregon earned its No. 5 seed by having one of the strangest rollercoaster seasons of any high-major: The Ducks won 12 of their first 13 games, beating Texas A&M and Alabama along the way, then endured a five-game skid in Big Ten play, before running off an eight-game winning streak that ended with a loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament.

The Ducks now get a game Friday against No. 12 seed Liberty, which won the Conference USA tourney but has not played a single Quad 1 opponent this season.

Midwest Region

Will Wade has No. 12 seed McNeese back in the NCAA tourney for a second consecutive year, and its first-round foe should be awfully familiar: Clemson, where Wade worked as a student manager and started his career as a graduate assistant. The No. 5 seed Tigers, who won 18 games in the ACC, will play the Cowboys on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

The Ohio State women’s basketball team is going dancing for March Madness again after finishing in a tie for third place in the Big Ten this season. It is the fourth straight year head coach Kevin McGuff has steered his team to the NCAA Tournament, even after having to significantly retool after last season.

The Buckeyes received a No. 4 seed and will face No. 13 seed Montana State in the first round of the Birmingham Region on Saturday in Columbus. The Buckeyes started the season on fire, winning their first 17 games before dropping a hard-fought game at Penn State on January 19 by a score of 62-59. From there, Ohio State continued to play well but didn’t have quite the success as it got into Big Ten play where it had to contend with two of the best teams in the country out in L.A, with USC and UCLA making life difficult on everyone.

Still, OSU finished third in the Big Ten but got knocked out of the Big Ten Tournament by UCLA in the semifinals after holding off Iowa in the quarterfinals.

WE’RE DANCING 💃

— Ohio State Women’s Basketball (@OhioStateWBB) March 17, 2025

Ohio State doesn’t appear to be as good as it was the last couple of seasons, but you have to have a ticket to the party to have a shot at making a deep run and creating some noise in March Madness. When the Buckeyes’ defense is being disruptive, it can play with anyone. It’ll need to find a way to channel the ability to guard and force turnovers to get the offensive end going and get into the second week of the tournament.

As OSU gets things going, we’ll continue to bring you analysis and reaction of all of the action here at Buckeyes Wire.

This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Ohio State women to face Montana State in 2025 NCAA Tournament bracket

Vanderbilt basketball is making its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2017.

The No. 10 seed Commodores (20-12) will face No. 7 seed Saint Mary’s (28-5) in their opening game in Cleveland. That game will be held at 2:15 p.m. Friday on truTV.

In five seasons under Jerry Stackhouse, Vanderbilt did not qualify for the NCAA tournament. The Commodores also did not qualify in the final two years under Bryce Drew. In its last tournament appearance in 2017, Vanderbilt was a No. 9 seed that lost to No. 8 seed Northwestern in the first round.

Now, first-year coach Mark Byington has taken the Commodores to the tournament.

HOW TO WATCH VANDERBILT BASKETBALL IN NCAA TOURNAMENT

The last Sweet 16 appearance for the Commodores was in 2007. They have one Elite Eight in program history, in 1965.

What time does Vanderbilt play Saint Mary’s in 2025 NCAA Tournament?

Date: Friday, March 21.

Game time: 2:15 p.m.

JASON EDWARDS Why Jason Edwards transferred to Vanderbilt basketball to put ‘world on notice’

What channel is Vanderbilt vs St. Mary’s in NCAA tournament first round?

Channel:truTV.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.

We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt vs Saint Mary’s game time, TV: March Madness first round

March Madness has officially arrived in full force after Selection Sunday’s seedings of the 68 schools who will participate in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

The Florida Gators earned the top seed in the West Region after a stellar regular season that culminated in an SEC Tournament championship. The Orange and Blue is easily the hottest team in the nation right now and peaking at the perfect time.

Todd Golden’s gang opens up the Big Dance with a matchup against the No. 16-seed Norfolk State Spartans, who earned an automatic qualifier by seizing the MEAC title, defeating the Howard Bison in the conference championships. Take a look below at what you need to know about their upcoming face-off.

What time does Florida play Norfolk State in 2025 NCAA Tournament? 

The Gators are set to face off with the Spartans on Friday, March 21, in Raleigh, North Carolina, with tipoff time slated for 6:50 p.m. ET.

What channel is Florida vs Norfolk State in March Madness first round?

Florida vs Norfolk State will broadcast nationally on TNT for the NCAA Tournament’s first round on Friday. Ian Eagle, Bill Rafferty and Grant Hill will call the game inside Reynolds Coliseum, with Tracy Wolfson reporting from the sidelines.

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida vs Norfolk State game time, TV: March Madness first round

A few weeks ago, Notre Dame was the No. 1 team in women’s basketball and certainly never thought it would slip to a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But a 2-3 finish to the season and not even reaching the ACC Tournament title game made that happen.

The Irish will host the first two rounds of March Madness for the third straight season. Their first-round opponent will be Stephen F. Austin, the No. 14 seed in the Birmingham 3 regional. A win over the Ladyjacks, whom they haven’t played before, will allow them to play either Michigan or the winner of a First Four game between Iowa State and Princeton.

It’s hard to blame the selection committee for having reservations about the Irish after the late-season slump. Still, the Irish can use this as motivation, and having a lot of time off between games only can help this talented group:

The bracket is set. The Big Dance begins.

Tickets available at https://t.co/l7Pp7CfYbG#GoIrishpic.twitter.com/lAERIybUCn

— Notre Dame Women’s Basketball (@ndwbb) March 17, 2025

The best part of March has arrived. Time to savor it.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on X: @gfclark89

More: FIW Exclusive: Interview with Notre Dame hoops star Hannah Hidalgo

More: Notre Dame drops in AP Poll for third straight week, down to No. 8

More: Notre Dame has two finalists for the John R. Wooden Award

This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Notre Dame to open March Madness 2025 vs. Stephen F. Austin