UCLA started the Men’s NCAA Tournament shorthanded.

Forward Tyler Bilodeau was ruled out just before the Bruins’ first-round matchup against the No. 10 seed UCF Knights. He was listed as questionable on the NCAA injury report prior to East region contest on Saturday, March 20.

Bilodeau sprained his right knee during UCLA’s win over Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament earlier this month.

Bilodeau absence is a blow to the No. 7 seed Bruins. The senior forward is UCLA’s leading scorer, averaging 17.6 points per game. He was selected third-team All-Big Ten this year.

Without Bilodeau, the Bruins will rely on guards Donovan Dent, Trent Perry, Skyy Clark and Eric Dailey Jr. to carry most of the scoring load. All four guards average more than 10 points per game this season.

Bilodeau, a 6-foot-9 senior, played his first two collegiate seasons at Oregon State before transferring to UCLA in 2024.

UCLA is hoping for a deeper run in this year’s NCAA Tournament. The Bruins won their first-round matchup last season against Utah State but were bounced out in the second round by Tennessee.  

UCLA is 23-11 this season and finished sixth in the Big Ten.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tyler Bilodeau out for UCLA vs UCF in March Madness first round

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Family matters at High Point, enough that coach Chelsea Banbury has no problem with assistant Katie Clayman missing the Panthers’ last practice before their NCAA Tournament opener.

It’s March Madness, and Clayman got to watch her husband win his tournament debut Thursday as the High Point men upset No. 5 seed Wisconsin in Portland, Oregon. Clayman spent Friday traveling back across the country to Nashville for the 15th-seeded Panthers’ first-round game Saturday night against No. 2 seed Vanderbilt.

“There’s not any direct flights …,” Banbury said. “I’ve been in touch with her. She’s watching film. I’ve given her a task of what I want to see when she gets here and what to have broken down by the time she is, and we can go around tomorrow and shoot around with the team.”

Of 136 teams, there are 30 schools with both their men’s and women’s teams in the two tournament fields. Flynn Clayman and his wife get to juggle not only coaching duties during March Madness while managing parenting duties for 19-month old son, Quinn.

The High Point women should be done with their opener Saturday night when the High Point men tip off against No. 4 seed Arkansas with a Sweet 16 berth in the West Region on the line.

Banbury said watching the 12th-seeded High Point men pull off the biggest win in program history in the West Region was unbelievable. She watched while packing with her son jumping on the couch and yelling.

“It was awesome,” Banbury said.

The High Point women should be done with their opener Saturday night when the High Point men tip off against No. 4 seed Arkansas with a Sweet 16 berth in the West Region on the line.

Then again, Banbury had her son with her Friday at practice. At High Point, families are around for support.

“She should be there supporting Flynn,” Banbury said. “This was his first NCAA Tournament as a head coach. I couldn’t imagine what she’d be going through if she missed it. It was incredible. She was 100% where she needed. She’ll be here with us and where she needs to be tomorrow.”

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

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Flau’jae Johnson scored 20 points, Mikaylah Williams had 18 points and 10 assists, and No. 2 seed LSU easily surpassed it’s nation-leading scoring average with a 116-58 victory over 15th seed Jacksonville on Friday night in the first round of March Madness.

LSU (28-5), entered the game averaging 94.5 points per game, scored 100 or more for the 15th time this season.

The Tigers also had a season-high 18 steals and finished with a 38-13 advantage in points off of turnovers.

Jada Richard scored 17 points and four steals, and ZaKiyah Johnson added 16 points for the Tigers, who had seven players score at least 10 points. MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 13 points.

Carmaya Bowman scored 14 points and Tatum Brown scored 10 for Jacksonville (24-9), the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament champions, who were making just their second NCAA Tournament appearance.

LSU began the game on a 14-0 run highlighted by Williams’ 3-point play on a fast-break layup as she was fouled and her 3-point shot.

Flau’jae Johnson’s fast-break basket and free throw made it 21-4 less than five minutes into the game.

Bella Hines’ transition 3 made it 27-7 just more than six minutes in and the quarter ended with the Tigers up 34-14.

Jacksonville was able to match LSU nearly basket for basket during much of the second quarter, but still couldn’t get within 20 points.

The Tigers then closed the period with six straight points, capped by ZaKiyah Johnson’s fast-break layup set up by Williams’ steal near mid court, and LSU led 64-36 at halftime.

During the third quarter, Flau’jae Johnson’s 3 ignited a 9-0 run highlighted by Williams’ behind-the-back pass to set up Jada Richard’s fast-break layup. That spurt made it 84-46, and it was 94-48 after Richard’s jumper as the period ended.

The only question after that was how close the Tigers might get to their season high of 126 point in a game at New Orleans in December.

Up next

LSU hosts a second-round game against the winner of Friday night’s matchup between No. 7 seed Texas Tech and 10th seed Villanova.

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

For a few grueling seconds, Mark Pope’s soul left his body, with the Kentucky men’s basketball coach’s sullen facial expression saying it all.

Then, with a flick of the wrist, his star player banked it right back into place.

In one of the more eventful and chaotic four-second sequences in NCAA tournament history, Pope’s Wildcats team gave up a go-ahead 3-pointer to Santa Clara with 2.4 seconds remaining only to immediately respond with a 3 of its own, with Otega Oweh firing it off the glass from just past midcourt as time expired to send the game into overtime and ultimately deliver Kentucky an 89-84 victory in a first-round matchup on Friday, March 20 in St. Louis.

REQUIRED READING: Otega Oweh saved Kentucky’s season Friday. He might have done more than that

While Oweh played the role of hero on a day in which he scored a career-high 35 points, it was Pope’s range of emotions to the waning seconds of regulation that stood as some of the enduring images from the Wildcats’ thrilling triumph.

After Allen Graves buried a 3 for Santa Clara to break a 70-70 tie in the 7-versus-10 matchup, Pope looked out at the court stoically after intently providing defensive instructions to his players only seconds earlier. He remained that way as Oweh’s shot went up and raised his arms in joy after it passed through the net and calmly said “Let’s go” to his players as they passed by him.

Mark Pope’s reaction to Otega Oweh’s sensational game-tying shot 🤯 @KentuckyMBBpic.twitter.com/hn3Kh9L97c

— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 20, 2026

Kentucky went on to outscore Santa Clara 16-11 in the extra period to move on to face No. 2 seed Iowa State in the second round of the tournament on Sunday.

Any fear and disappointment Pope might have felt after Graves’ shot would have been understandable. 

Though Pope, a team captain on Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team, was greeted with excitement when he was hired by his alma mater in 2024, his second squad at the school fell well short of the massive expectations that greeted it. The Wildcats went 21-13 in the regular season and finished ninth in the SEC, despite having a roster worth a reported $22 million. That roster, though, was built in part around a big man coming off a significant injury from the previous season who only appeared in only four games this season (Jayden Quaintance) and a point guard whose poor shooting made him a curious fit for Pope’s 3-heavy offense (Jaland Lowe, who, for good measure, was also severely limited by injuries this season).

Pope guided the Wildcats to a Sweet 16 in his first season in 2024-25 and improved to 46-25 at Kentucky with the win Friday.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mark Pope feels every emotion of March Madness after Otega Oweh game-tying shot

The Atlanta Braves have trimmed their camp roster down to 36 players today after optioning left-handed reliever Dylan Dodd to Triple-A Gwinnett and reassigning top pitching prospect JR Ritchie, catcher Sandy León, utilityman Luke Williams, and outfielders José Azócar and Ben Gamel to their minor league camp.

Dodd, who pitched well out of Atlanta’s bullpen last season, had an option remaining making his chances to stick on the Opening Day roster as the third left-hander in the bullpen an uphill battle due to the organization prioritizing roster flexibility.

The four position players who were reassigned are all big league veterans who have been part of the Braves organization in past seasons, with the exceptions of Gamel. They all inked minor league deals with Atlanta this off-season and could see time with the big league club at some point in 2026 if they stay with the organization.

Gamel has a strong enough Spring Training that Jurickson Profar’s 162-game suspension opened the door slightly for him to open the season with Atlanta.

Ritchie appears to not be part of the Opening Day roster – something that seemed more and more plausible after an impressive showing in Florida. There is still a chance he could open the year in Atlanta, but it seems the Braves will start him in Gwinnett, barring an injury in the final week before the Braves open against the Kansas City Royals on March 27.

Atlanta will have to make 10 more transactions to get the big league roster down to 26 players.

The Colorado Rockies dropped a high-scoring affair yesterday, falling 14–11 to the San Francisco Giants. Willi Castro and Kyle Karros each had two hits to lead the offense, but bullpen struggles proved costly—most notably Seth Halverson, who continued to have a tough spring. 

Tonight in Peoria, the 12–13 Rockies take on the 14–11 Padres, where temps could still be triple digits at first pitch. The roster is now trimmed to 40, and with Opening Day just one week away, the lineup is largely made up of regulars. 

Juan Mejia opens on the mound for Colorado and enters with a 3.38 ERA and four strikeouts across 2.2 innings this spring. He also threw three clean innings for the Dominican Republic in this year’s World Baseball Classic. 

In 2025, Mejia posted a 3.96 ERA across 61.1 innings with 68 strikeouts, showing the ability to miss bats and handle consistent bullpen work. The Rockies view him as a key bullpen piece this year, relying primarily on a fastball/slider combination. 

Nick Pivetta gets the start for San Diego. The 33-year-old right-hander is being counted on to anchor the Padres’ rotation after a standout 2025 season (2.87 ERA, 190 strikeouts over 181 innings).  Pivetta has dealt with minor arm fatigue that pushed back his schedule, and San Diego has been cautious with his workload so far this spring. 

On the field, the results haven’t been sharp — he’s allowed multiple runs in every outing and carries a 7.88 ERA this spring. He works primarily off a four-seam fastball, mixing in a curveball and sweeper as his primary secondaries. 

Sound off in the comments — what are you watching for tonight?  

First Pitch: 7:05 PM MDT  

TV: Rockies.tv, Padres.tv 

Radio: Padres – KWFN 97.3 

Lineups: 

Colorado Rockies at San Diego Padres, March 20, 2026, 6:10 p.m. PST

Watch: Padres.TV

Location: Peoria Sports Complex – Peoria, AZ

Listen: 97.3 The Fan

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ST. LOUIS (AP) — Purdue guard Braden Smith broke former Duke star Bobby Hurley’s Division I assist record, picking up his second of the game and the 1,077th of his career with a feed to Trey Kaufman-Renn with 12:11 to go in the first half of the Boilermakers’ NCAA Tournament game against Queens on Friday night.

The All-American already was the only player in NCAA history with at least 1,500 points, 1,000 assists and 500 career rebounds, and he is one of two players along with Southern’s Avery Johnson to have had at least 300 assists in two different seasons.

“It is surreal,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said during a break in the action. “Happy for him. Really happy for him. He has worked really hard. He’s an unbelievable passer, man. He makes the game look easy at times.”

Last weekend, Smith set the Big Ten Tournament assists record while helping Purdue beat Michigan for the championship.

Smith picked up his first assist for the second-seeded Boilermakers on Friday night on a feed to Oscar Cluff a couple of minutes into their game against the No. 15 seed. But it seemed as if the second might never come when Fletcher Loyer missed a wide-open 3-pointer that would have done it, and Kaufman-Renn missed an even more wide-open jumper from the foul line.

Kaufman-Renn finally converted off Smith’s feed a few minutes later — and all the senior guard did was ever-so-briefly stick a finger in the air as the crowd tilted heavily toward Purdue fans gave him a standing ovation.

Smith was good enough coming out of Westfield High School, located about an hour southeast of West Lafayette and on the northern outskirts of Indianapolis — the site of this year’s Final Four — that he was voted Indiana Mr. Basketball as a senior.

Yet most of his scholarship offers came from the likes of Appalachian State, Belmont and Montana. Purdue was his only high-major at the time of his commitment, though schools such as Indiana, Villanova and Gonzaga had started to pay attention.

Did they ever miss out on a gem.

Smith and fellow Indiana native Loyer arrived on campus in 2022 and joined Painter’s starting lineup from Day 1, which put them at 146 starts and counting by the time they tipped off against Queens on Friday night. Along the way, Smith and Loyer were part of a couple of Big Ten regular-season title teams, a couple Big Ten tourney titles, and reached the 2024 national title game.

They wound up losing to UConn in Glendale, Arizona, to finish as the runner-up for the second time in school history.

Purdue still has never won a title. But that would certainly be quite the capstone to Smith’s career.

He earned 12 first-team votes for AP All-America this week, landing him on the second team. Smith was a first-team pick last year and honorable mention for the 2023-24 season, making him a rare player to receive recognition in three consecutive seasons.

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

San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Dodgers, March 20, 2026, 6:05 p.m. PST

Watch: None

Location: Camelback Ranch – Glendale, AZ

Listen: None

Please remember our Game Day thread guidelines.

• Don’t troll in your comments; create conversation rather than destroying it
• Remember Gaslamp Ball is basically a non-profanity site
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