5:10: Would you expect anything less from two teams named the Terriers and the Badgers? Wisconsin outlasts Woffford by four. Pitt still leads Oakland by 15 with five minutes to play, Clemson wins battle of Tigers by a dozen. My next upset special is on the court with Utah State and Texas A&M; under way. Aggies up one early



5 p.m: Down to the wire we go. Wofford still leads Badgers by one with 2 and change left. White-knuckle tight in Madison. Clemson trying to creep close in final minute



4:37: President Obama and I take it on the chin as Siena falls to Hummel-less Boilers. Guess I can consider myself lucky, nailed Murray State Thursday, have to take this one like a man. Focus turns to Wofford-Wisconsin. Terriers lead by a bucket midway through the second half. Pitt stepping on Oakland's throat, up 18 and Missouri's Tigers up 10 on Clemson's Tigers.



4:28: Siena making a final charge, down five with 1:20ish to play. Another upset alert as Wofford rallies from big deficit to take one-point lead on Wisconsin midway through the second half.



3:55: Purdue comes tearing out of the gates in the second half, opening the final minutes on a 20-5 run. They Boilermakers now lead upset special Siena by a dozen with 14 minutes to play. Awakened by fresh blood, Pittsburgh stomps on the gas and leaves Oakland on the side of the road, leading by 12 late in the first half.



3:52: We have called off the search party. Temple alum Todd Stanford has arrived in the office, a touch frustrated and disappointed, needless to say.



3:45: Beauty in Milwaukee. Oakland, shooting 27.8 % from the from floor, leads Pittsburgh, shooting 31.2 %, 18-17 late in the first half. Without Robbie Hummel, Purdue up 10 on Siena (so much for that upset pick); As should be the case Tigers (Mizzou) and Tigers (Clemson) are tied at the half and Wisconsin is up eight on Wofford in waning moments of the first half.



3:35: Now we've got blood. Pittsburgh's Gary McGhee just flattened an Oakland player with an elbow (an accident). By the time hewent to the floor, blood was already dripping onto the hardwood. Oakland does lead by three.



3:22: Someone from Wofford might want to cover Wisconsin guard Trevon Hughes. Right now Trevon Hughes leads Wofford 10-6. The Badgers lead 12-6.

Tigers of Clemson lead Tigers of Mizzou by a basket with less than 6 to play in first half.



3:10 p.m.: Favorite tourney tweet of the day (so far): Dana O'Neil at SI.com: "Mizzou fans chanting "Let's Go Tigers.'' Uh, that won't work. They're the Tigers too."



2:57: Yeah, Siena, storming back to take 20-17 lead with less than seven to play in first half. Clemson Tigers-Missouri Tigers just tipped. Oakland-Pitt and Wofford-Wisconsin soon to tip.



2:45: How was Cornell a 12? Tell me if they played Notre Dame, they wouldn't have won by twice the 13-points they just smoked Temple by? Bracket survives another upset, now my hopes are pinned on Siena.

With its win over Temple, Cornell is the first Ivy League team to win tourney game since Princeton in 1998.



2:18: Watching Cornell dismantle Temple in the second half (Red lead by 17 with 5:30 to play), don't forget this is a team Bucknell took to overtime. They are team built for this with a bunch of a seniors who can shoot and a hammer inside. If they finish this off, they could meet another terrific defensive team in the second round (Wisconsin) and you have to like their chances they way they are playing right now.

WVU finishes off Morgan State 77-50, Xavier up 10 with 3 to play with Siena and Purdue to tip off at 2:30.



2:10: After struggling from 3 in the first half, Cornell is heating up. Wittman now has four 3-pointers (and 20 points) as the Big Red lead 63-48 with nine minutes to play. Xavier up nine with five left and West Virginia has advanced to second round, even though there is still four minutes to play (Mountaineers up 30).



2:02: CBS, showing it is on top of things as usual, gave Xavier' Jordan Crawford some love for leading X to an 8-point lead on Minnesota. The love? They showed the video of Crawford dunking on LeBron James at a camp last summer, the vid that "King James" wanted stolen and stored away in Al Gore's lock box.



1:50: Ridiculous stat No. 2: Temple is shooting 60 percent from the field...and losing... for now. The Owls have trimmed it to seven with more than 14 minutes to play.



1:45: Remember when Morgan State was up 10-0? Well they are down 56-32 now. That's a 56-22 run all those scoring at home. Kevin Jones is 8-of-9 from the field for 17 points, and also has six boards. Cornell up 10 on Temple early in second half and Xavier is four clear of Tubby Smith's Golden Gophers.

The time when things got crazy yesterday -- the final of the first set of games -- is nearly upon us.



1:34: Cornell's Big 3 of Louis Dale, Ryan Wittman and Jeff Foote are a combined 9-of-12 from the field, 9-of-10 from the line for 29 points as Big Red lead Owls 37-29 at the break. Somewhere Todd Stanford (at Temple alum) is bumming, but he must remember the Owls' grid team played in a bowl (A BOWL!) for crying out loud.



1:20: The first ridiculous stat of the day: Temple ranks fourth in the country in FG defense and right now Cornell is shooting 68.4 percent from the field.



1:10: West Virginia has pushed its lead to double-figures at the half. Since the 10-deficit to start, WVU has outscored Morgan State 38-17. Temple back within five. Owls holding one of the nation's top 3-point shooting teams to 2-of-7 from arc, but the Big Red is 10-of-11 from 2-pt range.



12:57: WVU forward Kevin Jones is taking over. He has scored 11 points in the first half on 5-of-5 shoot as the WVU Huggins' stormed back to take a 6-point lead. So much for the Morgan State feel-good story. Cornell smothering Temple, up 22-11.



12:47: Note from SI.com. Temple coach Fran Dunphy is 22-1 against his former assistants and Cornell boss Steve Donohue will try to buck that trend. Donohue coached for 10 years under Dunphy at Penn. So far so good, Big Red up eight at under 12 media timeout. Mountaineers have drawn even with Morgan State, now 21-21.



12:40: All three early games under way. Morgan State still up seven on WVU; Cornell up one on Temple and Minnesota leads Xavier by a bucket.



12:35: Quick update on NCAA wrestling. Bucknell's David Marble and Kevin LeValley both won in the consolations to stay alive. Senior Andy Rendos lost 7-2 in the quarterfinals to Wisconsin's unbeaten Andrew Howe, the top-ranked wrestler in the nation at 165. Rendos needs just one victory to earn All-America honors for the second year in a row.



12:32: Thank you CBS for getting right to Temple-Cornell. The game I wanted to see more than any other one in the opening round. Cornell is one of those scary mid-major teams that have a bunch of guys who have played together for four years. That's why team's like this Cornell team and the Bucknell teams from the middle fo the decade could play with the big boys, because they are senior-laden. And it sure doesn't hurt to have a 7-footer in the middle.



12:27: Here we go again? No. 15 seed Morgan State roars out of gate on No. 2 West Virginia, scoring the game's first 10 points.



12:15 p.m.: Games are about to tip off. In case you forgot, Thursday was the five-year anniversary of the day Bucknell slayed Kansas in Oklahoma City. The Jayhawks outlasted PL champ Lehigh last night, on the same floor where Chris McNaughton's bucket sunk Rock-Chalk-Jayhawk.

Several members of that team/coaching staff are going strong. Kevin Bettencourt, who scored 19 points in that win, is now an assistant at DII Bentley, which is playing in the Elite 8. Three of Pat Flannery's assistants are also still carrying the banner.

Mark Prosser is an assistant at Wofford, which takes on Wisconsin today while Jamion Christian is an assistant at William & Mary, which played in the CAA title game and the NIT this year.

Then you have Nathan Davis, who is his first season as a head coach at Randolph-Macon in the Division III Final Four. RM takes on Wisconsin-Stevens Point in one semifinal tonight while Williams (Dave Paulsen's old school) and Guilford meet in the other semifinal.



11:10 a.m.: Settling in for another long day. If it is like anything like yesterday, we are all in for a big, big treat. Looking forward to the Cornell-Temple game. I love Cornell, but both they and Temple got cruddy draws and ended up together. Before I saw the bracket, I thought they each had a chance to go far.

Plus, I have a soft spot for the Big Red because they were source of my favorite quote from this season. Bucknell coach Dave Paulsen, after his team lost in OT to Cornell, said that Southern grad Colin Klebon "was instrumental in us holding Cornell to 104 points last night."

Priceless.

Other games to watch today: Michigan State-New Mexico State; Gonzaga-Florida State; Texas A&M-Utah; State (my upset special of the day) and Purdue-Siena (another primo spot for an upset)