Below are the updated tip times for Saturday's action. For the second games being played at one of the four venues, the tipoff time may be pushed back depending on the length of the first game. Usually, the second game of a double header at one of the four locations tips off  2 hours 30 minutes- 3 hours after the first game. Best of luck to your team and your bracket.

"Round 3"

Sunday, MARCH 20 (12:00 Noon-12:00 AM, ET)- All Times are ET.

12:15 PM     CBS    Charlotte      (2) North Carolina vs. (7) Washington  -   Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg, Tracy Wolfson

2:45 PM       CBS    Charlotte      (1)  Duke vs. (8) Michigan -  Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg, Tracy Wolfson

5:15 PM       CBS    Cleveland    (1) Ohio State vs. (8) George Mason -   Gus Johnson, Len Elmore, Marty Snider

6:10 PM       TNT      Tulsa           (4) Texas vs. (5) Arizona -  Marv Albert, Steve Kerr, Craig Sager

7:10 PM       TBS     Chicago      (3) Purdue vs. (11) VCU - Spero Dedes, Bob Wenzel, Jamie Maggio

7:45 PM      Tru TV Cleveland    (3) Syracuse vs. (11) Marquette -   Gus Johnson, Len Elmore, Marty Snider

8:40 PM       TNT      Tulsa           (1) Kansas vs. (9) Illinois - Marv Albert, Steve Kerr, Craig Sager

9:40PM       TBS      Chicago      (2) Notre Dame vs. (10) Florida State - Spero Dedes, Bob Wenzel, Jamie Maggio

Gus Johnson thrives in announcing the dramatic plays, back and forth battles, and endings. When calling a rather lackluster game, it's just not the same experience. But when given a gem of a game, it's the best home viewing experience a sports fan can have. 

Today, the stars aligned as George Mason staged a late comeback to beat Villanova. The final five minutes were put on a tee for Johnson to showcase his uncanny style and pace that has made him a fan favorite and staple of March Madness. If you can re-watch later, the game, in addition to Johnson's announcing, is probably worth watching. 

In the end, it came down to the final few seconds and Johnson delivered by putting his stamp on the game with a great classic call. Vintage Gus. Vintage March Madness

With March Madness comes a great opportunity for a new Create the Caption.  Last time, we featured the one and only Charlie Sheen, back when he was actually a big deal.  The winner was ismusbe with, "When I need that 3'oclock afternoon pick me up on my 7th day of coke binging, I turn to kookoo for cocoa milk! Keeps my tiger blood pumping..its Grrrrrreat!"  Thanks for participating!  Today's CtC comes from the best upset of yesterday and Morehead State's victory over Louisville.  Lots of fun places to go with this one.  The picture comes from Deadspin...

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Links of Madness 

The first night of the tournament was a great success for the NCAA and the quadrilateral of networks that televised them.  They had their best ratings in 20 years.  [Washington Examiner]

The pilot of Mark Schlereth's TV show is out.  Again, this looks like a reaaaaaal winner.  [Deadspin] 

In other horrifying TV news.  Damon Wayans will play Cowherd's character in his sitcom.  Maybe that's a convenient way to step around the racist things Cowherd said about John Wall.  [Yahoo] 

This lockout stuff is serious - Ocho is trying out for an MLS team [KC Star] and Donovan McNabb is moonlighting as a college basketball analyst.  [DC Sports Bog]

MLS' season opener was way up in the ratings department.  In other news, look for an AA Q&A with the top soccer blogger on the web coming up very soon.  [SMW]

Finally, here's a nice feature on Celtics broadcasters Mike Gorman and Tommy Heinsohn celebrating their 30 years in the booth together.  We had the privilege of talking to Mike this week in a great interview.  [Boston Globe]
 

Below are the updated tip times for Saturday's action. For the second games being played at one of the four venues, the tipoff time may be pushed back depending on the length of the first game. Usually, the second game of a double header at one of the four locations tips off  2 hours 30 minutes- 3 hours after the first game. Best of luck to your team and your bracket.

"Round 3"

SATURDAY, MARCH 19 (12:00 Noon-12:00 AM, ET)- All Times are ET.

12:15 PM     CBS    Tampa      (4) Kentucky vs. (5) West Virginia-   Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, David Aldridge

2:45 PM      CBS      Tampa     (2) Florida vs. (7) UCLA -   Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, David Aldridge

5:15 PM       CBS     Denver     (12) Richmond vs. (13) Morehead St-  Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Lesley Visser

6:10 PM       TNT      Tucson     (2) San Diego St. vs. (7) Temple -   Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Dan Bonner, Sam Ryan

7:10 PM       TBS       DC           (1) Pittsburgh vs. (8) Butler-   Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Lewis Johnson

7:45 PM       CBS      Denver    (3) BYU vs. (10) Gonzaga -  Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Lesley Visser

8:40 PM       TNT      Tucson     (4) Wisconsin vs. (5) Kansas State -  Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Dan Bonner, Sam Ryan

9:40 PM       TBS      DC            (3) UConn vs. (6) Cincannati -   Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Lewis Johnson

This is unreal.  5 March Madness games down.  No less than 4 have been won on shots in the last five seconds.  The latest entrant is Brandon Knight's first field goal of the game coming at the most important time.  Here's his game-winner for Kentucky with two seconds left against Princeton and Ian Eagle with a great call.  We're on pace for the most exciting March Madness ever!  We've got to have something saved for Gus tomorrow, right?

Quite the morning session on the real opening day of the tourney. Here is the thrilling end to the Temple vs. Penn State game as called by Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller. Probably just the way they drew it up

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Morehead (heh) shocked the fighting Pitino's in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. You can tell Bill Raftery is already in mid-tournament form with the emphatic "ONIONS!" call in this clip.

[Video Via Mocksession]

Type your random exclamations! March Madness is back and we had our first buzzer-beater coming in just before 3 p.m. eastern time of Day 1. Not bad. Here's the Tim Brando with his call of Butler's last-second layup for the win over Old Dominion [video via Bubbaprog]:

Happy St. Patty's Day!  Grab yourself a Guinness and have fun with all the action of the NCAA Tournament.  Thankfully, both of my grad school classes were cancelled today and I'm now on Spring Break!  That means 12 hours of couch potatoing it up, watching March Madness, and praying that Belmont and Mizzou come through and get to the Sweet 16.  Here's the entire schedule of today's games with announcing assignments, start times, and networks to guide you throughout the day.

Thursday, March 17

12:15, Tampa: (5) West Virginia vs. (12) UAB/Clemson (CBS) -- Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, David Aldridge

12:40, Wash D.C.: (8) Butler vs. (9) Old Dominion (truTV) -- Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Lewis Johnson

1:40, Denver: (4) Louisville vs. (13) Morehead St. (TBS) -- Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Lesley Visser

2:10, Tucson: (7) Temple vs. (10) Penn State (TNT) -- Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Dan Bonner, Sam Ryan

2:45, Tampa: (4) Kentucky vs. (13) Princeton (CBS) -- Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, David Aldridge

3:10, Wash D.C.: (1) Pittsburgh vs. (16) UNC Ash./UALR (truTV) -- Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Lewis Johnson

4:10, Denver: (5) Vanderbilt vs. (12) Richmond (TBS) --Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Lesley Visser

4:40, Tucson: (2) San Diego State vs. (15) Northern Colorado (TNT) -- Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Dan Bonner, Sam Ryan

6:50, Tampa: (2) Florida vs. (15) UC Santa Barbara (TBS) --Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, David Aldridge

7:15, Denver: (3) BYU vs. (14) Wofford (CBS) --Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Lesley Visser

7:20, Wash D.C.: (3) UConn vs. (14) Bucknell (TNT) -- Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Lewis Johnson

7:27, Tucson: (4) Wisconsin vs. (13) Belmont (truTV) -- Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Dan Bonner, Sam Ryan

Leave us some comments throughout the day in this open thread on how your bracket is doing, buzzer beaters, games to watch, and any announcing snafus or great moments that you may hear on this first real day of the NCAA Tournament.  Also, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook by clicking on the links there or at the right side of the page.  Enjoy the day!
 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Boston Celtics play by play man Mike Gorman.  Mike is one half of the longest running announcing duo in televised sports with Celtics Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn.  In fact, the pair are being honored before tonight's home game against the Pacers with a ceremony commemorating their 30 years together in the booth on "Mike & Tommy Night" at the Garden.  Mike is one of the best play by play men in the NBA and in all of pro sports and has covered many events in his career including Celtics basketball, the NCAA Tournament, and the Olympics.  In this interview, Mike talks with Awful Announcing about his longstanding partnership with Tommy Heinsohn, how he broke into broadcasting, being the voice of the Celtics for 30 years, and just how much longer he and Tommy plan on staying behind the mics.

Q: Why were you interested in being a sportscaster and how did you get your break with the Celtics?

A: I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got out of college.  I was in the Navy for 5 years and when I got out of the Navy, I still wasn't sure what to do.  I always flirted with the idea of being a sports announcer.  I ended up getting a job in New Bedford changing tapes and eventually worked my way onto the AM side and started with high school sports.  I went out and started doing high school baseball, basketball, golf, you name it we did it.

Somebody heard me in Providence and called me up one morning and asked if I wanted to be a stringer on their morning news.  I started doing some sportscasting because they didn't have a sportscaster and eventually moved over to WPRO radio and said to the general manager, "we should do sports."  He said, "if you can sell them, we'll do them."  We went out and we started doing URI basketball and that was my first chance to do a Division I college basketball team on the radio...  then the television station in Providence had a weekend anchor job open and I got it, and they had a contract to do 5 Providence College games a year on TV.  

I was there about 2 months and ended up getting the Monday-Friday job and with that got the play by play of Providence College basketball on television, and that's where Tommy Heinsohn and I first worked together...  Prism was one of the first regional pay telecast groups and they opened up a Prism New England and got the rights to the Celtics home games.  They hired Tommy to be the color guy and asked him who do you think should be the play by play guy and he's like, "I got this guy down in Providence I think you'd like."  I got the job. 

Q: What does it mean to you and Tommy to be the voices of the Celtics for the last 30 years and have such a special relationship with Celtics fans?

A: It's very flattering more than anything else.  That's a long time for people to accept you.  The first 15 years that I did the job I only did the home games... how could you not like me and Tommy?  The Celts won every single time we were on the air!  Their home record in the 80's was unbelievable.  I learned early on in my career, if you broadcast a really good team, you have to work to screw it up.  I was very fortunate - Larry Bird and I started the same year.  How's that for good luck on my part?

Q: How would you describe the style of broadcast that you and Tommy put together?  

A: (Laughs)... here's the thing, this is a true story.  The very first Celtic game I did with Tommy, I reach into this briefcasey thing I'm carrying with me and I pull out this sheet where I've got the rosters of both sides.  I've got names, I've got numbers, scoring averages, little one and two word clues, anecdotal stories to tell about all these guys, history, where they went to college, how many people they got in their family - you name it, I got it written on that little sheet.

Tommy looks at that and says to me, "what's that?"  And I said, "that's the stuff I'm going to use during the game."  And he reaches over, he turns the thing upside down and says, "we're not going to need that."  And we haven't for 30 years...

(On his broadcast partner Tommy Heinsohn)

You talk about unique, 8 championships as a player, 2 as a coach, another 30 years as a broadcaster all with the same franchise.  It's a remarkable career.  Tommy's life has been basketball... he was an outstanding coach, and should be in the Hall of Fame as a coach actually as well as a player.  Tommy wanted to just do the game as it took place in front of him - to sit down, let the game happen, and react to what you see.  And that really has been how we've done it for 30 years and fortunately for us, it's worked.