March Madness tips off today with the first game of the NCAA men's tournament set a tip off in about 15 minutes joining us from Omaha news8 Sports Cory kuffler and Jenna Miner who are getting ready for all covering all the action hey guys hey David how are you yeah business is kind of picked up around here from yesterday when this was a lonely quiet hallway fans starting to come in the first game going to tip off here in just a few minutes but the game we're more focused on around here is the se
cond game of the day yeah Illinois is the three seed in the East Regional and will take on Warhead state in just a couple hours thei I come into the tournament after winning the Big 10 Championship but in the journey to the Big 10 title they ran into some roadblocks each game Illinois was down by double digits and had to keep beating that deficit to win the game Marcus deas says in order to be successful in the NCAA tournament that's something they need to fix see we don't like to get down doubl
e digits but I think if there's one thing about this team is just we're going to keep fighting you know no matter how we start no matter what the the middle looks like at the end we're going to fight uh so just our ability to to come together during timeouts and and continue to to push through no matter what's going on I think that's what this team has and that's what could could give us some wins [Music] here Illinois will take on Morhead state in the second game here in Omaha and of course the
other game that we're focused on is the Iowa State Cyclones they are the first game of the night session tipping off around 6:35 tonight and the Cyclones they have relied on defense all year and they hope to do the same when it comes to the NCAA tournament it worked well for them in the Big 12 tournament as they shut out or they blew out Houston and the one thing that they do well is they cause turnovers about 17 per game and they only allow about 57 points per game per team they say that commi
tment on the defensive side of the floor transitions to what they want to do offensively defense is our number one focus on the court and uh obviously we we translate that into our offense and uh that helps us to score with fast break points and things like that but um just taking pride in our defense and um knowing that not all teams like to play defense but we're one of those teams that that enjoys it and we like to get after people and uh make it harder for them and Iowa State we'll play San
Diego South Dakota State excuse me a team that TJ alberger is very familiar with and of course Illinois and Morehead State the second game here at the chi Health Center in Omaha fans rolling in we've seen a lot of cyclones and AI ey fans so we'll talk to them and see what they think about today's games as well but for now live in Omaha from Jen minor I'm Cory cuffer David we'll send it back to you all right thanks guys and make sure you stick with news8 as we'll be covering all of this on wqad.c
om and our news8 app as well as our newscasts
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