[DC 86]

Friday game...ESPN+? 
What the hell.

My wild guess is that if the number two ranked team in the country were from east of the Mississippi, the game would be on ESPN2.

Extremely unlikely since only one first round game from any of the 16 regions is being shown on ESPN2 and that's UCLA/Florida State, a good matchup consisting of the 2/3 seeds in the Auburn region, involving two recognizable names (one of them from the Pac-12 as it turns out).

13 of the 16 first round games involving the top seeds are on ESPN+, since those are expected to be less competitive games. ESPNU is only showing four first round games and three of them involve western teams (Oregon State, Arizona, San Diego). Stanford vs Binghamton (22-28 record this year) was never going to be on one of their linear networks, regardless of geography.

[DC 86]

Friday game...ESPN+? 
What the hell.

My wild guess is that if the number two ranked team in the country were from east of the Mississippi, the game would be on ESPN2.

Extremely unlikely since only one first round game from any of the 16 regions is being shown on ESPN2 and that's UCLA/Florida State, a good matchup consisting of the 2/3 seeds in the Auburn region, involving two recognizable names (one of them from the Pac-12 as it turns out).

13 of the 16 first round games involving the top seeds are on ESPN+, since those are expected to be less competitive games. ESPNU is only showing four first round games and three of them involve western teams (Oregon State, Arizona, San Diego). Stanford vs Binghamton (22-28 record this year) was never going to be on one of their linear networks, regardless of geography.