NCAA Opening Round: Wagner’s First Dance and a Vermont Team Nobody Wants to Face
The NCAA tournament doesn’t ease you in. It starts on Wednesday with two win-or-go-home games, and both of them have a proper story attached.
Fairfield against Wagner is the first one, 2pm ET in College Park, Maryland. Wagner are the fairytale here. This is the Seahawks’ first ever NCAA postseason appearance, and they earned it the hard way, beating Sacred Heart 3-2 in overtime to win their first NEC title on Saturday. They’d already shut out Rider 2-0 in the semifinal. A programme that has never been here before, one game away from a Friday date with No. 2 seed Maryland on their own turf. That’s the prize, and it’s a big one.
Fairfield stand in the way. The Stags won their conference the same weekend, and they’ve been here before. They know what this stage feels like, and that experience counts for something when the game gets tight late on. Wagner have the momentum and the nothing-to-lose energy, Fairfield have the know-how. Should be a cracker.
Vermont’s reward is a trip to Evanston
The second game, Saint Joseph’s against Vermont, starts at 3pm ET at Northwestern’s Lakeside Field. Vermont are 14-5 and fresh off their second America East title, won in a shootout against UAlbany on Sunday. They’ve had two days to enjoy it. Now they fly to Chicago to face a Saint Joseph’s side that has made winning its conference look routine.
The Hawks are 11-9 and they’ve just won a sixth straight Atlantic 10 title, beating Richmond in a shootout on Saturday. That’s their ninth NCAA appearance and their sixth in a row. They know this tournament inside out.
The two teams have never played each other, so there’s no form guide to lean on. What we do know is that Vermont’s shootout win over Albany showed a team that doesn’t panic, and Saint Joseph’s have built their whole season on grinding out tight games. The winner gets the toughest assignment in college hockey on Friday: No. 1 seed Northwestern, the defending national champions, at 1pm ET.
What Friday looks like
The winners from Wednesday slot straight into Friday’s first round, and the draw is stacked.
No. 2 Maryland take on the Fairfield or Wagner winner at noon ET in College Park. No. 4 UConn face Lafayette at noon. No. 3 Harvard meet Old Dominion, the side that ended UConn’s 12-match winning streak in the Big East final, also at noon. Then the afternoon session: No. 5 Princeton against Syracuse, No. 6 Yale against UMass and No. 7 Iowa against Duke, all at 2:30pm ET, with No. 8 North Carolina against Miami of Ohio at 3:30pm ET.
For viewers in Pakistan, Wednesday’s games fall in the small hours: Fairfield against Wagner at midnight PKT, Saint Joseph’s against Vermont at 1:00am PKT on Thursday. Friday’s noon games start at 10:00pm PKT, with the 2:30pm ET ties at 12:30am PKT on Saturday. Every preliminary-round game streams on ESPN+.
The second round is Sunday 15 November. The semifinals are Friday 20 November and the final is Sunday 22 November, both in Louisville, Kentucky.
For our money, the opening round is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Wagner get their moment, Vermont get a genuine test of how far they’ve come, and by Friday night two of the eight seeds will already be staring at a team that has just won a knockout game. Nobody gets a gentle start in this bracket.