Anyone else still yawning after having to stay up way too late on Thursday? The good news is that the Duke Blue Devils took down the Arizona Wildcats and Jon Scheyer has his team one win away from reaching the Final Four. Yeah, Duke is fully rocking.
The negative from last night is that the game ended at 12:28 a.m. ET. Seriously, we're not joking, we had our eyes on the clock for the moment the final whistle went off. That late of an ending is infuriating. Things didn't get started till nearly 10 p.m. in Newark too.
Why does the NCAA continue to do this to the coaches and student-athletes? We get that Duke deserves a primetime slot, especially with Cooper Flagg playing so well, but such late tips are egregious. Well, the time for Saturday's Elite Eight dance with Alabama was posted, and the two sides will get things started at almost 9 p.m. Again, this is a joke.
Tip times have been announced for Elite Eight games on Saturday, March 29. pic.twitter.com/lJffoKMU2F
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 28, 2025
Duke vs. Alabama has been given a 8:49 p.m. ET tip-off time
With that 8:49 p.m. start from the Prudential Center, don't be surprised if things get delayed to past 9 p.m. Meanwhile, Texas Tech vs. Florida is getting started at 6:09 p.m. ET, which is 3:09 p.m. local time over in San Francisco. Wouldn't it make sense to just switch the start times for both games?
Seems like a pretty simple decision, but the people in charge of the schedule have other things in mind. We will never understand why a game needs to get going at around 9 p.m. Another midnight bedtime appears to be on the way for Duke and Alabama fans everywhere on Saturday.
Make this make sense? You can't, because it's a silly decision. All will be forgotten if the Blue Devils punch their ticket to the Final Four, but it also won't take away from the fact that the NCAA needs to figure things out sooner rather than later for the late contests.