4 Bay Area Basketball Teams Compete in the Madness

By Bay City News Service

The Bay Area will be buzzing with college basketball fans this week as four local men's and women's teams play in the NCAA tournament, including two with opening games in the South Bay.

The Saint Mary's Gaels men's team has the longest trip of the four Bay Area squads. They left early Monday morning for Ohio, where they will face Middle Tennessee State on Tuesday in one of the four play-in games that serve
as the opening round of the 68-team tournament.

The winner of the game at 6:10 p.m. will be a No. 11 seed and then travel to Michigan to face sixth-seeded Memphis on Thursday.

The other tournament-bound Bay Area men's team, the No. 12-seeded University of California at Berkeley Golden Bears, only have a short trip to San Jose's HP Pavilion for their first game, scheduled for 4:27 p.m. Thursday against No. 5 seed University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Three other men's opening round games will also be played in San Jose on Thursday, with limited tickets still available as of late Monday afternoon for upper-level seats at the arena, according to ticketing outlet Ticketmaster.

In the women's tournament, which starts this weekend, two Bay Area teams are also taking part and both have much higher seeds. 

Stanford University is one of the four No. 1 seeds in the tournament while Cal's women's team is one of the No. 2 seeds.

Stanford will host No. 16 Tulsa at home at 2 p.m. Sunday while Cal's game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday against No. 15 Fresno State in Lubbock, Texas.

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