March Madness in full swing already as the big schools tip off their conference tournaments

We are on the threshold of college basketball’s Championship Week, a mix of excitement, heartbreak, upsets, buzzer-beaters and crazy celebrations.

Well, maybe the crazy celebrations don’t quite apply this year given the pandemic, the small crowds (if any) and the need for social distancing. But there’s still plenty of anticipation during a week’s worth of conference tournament games leading up to Selection Sunday next weekend.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s Collin Gillespie is diagnosed with a torn ligament in his left knee, expected to miss the rest of the season

Some tournaments already have started. On Saturday, the champion of the Ohio Valley Conference event will be the first to receive an automatic bid into the 68-team NCAAs. Belmont, which won 24 of its first 25 games, is the overwhelming favorite, but back-to-back losses late in the season likely will prevent the Bruins from gaining an at-large berth if they don’t go all the way.

The Power 5 conferences plus the Big East start up their tournaments this coming week with some separation anticipated either on or off a very crowded bubble. The only conference seemingly without bubble worries is the Big 12, which has seven teams locked into the NCAAs.

The Big Ten remains the big dog in college basketball, looking at eight berths in the NCAAs with possibly a ninth if Michigan State can prevail at home Sunday over No. 2 Michigan after losing 69-50 on Thursday night to the Wolverines, and make a run in the Big Ten Tournament.

In the ACC, four teams – Georgia Tech, Louisville, Duke and Syracuse – are close enough to the bubble to worry a little bit going into tournament week. It’s the same with the Big East, where Connecticut looks safe to join Villanova and Creighton in the NCAAs, but where Xavier and Seton Hall need to keep winning to grab a spot.

And the Big East Tournament should be wide open now that No. 1 seed Villanova has lost point guard Collin Gillespie with a torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee, and the status of No. 2 Creighton remains in question after coach Greg McDermott was suspended for racially insensitive comments.

At the other end, the consensus No. 1 NCAA Tournament seeds entering the weekend belong to Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan and Illinois.

The excitement is building. After the then-new coronavirus wiped out the postseason last year, fans of college basketball can’t wait to see what happens.

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Gonzaga has been ranked No. 1 in all 14 weekly Associated Press polls, completing the first unbeaten regular season in school history and looking at a 26-0 record entering the NCAA Tournament if it can take care of business in the West Coast Conference tournament.

The Bulldogs would only have to win two games – semifinals and finals – to enter the Big Dance as just the fifth team in the last 45 years to enter the tournament undefeated.

Coach Mark Few compared his team’s journey to running a long-distance race.

“It would be quite an accomplishment, quite frankly,” he said to the AP. “It’s hard to be the front runner and lead the mile all four laps. Everybody’s aiming for you.”

Of course, the Zags don’t exactly play a difficult schedule in the WCC, and folks tend to underestimate them for that reason. But they did beat four ranked teams – Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia – and had a date against Baylor canceled because of COVID-19 in the Bears’ program.

March wasn’t very far along before the first case of madness hit Tuesday in the Horizon League Tournament, where three of the four quarterfinal games went to at least one overtime.

Second-seeded Wright State took part in a collapse of epic proportions, blowing a 24-point lead in the final 6-plus minutes of regulation, then losing 94-92 in overtime to Milwaukee. The Raiders looked to be home free but Milwaukee’s DeAndre Gholston sent the game into extra time by sinking a three-pointer with 1.3 seconds left in regulation.

The Panthers outscored Wright State, 46-20, in the final 11:15 counting the second half and overtime.

“We should’ve been able to put that game away,” Raiders coach Scott Nagy said in the Dayton Daily News. “There’s just some things we didn’t execute. It’s part of the deal. People make mistakes, and I made the most of them.”

Cleveland State, the top seed, had to work into a third overtime before outlasting Purdue Fort Wayne, 108-104. In the other two games, one went overtime, the other was decided by 10 points.

No. 4 Illinois at No. 7 Ohio State, 4 p.m., ESPN

The Fighting Illini (10-6, 15-4 Big Ten) have been on a tear coming down the stretch of the regular season and seek their fifth consecutive win over ranked opponents. The Buckeyes (18-7, 12-7) were the last ranked team to beat them – 87-81 on Jan. 16 – but Ohio State lost last week to Michigan State and Iowa to drop off the No. 1 seed line in mock brackets.

USC at UCLA, 4 p.m., CBS3

Both Los Angeles rivals are still in the running for the Pac-12 regular-season title but must get some help from Oregon State to topple Oregon, the first-place team by percentage points over the Trojans (20-6, 14-5) and by a half-game over the Bruins (17-7, 13-5). USC won the last meeting between the two teams, 66-48, on Feb. 6 behind 19 points in 24 minutes from Ethan Anderson.

Duke at North Carolina, 6 p.m., ESPN

The Tobacco Road archrivals meet for the second time this season with the Blue Devils (11-10, 9-8 ACC) needing wins Saturday and through much of the conference tournament to land an NCAA berth. The Tar Heels (15-9, 9-6) enter the weekend as a No. 10 seed in Joe Lunardi’s ESPN Bracketology, but can ill afford multiple losses down the stretch.

Traci Carter, a Philadelphia native who began his high school career at Roman Catholic, helped lead Hartford into the semifinals of the America East tournament by scoring 20 points in a win over Albany. The 6-foot-1 Carter, a graduate student who played one season at La Salle before joining the Hawks, is third on the team in scoring with a 11.0-point average and tied for 10th in NCAA Division I with 2.57 steals per game.