The Sun's Arizin: Who's the more unlikely hero for Villanova, Kris Jenkins or Mikal Bridges?

First, let's hope that Mrs. Lane is feeling better. With Chris taking care of her, you got me today...

OK... what did you feel about the first pair of games on Tuesday night? Like that the field has expanded or not, the NCAA Tournament has begun. And also, we're one day close to watching the Wildcats.

Now, on to today's links.

The unsung heroes for national title contenders | CollegeBasketballTalk

By this point in the season you know the stars in college basketball, be it Oklahoma's Buddy Hield, Michigan State's Denzel Valentine or another marquee player who's been in the highlights on a nightly basis.

X-Factors: Players who could determine team's success in NCAA tournament | USA TODAY
To win a national championship, it takes more than just star power.

Murphy: Jay Wright’s comments about Tournament confound | Philly.com
They say that one of the late stages of bureaucracy begins when the bureaucracy's purpose becomes the perpetuation of its own existence, but I submit that an even later stage occurs when the members of that bureaucracy become so disconnected from reality that they aren't even aware of the ways in which they perpetuate said existence. As evidence, let us turn to the testimony of one Jerold T. Wright, who on Monday granted an interview to WIP in which he spent some time dancing around an elephant that is so big it no longer fits in the room.

Without NCAA tournament success, Big East is neither beauty nor beast | WaPo.com
"We definitely let down the Big East last year," Wright said. "We were a good enough team to advance. We didn’t do it, and we take responsibility for that, really. But you know, our guys played hard in that game against N.C. State. We brought it. We came all the way back to get a shot to win the game with 14 seconds [left], and it didn’t go in. That’s the tournament."

Kris Jenkins becomes an all-around force for Villanova | Philly.com
Coming off the bench for Villanova in his first two seasons, Kris Jenkins usually stood behind the three-point arc and fired when open. He did his job relatively well, knocking down better than 37 percent of his shots from deep.

Mikal Bridges, from redshirt to 'vital part' | Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia
After a redshirt year last season, freshman Mikal Bridges is now providing Villanova key energy and defense it will need for a deep NCAA Tournament run.

Darryl Reynolds, Villanova not looking ahead to possible Temple matchup | The Philadelphia Tribune
“That will be interesting for us to meet up there of all places instead of being right down the road from each other, but you know we have to take care of business in the first round,” Reynolds said. “First things first then you know if Temple wins and everything goes as Big 5 fans want it to go. We’ll see them up there.”

Ranking NCAA tournament coaches as players, 1-68 | ESPN
These pictures are amazing.

The most likely upsets on each seed line | CBSSports.com
NOT Villanova. Did not expect that.

SEC hires former Big East commissioner to bolster NCAA Tournament prospects | The Tennessean
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said Tuesday that Tranghese will serve as special adviser to the commissioner for men’s basketball. The move came two days after the league got only three teams into the NCAA Tournament, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Vanderbilt.

68 reasons why the 2016 NCAA Tournament is going to be fantastic | SBNation.com
Every March is great, but this March is shaping up to be extra special. Let's take a look at a bunch of reasons (68!) why.

The conference TV network as we know it is dead - Gridiron Now
The conference TV network as we've come to know it is dead. When the SEC Network launched August 14, 2014, it closed the door on an era of sports TV

Villanova astronomer on a mission to get a much closer look at red giants | NewsWorks
SOFIA — or Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy — is the world's largest airborne observatory. Housed in a remodeled 747 plane, it can make observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest of ground-based telescopes. The plane can fly at 50,000 feet — about 5,000 feet higher than a passenger plane — and it has a huge telescope on board.