No. 2 seed UConn and No. 3 seed Michigan State tip off Friday night at 9:45 p.m. ET in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 from Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The game airs live on CBS.
If you don’t have cable, you can stream the game on Paramount+ Premium. Live TV streaming options include DirecTV, Fubo, and Sling. Radio listeners can catch the call on SiriusXM channels 203 or 210.
The broadcast crew is Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery and Grant Hill, with Tracy Wolfson on the sideline.
UConn vs. Michigan State: Seeds, Records and Matchup Context
UConn enters at 31-5, seeded No. 2 in the East Region under Dan Hurley. Michigan State is 27-7, seeded No. 3, and arriving in Washington with a full head of steam after Coen Carr’s 21-point, 10-rebound performance in a 77-69 win over No. 6 Louisville last weekend.
This is Tom Izzo’s 17th Sweet 16 at Michigan State, and it’s the third time these two programs have met in March. They’ve split their two previous tournament matchups: Michigan State beat UConn in the 2009 Final Four, and UConn returned the favor in the 2014 Elite Eight.
MARCH MADNESS: Fill In Your Bracket Now!
Izzo spoke about his rivalry with Hurley at a press conference on Thursday. “I love Danny Hurley. Not because it’s a love fest. Not because I have to say the right things. He’s not afraid of saying what he has to say to the players he has. He’s even better than me; he takes it to the officials. I love that about him, I really do. But do you ever question his passion? Do you ever wonder if he really cares?”
The history favors UConn in one notable respect. The last four times the Huskies reached the Sweet 16, they won the national championship: 2011, 2014, 2023, and 2024. Hurley is 17-5 in the NCAA Tournament overall and 15-3 at UConn.
Michigan State’s engine on offense is guard Jeremy Fears Jr., who leads the team at 15.3 points per game and ranks first in the nation with 9.4 assists per game. His 321 total assists rank second nationally.
Hurley spoke about Michigan State and how tough the matchup will be. “Doing the exhibition, there’s no greater test than playing Michigan State or a Tom Izzo-coached team, or this group of just incredible players they’ve got, the men they’ve got on their team. We were very intentional about trying to schedule them for that game right before the opener so we could really identify our vulnerabilities.”
This is the closest matchup on the Sweet 16 board, and the numbers back that up. Izzo in March commands respect, and Fears Jr. is the best point guard in this region. But UConn’s record at this stage of the tournament speaks for itself: four trips to the Sweet 16 in this era, four national championships.
UConn wins a tight one, 72-68, and heads to the Elite Eight for the fourth time in five years.
