March 22, 2026
Kyle Ross/Imagn Images
Two blue bloods of college basketball did battle in South Philly Sunday.
Two very important basketball games took place at Xfinity Mobile Arena Sunday, but neither of them carried with them any sort of meaningful ties to the Philadelphia area.
The 6-seeded Tennessee Volunteers handled 3-seeded Virginia and UConn staved off a late UCLA push in the Round of 32 in the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Aside from impacting bracket pools across the Delaware Valley, it wasn't the kind of basketball they're used to seeing in their back yard.
So instead of telling you about who won the games, let's take a look at the most memorable and interesting things that happened in a special version of PhillyVoice's 10 awards.
On February 26, the Sixers beat the Heat 124-117 — Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey combined for 54 points and each had a double-double. It's been a slog since. The Sixers haven't had Embiid in uniform for a dozen games. Maxey has been out a while too. The playoff hopeful 76ers are getting meaningful minutes from MarJon Beauchamp while Justin Edwards is starting at guard.
March Madness making a weekend visit to Xfinity Mobile Arena has changed the basketball mood a little more exciting, and the near comeback from Virginia against Tennessee was certainly a rush of adrenaline. In the nightcap, UCLA tried to stage it's own comeback but faltered eventually to the 2-seeded Huskies.
So the four mascots in town for these two games were Smokey, a coonhound for Tennessee, sword-yielding Cavman, the Virginia Cavalier, Jonathan the UConn Huskie, and Joe Bruin, a brown bear from UCLA.
Conventional logic would say the Bear would just totally maul the Cavalier, sword or no, and would probably be able to handle both of the dog mascots, which are more cute than they are ferocious. But the muscles on Cavman are not to be overlooked. He wears a cape and has his underwear on the outside of his pants. I think, being the only human of the bunch, he can sit back and let the animals carve one another up before he picks his spots and be the last mascot standing. Also he is the only mascot with a weapon.
Tennessee started three guys 6-foot-10 or taller against Virginia: NBA prospect Nick Ament, J.P Estrella and Felix Okpara. Their length created chaos for the Cavaliers all night and could make things hard for 2-seed Iowa State in the Sweet 16. Just look at them playing keep away here, resulting in the following alley oop:
The lob has Tennessee on a 14-4 run!#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/rvCrExwJBV
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) March 22, 2026
The big guys were able to help the Vols get a monster advantage at the free throw line, attempting 25 free shots to UVA's 11.
Thijs De Ridder drained a three-pointer at the two-minute mark to put UVA ahead for the first time in the second half against Tennessee. The true freshman from Belgium got more and more involved in the offense as the game went along, and he led all scorers on both teams with 22 points.
Tennessee's Ament is a big, lanky 6-foot-10 forward who is expected to be one-and-done and enter this year's NBA Draft. He had a slow start Sunday but he caught some momentum by hitting some mid-range jumpers in the second half to eventually score a respectable 16 points. He can create his own shot and is very talented and raw, but his size and potential and smooth shooting stroke has him projected to be taken inside the top 10 in June.
This one has to go to UCLA's Skyy Clark, a senior little guy from LA who immediately earned some Philly street cred when this happened on Friday:
Skyy Clark lost his tooth but Jack Seidler found it for him 😅#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/wrwapvqa3w
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) March 21, 2026
The only New England native in UConn's starting lineup Sunday was redshirt senior Alex Karaban, who hails from central Massachusetts, and already has two national championships. The forward is clearly not satisfied with the two he's got — he wants to join a small group (mostly, ironically of UCLA players) who have won three that includes Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Karaban scored eight of the Huskies first 12 points and scored 27 to lead all scorers in the game (a career high).
With UCLA big man Tyler Bilodeau, the Bruins' leading scorer and a likely NBA Draft pick this June, sidelined, former Michigan State reserve Xavier Booker stepped up big time in the first round against UCF, scoring 15 points and blocking four shots. He didn't let up in Round 2, taking advantage of his opportunity to start with 13 points — 12 in the first half.
Geographically, the closest of the four teams Sunday was UConn, with Storrs, Conn., just about 45 minutes closer to Philadelphia than Charlottesville, Va. However, the loudest crowd was the Tennessee faithful, who saw their Vols put together a near wire-to-wire win.
Virginia was loud, too, don't get me wrong. So was UConn's crowd. Interestingly with each fan's contingent taking up less than one quarter of the arena, there weren't any dull impactful moments. But Tennessee fans were pretty wild.
Perhaps it's because unlike the other three schools, they've never won a National Title. UVA won one in 2019, UConn has six, including back-to-back in 2023 and 2024, and UCLA has the all-time record with 11 — their most recent was more than 30 years ago in 1995.
For the second time this weekend all-time great actor and comedian Bill Murray was in the house in Philly cheering on his son, who coaches for UConn. College basketball needs more celebrity fans.
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