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2013 NCAA Tournament: Colorado State and Colorado both hoping to make Cinderella runs

Colorado St. and Colorado are both in the tournament, with the Rams opening up on Thursday and the Buffaloes on Friday.

By Ryan Rosenblatt
Jeff Bottari

The 2013 NCAA Tournament is here, and this time it comes with two teams from Colorado after Colorado and Colorado State both made the field of 68 (which is still not as good as the field of 64). The Rams are the No. 8 seed in the Midwest, while the Buffaloes are the No. 10 seed in the East.

Colorado State will take on Missouri in a "first" round game (seriously, don't buy into this new field of 68 round naming) in Lexington, Ky., at 7:30 p.m. MT on Thursday at 7:20 p.m. The Rams should have an edge on the Tigers thanks to their dominance on the glass, where they might be the best in the nation. if they can win the rebounding battle, which they should, and get a big game out of Colton Iverson, they should be able to get past a Missouri team that went 17-0 at home, but just 6-10 away from the friendly confines of Columbia.

The following day, Colorado will square off against Illinois at 2:40 p.m. MT with the hope of pulling off a mild upset on the seventh-seeded Illini. The Buffaloes have done well recently in neutral site games, going 10-12 in their last 12, but that won't matter if Spencer Dinwiddie doesn't find his shot again. He averaged 15.6 points per game this season, but his field goal percentage dipped below 30 percent in March and without him, Andre Roberson will have too much to do. Luckily for Colorado, Illinois isn't a great shooting team or a rebounding team, but the Buffaloes have to be weary because every once in a while Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson get hot. When that happens, the Illini get awfully scary.

The tournament gets underway on Thursday with Michigan State taking on Valparaiso at 10:15 a.m. MT and continues all day, until Syracuse and Montana wrap things up around 10 p.m. MT. You can catch all of the games on CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV as the road to Atlanta and the 2013 Final Four gets commences.

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