UCLA vs. Gonzaga NCAA Tournament Sweet 16: How to watch, odds and predictions for March Madness

Things are pretty crazy in the NCAA Tournament, but what else do you expect in March Madness?

First round upsets threw brackets across the country into utter chaos, with schools like Furman, Princeton and Fairleigh Dickinson emerged while powerhouses like Purdue, Arizona, and Virginia failed to even make it out of their first matchup.

Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky have all gone home, and only nine of the remaining sixteen teams are a Top-4 seed.

Yeah, March has been madness this year perhaps more than other years.

Not so much in the West, where two of the four teams playing in the Sweet 16 are top seeds. No. 2 UCLA and No. 3 Gonzaga — stalwarts of this time of the year — are going head-to-head with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line. No matter how crazy things have been elsewhere in the bracket, things feel like they always have in the West and fans will be treated to a heavyweight fight among college basketball titans on Thursday night.

March Madness live stream: How to watch UCLA vs. Gonzaga in Sweet 16

All of the NCAA Men’s Tournament games will be broadcast on the CBS family of networks this year, as well as TNT, TBS and TruTV.

Unlike the first few days of the tournament, games are starting to get filtered through CBS more and more. That’s the case for UCLA and Gonzaga, as the game will be broadcast on CBS with the great Kevin Harlan on the call.

Harlan went viral this past week for his reaction to Furman’s insane win over Virginia, and we can only hope we see more of the same in this matchup.

• Date: Thursday, March 23
• Time: ~9:45 pm ET
• Channel: CBS
• Streaming: NCAA March Madness Live
• Announcers: Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, Stan Van Gundy, Lauren Shehadi

UCLA vs. Gonzaga Sweet 16 odds

According to FanDuel, UCLA is a slight favorite in the matchup.

• Moneyline: UCLA (-120) | Gonzaga (+100)
• Spread: UCLA (-1.5) | Gonzaga (+1.5)
• Total: 145.5 — Over: (-110) | Under: (-110)

These odds may change at any time, but this seems to be a reflection of seeding more than anything else. The matchup is close, that’s the takeaway, and it’s the type of heavyweight name-brand brawl we expect this late in March.

UCLA vs. Gonzaga NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 prediction

This is the matchup we expected to see, and it’s unlikely to disappoint.

Both Gonzaga and UCLA made it to the Sweet 16 last year, but neither made it any further. The Zags fell to Arkansas while the Bruins were victims of North Carolina on their run to the national championship game.

Gonzaga is powered by Julian Strawther and Drew Timme, the later of whom is the latest in a long line of college basketball stars who feel like they’ve been at their respective school for way more than four years.

But UCLA has its core intact that carried it to the Sweet 16 last year. Gonzaga lost Chet Holmgren to the NBA Draft while the Bruins have Jaime Jaquez, Tyger Campbell and Jaylen Clark returning. Only Anton Watson returns alongside Timme from last year’s tournament which is a testament to head coach Mark Few and how well he’s been able to whip up another title-contender.

That run ends here, though, for a second-straight year for the Zags. UCLA has the better team, and while the matchup should be a close one it’ll be the Bruins who move on.

Prediction: UCLA 74, Gonzaga 71