UW STILL CONTROLLING—Up 76-57 with 4:05 left.

MARTINEZ CONFUSED—Ramon Martinez is being examined as he appears to have a cut above his left eye that’s bleeding down his face. He also walked toward the wrong bench on his way off the floor. Nothing going right for the Lobos right now.

BOOK YOUR PLANE TICKETS—This baby’s over. Huskies have scored nine straight, and lead 57-36 with 13:44 left. UNM looks defeated.

POURING IT ON—Thomas hits a 3-pointer, and the Huskies open the half on a 9-4 run to take a 53-36 lead and force UNM to call timeout. Hobson finally scored with 17:22 left in the game, the first Lobos basket by someone not named Dairese Gary since the 12:11 mark in the first half. Things looking awfully good for UW right now.

BIG STAT—Thomas has nine points, but he also racked up five assists in that half, benefiting from Turner’s hot shooting and UNM collapsing on Thomas every time he got into the lane. UW is markedly better when he’s sharing the ball. Maks just pointed out that if you take away Gary, New Mexico is shooting just 7-for-25 from the field. That’s 28 percent.

HALFTIME—Huskies lead 44-32, and Gary is the only thing keeping New Mexico even remotely close right now. He scored his team’s final 13 points of the half, accounting for 100 percent of their offense in the final 11:52. Darington Hobson has done nothing, being hounded by Justin Holiday all game. He’s got three. Gary has 15. The Huskies are shooting 51.5 percent from the field, and 50 percent (5 for 10) from 3-point range. UNM is shooting 38.9 percent and just 3 for 12 from 3-point range. Huskies decidedly in control.

TURNER FEELING IT, TOO—He’s made two 3-pointers, the first of which he was also fouled during. UW leads 44-30 and looks unstoppable. Dairese Gary is the only Lobos player who can do anything, scoring 13 points. He’s the only New Mexico player to score in the last 11 minutes.

THOMAS FEELING IT—He’s really found his 3-point shot in the postseason. He’s 3-for-5 from beyond the arc, leading the way with nine points as the Huskies lead 34-25 with 3:58 left before halftime. Only real problem for UW is Thomas and Pondexter both have two fouls, though Thomas has been playing for the past three minutes despite that.

BIG RUN—Athleticism and quickness starting to overwhelm the Lobos. Thomas hits a 3-pointer one possession after Abdul Gaddy converted a nice three-point play, and UW leads it 31-21 with 6:44 left in the half. It’s an 8-0 run.

QUINCY GETTING IT DONE—It’s obvious that New Mexico doesn’t have anyone who can guard Quincy Pondexter, who has eight points already as the Huskies lead 25-21 with 7:54 to go in the first half. He’s hit a baseline jumper, scored two easy baskets around the rim, and made two free throws. Both teams still playing at a fast, high level.

FAST PACE—Wouldn’t look for a whole lot of deep shot clocks in this one. Both teams are racing each other up and down the floor, and we’re tied at 19-19 with 11:29 left in the first half. UW is getting to the rim pretty easily so far, Venoy Overton converting two layups on UW’s last two possessions. But the Huskies are having a hard time keeping New Mexico out of the paint, too, and the Lobos are matching them blow for blow. We’re in for a fun one, I think.

FIRST TIMEOUT—New Mexico leads, 11-8, thanks to three 3-pointers so far—one each from Roman Martinez, Phillip McDonald and Darington Hobson. Hobson really likes to showboat. After he knocked down a 3-pointer, he shot one of those ridiculous glares toward his home fans. Don’t get why guys don’t understand how weird that looks.

TIP-OFF—Here we go. Teams are on the floor and we’re ready to go.

FASHION STATEMENT?—New Mexico head coach Steve Alford is rocking a red blazer today. It looks, um, interesting.

NO GLOVE—Isaiah Thomas went through warmups with no glove on his injured left shooting hand again, so I’m assuming he’s done with that idea. There seems to be a pretty good New Mexico contingent here, along with the pro-UW supporters who were here Thursday. Should be a pretty good atmosphere.

2:31: Butler wins, 54-52, after MSU turned it over on its final possession. There’s 27 minutes on the clock now for warmups, so we’re looking at a 3:00 tipoff for the UW game.

2:18 p.m: Just when it looked like Butler was pulling away, the Racers put together a 12-3 run and lead it 50-47 with 2:21 to play. Looks like we’re in for another great finish.

1:51: UW assistant coach Paul Fortier is sitting to the left of us on press row, taking in a little bit of this game. It must be like the calm before the storm for Huskies fans watching this one.

1:48 p.m: Tight one here. Butler has come back to take the lead, now up 34-33 with 13:07 left. Murray State has a ton of turnovers, and hasn’t really got a good look at the basket in the last few minutes. Tide may be starting to turn for them.

1:06 p.m: Racers are out in front 23-22 now, thanks to stellar play from guard Isaiah Canaan, who has eight points. Butler hasn’t scored in quite some time. Crowd is loving it. 30.9 seconds left in the first half.

12:51 p.m: How about that Big East? Villanova lost to St. Mary’s today, leaving just Syracuse, West Virginia and Pittsburgh still standing from the eight-bid league. Notre Dame, Marquette, Georgetown and Louisville all fell victim to first-round exits. The crowd here was pleased when the Villanova score was shown on the massive video screen hanging over the court.

12:39 p.m: Everybody loves an upset. It’s a pro-Murray State crowd here, the building getting a little louder with each bucket the Racers score. Butler leads 12-10, but MSU is on a 7-0 run after struggling for a while to find any open shots against the Bulldogs’ defense.

12:19 p.m: SAN JOSE, Calif.—It’s overcast but still warm here, and we’re courtside now as the starting lineups are announced for the first game of the day between No. 5 Butler and No. 13 Murray State. The Racers, as you’ll remember, used a Danero Thomas buzzer-beater to upset No. 4 Vanderbilt in the opening game here Thursday.

Washington is set to tip at 2:50, and we’ll go to a normal running game thread format once that game gets going. For now, we’ll just provide updates here and there as this first game gets underway.