The first game of the 2024 women’s NCAA Tournament featured near-madness. No. 8 seed North Carolina led No. 9 seed Michigan State by 12 points with less than four minutes to play. Then, poof. UNC committed four turnovers, missed five free throws and allowed the Spartans to cut the lead to 1 with only eight seconds remaining. UNC still advanced, but perhaps the tight ending was a harbinger of what’s to come over the next three weeks. With wild finishes, timely shooting (and untimely mistakes), upsets could be aplenty.

As The Athletic did during conference tournaments, we’ll be providing briefings to keep you on top of the most important developments in the first and second rounds. Live blogs will follow starting in the Sweet 16. Here’s what you need to know about Friday’s first-round games:

As the bracket was revealed last Sunday night, LSU’s Hailey Van Lith seemed to make a prediction about her old school. If the Tigers and Louisville —the team Van Lith transferred from after three seasons — won their first-round games, they would meet in Baton Rouge in the second round. But Van Lith was caught on video appearing to say (in so many words) that she didn’t expect a reunion.

“Middle Tennessee is gonna whoop they ass”- Hailey Van Lith

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

As Conference tournament week winds down, the number of automatic qualifiers and at-large bids continue to dwindle. Though the bids won’t be doled out until Selection Sunday, looking at every resume case by case gives us a pretty good idea of who’s in, who’s out and a small gray area that’s up in the air: The Bubble.

Mississippi State provides us one of the most significant cases to delve into when looking at how the selection committee makes decisions, and in turn, how I build the bracket with that in mind.

I currently have the Bulldogs slated as one of the first teams projected outside the tournament, and they’re one of the teams that has tested my understanding of what the committee is looking at the most. Why? Let me explain.

Multi-bid conferences

What’s the NET…