5 things you need to know this weekend
Hey, where did all the Cinderellas go?
March Madness rolls along to the Round of 32 after high seeds avoided major hiccups in the NCAA tournament's first round. What's been rather surprising — and disappointing to those who love underdogs — is the lack of knock-your-socks-off upsets. Heading into the weekend, there is just one true mid-major remaining: Middle Tennessee State, a No. 12 seed that was ridiculously misseeded. Some of Saturday's most intriguing matchups include; No. 1 Gonzaga taking on tournament darling No. 8 Northwestern (5:15 p.m. ET, TBS), and defending champion Villanova locking horns against Wisconsin (approx. 2:40 p.m. ET, CBS). If you're heading to Las Vegas to soak in on the madness, make sure you study up on the best bets and top players that the second round has to offer.
More March Madness:
• Recapping Friday's action: Round of 32 all set
• First round highlights in pictures
• Ranking Saturday's second round games
• Track the tournament, round-by-round
Record heat forecast in Southwest
Folks in the Southwest will don flip flops and sunglasses as an unprecedented heat wave brings record high temperatures this weekend. Saturday should be the hottest day of the week, with record highs forecast in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Palm Springs, Calif., all of which should top 90 degrees. Notorious California hot spot Death Valley should soar to 100 degrees, which would also be a record. The hot temperatures are more typical of May than March, AccuWeather said.
Thanks for the memories, SXSW
South by Southwest, the epic tech-film-music conference that takes over Austin each year, winds down this weekend with an all-day concert Saturday featuring the likes of Weezer, Action Bronson and De La Soul. Garth Brooks also is performing at a separate show. This year's conference featured talks by former Vice President Joe Biden and Shark Tank star/billionaire investor Chris Sacca.Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and diversity were also big talkers.
Other notable moments from Austin:
• The World Wide Web is in trouble. And its creator wants to save it
• The loudest buzz didn't start from a celebrity or movie premiere
• Buzz Aldrin told us all about why he wants humans to go to Mars
• We saw the cars of the future and they look pretty awesome
So long to the Monopoly thimble, wheelbarrow and boot tokens
Sunday is World Monopoly Day! More than 4 million votes were cast to save current tokens and add new pieces to the Hasbro game, and the meager thimble, wheelbarrow and boot seem to be the unlucky victims of progress. T-rex, rubber ducky and penguin tokens will replace the iconic pieces in the next generation of Monopoly. Hasbro announced the three new tokens Friday. A new game with eight fan-picked game pieces will go on sale in August.
Hiker set to finish all Smoky Mountains National Park trails in record time
Need some inspiration to get outside? Meet Benny Braden. He's on his way to setting a record Saturday for hiking all the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park — more than 770 miles — in the shortest amount of time. If all goes well, he should walk into the Sugarlands Visitor Center grounds after completing the journey in two months and 19 days. The previous record was four months and 12 days. Braden says he got the idea for the hike last year while he was hiking part of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.
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