Follow Saturday’s college basketball slate: Virginia vs. Duke, Tennessee vs. Alabama and more

At last, March has arrived.

College basketball’s showcase month tips off in earnest Saturday with a strong slate featuring a handful of games pitting AP Top 25 teams. There’s a showdown for first place in the SEC, a battle between Big East powers seeking to improve their NCAA tournament seeding and several games with major bubble implications.

Here is a look at the most intriguing games left on March’s opening weekend. All times listed are Eastern.

With much of last year’s Sweet 16 team returning and a strong freshman class set to contribute, this was supposed to be Michigan State coach Tom Izzo’s best remaining chance to capture his elusive second national title. Instead, the preseason top-five Spartans have underwhelmed so badly that they aren’t even a surefire NCAA tournament team. A win at Mackey Arena would probably remove all doubt, but Purdue doesn’t just hand those out. If Michigan State loses, it would fall to 17-12 overall and .500 in Big Ten play with regular season contests remaining at home against Northwestern and at Indiana.

On one side is Alabama, 12-3 in the SEC thanks to the highest-scoring, fastest-paced offense in college basketball. On the other side is Tennessee, also 12-3 in the SEC but fueled by the dynamic Dalton Knecht and a physical, defense-oriented approach. At stake is the chance to seize control of the race for the league title — and much more. Tennessee is among the teams vying for the NCAA tournament’s final No. 1 seed alongside the projected top three of Purdue, Houston and UConn. Alabama still has hope of climbing to a No. 2 seed. It also badly needs to demonstrate that its defense is competent enough for it to make a run to the Final Four.

No. 23 Gonzaga at No. 17 Saint Mary’s, 10 p.m. (ESPN2)

While Saint Mary’s already clinched the outright WCC title with Thursday night’s victory over Pepperdine, this matchup still has massive implications for Gonzaga. The Zags likely need to win in Moraga to avoid entering the WCC tournament needing to secure the auto bid to extend a streak of NCAA bids dating back to 1999. Strong computer metrics and a massive February road win at Kentucky have elevated Gonzaga into at-large contention, but the Zags don’t have much room for error. They’re still only 2-5 in Quadrant 1 games and 4-6 against the top two quadrants.