Temple celebrates a victory wearing various Under Armour basketball shoes.

words // Nick Engvall

Although the tournament technically began earlier this week, it’s hard to think outside of the 64-team bracket for some of us. Thursday’s early action was nothing short of the madness that has come to be expected from the NCAA Tournament. In just the first eight games, upsets, nail-biters and players stepping it up in ways that never seemed possible during the regular season made for some exciting action.

Morehead State and Richmond have taken on the early roles as the Cinderella teams. Thirteenth-ranked Morehead State upset fourth ranked Louisville 62-61, while the 12th-ranked Richmond Spiders shocked the Commodores of Vanderbilt, winning 69-66.

If you’re keeping track of what teams are wearing what brand in this year’s NCAA Tournament, then the early Thursday action seemed to go pretty well for Nike Basketball and Under Armour.

Check out the early Thursday NCAA Watch coverage of the NCAA Tournament courtesy of images from Yahoo.

Terence Hill of Morehead State in the Air Max Fly By defended by Mike Marra of Louisville in the adidas Crazy 8.

Demontez Stitt of Clemson in the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse.

Kareem Maddox of Princeton in the Nike Air Max Fly By.

Kawhi Leonard in the Jordan Retro 11 “Bred” colorway.

Kenneth Faried in the Nike Air Max LeBron VIII V2.

Kevin Anderson of Richmond in the Jordan Retro 9.

Kevin Jones of West Virginia in the Nike Air Max Fly By.

Lance Goulbourne of Vanderbilt in the Air Max Fly By defended by Justin Harper of Richmond in the Jordan Retro 9.

Peyton Siva of Louisville in the adidas Crazy 8 with the adidas Speedwrap ankle brace.