Top storylines from Day 1 of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

There are few days more exciting on the sports calendar in a given year, than the first Thursday of the NCAA Tournament, which ushers in four straight days of wall-to-wall hoops from lunchtime on the East Coast until well after midnight. Fans can grab a few hours of sleep in the early morning hours — assuming the adrenaline has adequately worn off — and prepare themselves for more of the same as the Big Dance narrows from 64 teams to 16 teams by the end of the weekend.

FOX Sports tracked some of the biggest storylines from the opening day of the NCAA Tournament: the breakout performances, the pulsating upsets, the buzzer-beaters that are sure to be included in "One Shining Moment" when the tournament concludes in early April. We'll dive into those topics in a bit more detail here. 

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Follow along for the ride:

Nearly 14 minutes had come and gone in Providence on Thursday night before St. John's, winners of the Big East regular season and tournament titles, finally edged ahead of Omaha, an upstart 15-seed from the Summit League. Nothing about that opening stretch from the Red Storm resembled the well-oiled machine that stormed through Madison Square Garden last week and manhandled team after team in what is arguably the sport's most rugged conference. Instead, it was the Mavericks who jumped out to a 26-16 rebounding advantage; the Mavericks who racked up a 14-6 lead for points in the paint; the Mavericks who turned 12 offensive rebounds into 10 second-chance points. Sure, St. John's rallied late to take a five-point advantage into halftime — one can only imagine the torrent head coach Rick Pitino unleashed — but Omaha had been in front for more than 11 minutes, nearly