basketball Page 569 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Kentucky Wildcats
1. Fill the Tubb. You already know that Kentucky coach Tubby Smith won a national championship in his first year at Kentucky, and you likely already know that he has been rewarded for that achievement with a constant stream of Kentucky fans who hope to have him fired. But you likely did not know tha...
LSU Tigers
1. But These Go To 11... It has been 20 years since Louisiana State made their last Final Four — when they were a No. 11 seed, still the lowest ranked team to make the national semis. The current Tiger team, which clinched its first outright SEC regular season championship in 21 seasons, is seeded a...
Pennsylvania Quakers
1. Their Home Court Is Famous, And Not Just For Hoops. The Palestra: Penn's home court, often mentioned in hallowed tones, referred to by some as the most historic fieldhouse in all of college basketball. It's home not only to all of Penn's games, but many of the classic Big Five rivarly games as we...
Pacific Tigers
1. They Have An Award-Winning Swede. Sweden's Christian Maraker is the latest international player who has contributed to the recent success of Pacific's basketball program. Maraker was selected as the Big West player of the year after averaging 17 points and nine rebounds this season. Maraker also ...
Duke Blue Devils
1. The Crazies Are Slipping. Real purists will say they haven't been the same since Terry Sanford's "Avuncular Letter", which stopped the days of say, coating a court in panties to greet sexual-assault accused Herman Veal. But campus debate about the Crazies' role has intensified in recent years, wi...
Oklahoma Sooners
1. Longar Longar: Future Cult Hero? I love this guy, and you have to love anyone with the same name twice. Forget the fact that he should shorten it to one name like "Cher" or "Yao"; a 6'11 Sudanese import at a school filled with what Nebraska coach Bill Callahan called "[expletive] hillbillies" is ...
Jim Boeheim Hates Your Guts
In the type of game that gets us so freaking excited for the tournament next week we almost wet ourselves, Syracuse pretty much just clinched a NCAA tournament big by beating No. 1 Connecticut 86-84. The key, not surprisingly, was guard Gerry McNamara, who had 13 assists and hit a huge 3-pointer t...
Ah, Duke Girls
We've been enjoying Sports Illustrated On Campus' new section that features college students — including our own Jenn Sterger — writing columns, but, frankly, we're really glad they didn't have this feature when we were in college. We would have assuredly tried to write something for it, and had w...
Online March Madness Sure To Be Maddening
We were hesitant to even mention this to you — for purely selfish reasons — but you've surely heard about it anyway: The NCAA Tournament will be available On Demand on your computer for free this Thursday, all games, streaming onto your desktop. That's great, right? We mean, that's the American dr...
The Final Four Sleeps With The Fishes
Fascinating story in The New York Times this morning; an economist postulates that, in college basketball, point shaving takes place in about 5 percent of all games with big spreads. The economist, Justin Wolfers from the University of Pennsylvania, has collected results from nearly 16 years of co...
Revisiting A Truly Great Prank
We did a very brief bit on this a couple of days ago, but we didn't give it nearly enough of a heads-up, since, frankly, it's one of the best examples of fan subterfuge we've ever seen....
Bruce Pearl Coaches Crackheads. Yeah! Take That!
As longtime readers know, we never miss an opportunity to knock around Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. We know this isn't fair — he's a great coaching story, he's done a great job and the man is a world champion sweater — but Bruce Pearl's fate was sealed with us back in the early '90s when he was an...
Who's Got Bracket Fever?
We're just five days away from Selection Sunday — which, in combination with the season premiere of "The Sopranos," is pretty much more fun than any day should be allowed to be — and we're still working on our big NCAA Tournament Project. (All teams remain signed up for. Honestly, you guys rule.)...
Myles Brand Makes Himself Richer
The Wizard Of Odds brings us a little bit of info we hadn't heard about: NCAA president Myles Brand made $870,000 in compensation last year. That's a figure that's higher than what a single public university president makes. And they actually pay the people who make them all their money....
We've Got Spirit, Yes We Doooooooooo ...
College cheerleading, an object of ridicule since it was discovered that our President did it, has new respect in our eyes. Southern Illinois basketball cheerleader Kristi Yamaoka, who fell 15 feet off of the top of a human pyramid onto her head on Sunday, suffered a chipped neck vertebra and a co...
Athletes Know Their Bodies Better Than Anyone
We're no experts on matters of human gestation, but we have to say, we were pretty amazed to hear this story: A New Mexico girls basketball player, called a "star" by local observers, scored six points (two 3-pointers) only hours before giving birth....
Coach K Fights The Man, Man
We hope everyone enjoyed somewhat well-publicized loss to North Carolina on Saturday. You know who really enjoyed it? The media. You might not have known this, but Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has uncovered the wretched, worldwide anti-Duke bias in the media....
Eagles, Bruins, Racers Do The Dance Of Joy
Congratulations go out to Winthrop, Belmont, and Murray State for becoming the second, third, and fourth teams to get themselves into the NCAA Tournament. We won't know until next week if any of them are getting #1 seeds, though....
College Basketball Games Worthy Of Just One Network
Observe as I attempt to do this without using the b-word that rhymes with "stubble."...
Authors With Pure Hearts: Will Blythe
We've taken some time off from the Authors With Pure Hearts series, but we gleefully return with Will Blythe's To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever, a hysterical, slightly crazed book about what it means to hate so much that it becomes purifying. In the case of Blythe, born and bred in North Car...