final-four Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Florida, Ohio State In The Final Four. Again.
Yep, a double take on that headline over here too. Following a Gator victory over Arizona State, and a Buckeye win over Dayton, these two proud programs are back in the Championship picture, albeit of the NIT. Come April 1, if Ohio State can beat Ole Miss and Florida does the same to UMass, we may s...

Detroit Wants You To Burn Stuff In Honor Of Student-Athletes
This is the logo for 2009 Final Four in Detroit: It's a tire that's on fire. Flaming tires! Billy Packer! What's not to love?...

Looking To The Past To Overcome The Present
Now that Florida has won its second national title in a row, everybody's an amateur historian — which is good, because sports would be no fun if it has professional historians. The big question: Are the Gators one of the best teams ever? The answer of course is that there is no answer, which is why ...

At This Rate, Florida's Gonna Win An Oscar This Year
It was rather difficult not to admire Greg Oden in this game, but Florida, man, those guys are good. Not the epic game we were hoping for ... but when you go 4-for-22 from the 3-point line, it doesn't really matter if you have a 64-year-old Bill Russell under the basket....

Give Us At Least ONE Shining Moment. One Will Be Fine.
All right, well, we think we can all agree that, as sports fans, we are owed an epic national title matchup tonight. This has been the least memorable NCAA Tournament of the last decade — except for those ones we can't remember — and the only thing that can salvage it is a Connecticut-Duke or George...

What A Win Tonight Would Mean: Florida
A national title, or a championship in any sport, resonates for years beyond just one small victory for a group of tall men. It stands for something not just in athletics, but for a university as a whole, a matter of civic pride, an achievement disparate groups of people can all stand alongside, joy...

NCAA Championship Game Blogdome: Let's Play Two
What they're saying, blogwise, about tonight's National Championship game ......

What A Win Tonight Would Mean: Ohio State
A national title, or a championship in any sport, resonates for years beyond just one small victory for a group of tall men. It stands for something not just in athletics, but for a university as a whole, a matter of civic pride, an achievement disparate groups of people can all stand alongside, joy...

Hey, The Couch Is Better Than Atlanta. Totally.
If you're one of those Frank Rich-obsessed souls who read the TimesSelect column, you already know this, but if not, we should make this clear before we start talking about the Final Four: We did not make it to Atlanta. Because Peter King is the only person left on earth who doesn't recognize that i...

The Final Four Open Thread
I'm afraid I won't be with you for tonight's basketball festivities — I decided to try actually watching a game without a keyboard in front of me. I don't know what that's going to be like, but I've heard it's wild....

What's More Beautiful Than Atlanta In March?
After what seemed an interminable week off, we're finally back moving with the NCAA Tournament tomorrow night, and we kind of can't wait: After last year's wretched Final Four — three lousy games — we should be in store for some double-plus pleasantness....

Jim Nantz Does Like Him A Good Pun
With the official Week Of Jim Nantz just around the corner — starting Saturday, Nantz is about to take a starring role in all your nightmares — we are reminded that Nantz, right now, is probably sitting in a hotel room in Atlanta, jotting down puns and single entendres based on which ever team wins ...

"The Ball Is Tipped ..."
Because we are just more than two days away from the Final Four, we thought we'd all work ourselves up into a sappy, cheesy frenzy with the good ole "One Shining Moment." Never before has something so horrible felt so, so right. (Note: Everything horrible feels right, actually.)...

More Fun With Joakim Noah
Because Saturday's Final Four matchup between Florida and UCLA is a rematch of last year's national championship game, some bad blood is still stewing, or boiling, or whatever bad blood does, and UCLA fans are wanting revenge. And how does today fan fire himself for revenge? Funny PhotoShops!...

Going Bonkers In D.C.
Of the teams that reached the Final Four, none seemed to take more joy from it than Georgetown, who not only have gone the longest between visits, but won in such an inspiring fashion. How'd they celebrate in DC? By marching all over the place, as documented by unsilent majority over at No Mas. It's...

That Really Should Have Been More Fun
As they say, the NCAA Tournament went out with a whimper rather than a bang, a flurp rather than a woosh, a squat thrust rather than a jumping jack. Florida hammered UCLA to win the national championship last night, and some of you might have been lucky to have made it until the end. The Gators do...

Who Would Win A Fight Between A Bruin And A Gator?
Perhaps there is something to the claims of those who say that all the early upsets in the NCAA Tournament has diminished interest in the late rounds; we're feeling a palpable lack of interest in tonight's national championship game between UCLA and Florida. Of course, that might be different if G...

Amazon.com Has Your Potentially Flawed Merchandise
As many of you have pointed out to us today, Amazon.com made a bit of a mistake this morning, sending out an email to pretty much anyone who has ever bought anything sports-related on the site imploring them to be "the first to see our selection of NCAA championship products."...

One Depressing Sports Weekend
We don't mean to overstate this, but Saturday was a disappointing an evening for college basketball as we can remember. It's not just that George Mason lost to Florida, or even that they lost so convincingly. Their legend had been secured simply by making it to Indianapolis at all; any mid-major w...

Nike Has No Love For GMU
In the world of coaching sponsorships, summer basketball camps and AAU leagues, if Nike doesn't acknowledge you, in the world of college basketball, you simply do not exist....