mad Page 81 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Facebook Data Give Us The Best Fandom Map of the NCAA Tournament
In January, Facebook dipped into its user data and put together the greatest NFL fan map we'd ever seen. Now they've done it again, mapping out county-by-county Facebook likes for the 68 teams participating in this year's March Madness. Michael Bailey broke down the data by conference, tournament re...
The Lover's Guide To The NCAA Tournament
There is no finer harbinger of spring than the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Often, the planets will align and you will find that the first day of the tournament also happens to take place on one of the first legitimately warm days of the spring, which allows you to drink outside for the fir...
The Midwest Is The Regional Of Death; Or, Why Louisville Misses The "S-Curve"
Your 2013 NCAA Tournament bracket is out, and...huh. Forget your bracket pool—that'll be as impossible as always—this year it's tough enough just to predict a winner. Vegas is stumped, and a big part of that uncertainty comes from Louisville, the early favorite, being stuck in the stacked Midwest re...
Here's Your 2013 NCAA Bracket
Notable notes: Kentucky was locked out. Something called "La Salle" made it in and Gonzaga is a No. 1 seed. Madness! ...
St. Louis Hit Traffic On The Way To Airport, So They're Watching The Selection Show From A Best Buy In Jersey
Earlier today, St. Louis won the A-10 tournament at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. The team apparently hit traffic—welcome to New York—and couldn't get to the airport. So now they're slumming it in Jersey. Good luck, guys!...
Greg Maddux Is On Twitter, Maybe, And He's Wonderful
No official word yet on whether this Twitter account really belongs to Greg Maddux, top-10 greatest pitcher ever and lovely-Christmas-sweater-haver. We hope very much that it is real....
There Were A Whole Lot Of Hearts Broken In The Horizon League Tournament Last Night
Yesterday's Horizon League semifinal games were fucking nuts. The above video is from the first matchup, a tightly defended contest between second-seed Detroit and the third seed, Wright State. Both teams were tied at 54 with five seconds left when Wright State's Miles Dixon drove the ball from th...
This Mediocre Kentucky Team Offers Hope That John Calipari Hasn't Solved College Basketball
With their win today over No. 11 Florida, the Kentucky Wildcats will probably make the NCAA Tournament. Normally UK achieves that designation by late November or so. Kentucky missed the Big Dance in 2009, but it'd been 1991 since the Cats last weren't invited to March Madness. They hold the NCAA rec...
FC Barcelona's No Longer Ranked World's Best Club, And You Won't Believe Who Is
FC Barcelona's been struggling. In the past few weeks, they've lost to Real Madrid back-to-back, and haven't beaten their rivals since last August. They were just defeated 2-0 in the Champions League away to an undermanned AC Milan side. They've only won one game in their last four. Messi is hurting...
One Manchester United Fan Was So Upset By Nani's Red Card, He Called The Police
United washed out of the Champions League yesterday, conceding two backbreaking goals to Real Madrid almost immediately after Nani was sent off for an unintentional boot into the torso of Álvaro Arbeloa. It was controversial as all get-out—you can see the video here—and surely swung the result....
Manchester United Eliminated From Champions League Due To Ridiculous Red Card
Real Madrid recovered from a one-goal disadvantage to score a road win at Old Trafford and win the UEFA Champions League knockout round tie with Manchester United thanks to an absurd red card....
Here's A Photo Of UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland, In A Tracksuit, Playing Beer Pong With Students Last Night
From the game day campout live-blog at the Daily Bruin (and via Twitter), here's a picture of notoriously sorta grumpy UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, looking extremely relaxed last night in advance of today's game against #11 ranked Arizona at Pauley Pavilion (9 p.m. EST, ESPN)....
Is This The Beginning Of The End For FC Barcelona?
In tonight's Copa del Rey, Real Madrid traveled to Barcelona and throttled them 3-1 to oust their rivals from the Spanish Cup. It was a shocking result in what many consider to be the world's greatest derby. Since former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola's hiring in 2008, Barça has dominated El Clasi...
To Avoid Criticism, Shabazz Muhammad Must Collapse With Joy When His Team Wins
Shabazz Muhammad is proving a good canary in the coal mine for figuring out if we've dispensed with the superstar-athlete-doesn't-care-about-team-play concern trolling as we've grown more sophisticated about the complexity of the NCAA and the intellectual laziness of humping tired sports cliches. We...
John Madden Is Still Eating Like A Weirdo
In advance of the Super Bowl, the New York Times the other day did one of those stories about the local flavor of New Orleans. This particular flavor is Tabasco, the hot sauce made in Louisiana by the McIlhenny Co., the family business whose former chief executive once owned a stake in the Saints....
A Pixar Animator Sketches The NFL Season
Austin Madison is an animator for Pixar, and has worked on movies including Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, and Up. But this is perhaps his finest work: a series of sketches throughout the NFL season, previewing one or two of each week's games....
LeSean McCoy Sics Twitter Army On His "Broke, Worthless" Babymama After She Accuses Him Of Being A Deadbeat Dad
Look, we have no idea if LeSean McCoy is a deadbeat dad. The mother of his child LeSean McCoy Jr. is alleging that to be the case—and a whole lot more. Indeed, in a bizarre battle that resulted in McCoy deleting his twitter account, the babymama (known as Steph) accused McCoy of having herpes, havi...
The Most Recent Fainting Spell Over Shabazz Muhammad Distills NCAA Compliance To Its Idiotic Essence
Shabazz Muhammad spent the first three games of UCLA's season—and his college career—sitting on the bench while the NCAA deliberated on whether he'd committed a minor infraction that he'd specifically been advised not to worry about when he committed it. When he was finally reinstated, he got back ...
Sports Video Gaming Must Face Its Own Era Of Excess
Wednesday was supposed to be a day of no news in Major League Baseball. There are no league games in January, of course; pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 29 days. And exit polling had long foreseen the shutout ballot, for the first time since 1996, that the Baseball Writers Associa...
A Group Of Bros Infiltrated The Knicks Locker Room, Asked Gregg Popovich About J.R. Smith, And Got Kicked Out After Snapping A Picture Of Half-Naked Carmelo
On Thursday night, Peter and his friends had courtside tickets to Knicks-Spurs, a gift from a family friend that meant an up-close view of the game in which Stephen Jackson injured himself tripping over Mike Bloomberg's waitress and J.R. Smith did this. After it ended, they did what anyone would do ...