ncaatournament Page 51 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

This Time, Butler's The Favorite
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Brad Stevens on his gameplan for VCU....

John Calipari Celebrates His First Final Four Appearance, Technically
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: maybe he'll get to keep this one! Kentucky coach John Calipari joined Sporting News Radio w...

Yes, Someone Bet $10 On VCU To Win It All
Forget those two perfect Final Four brackets on ESPN.com. How about someone who stands to earn some real money? One lone soul laid down a ten-spot on the Rams at the Las Vegas Hilton during the regular season, and got 5000-1 odds. That's looking a little closer right now. [USA Today]...

Shaka Smart's Key To Success: Quoting <em>Scarface</em>
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: VCU likes to be the bad guy....

Sad Jayhawk Has "Absolutely No Regrets" About Being Sad Jayhawk
Before he was Sad Jayhawk, Matt Rissien was just another superfan: going to away games, wearing a costume, posing with luminaries like Erin Andrews and Scot Pollard. But, thanks to the vagaries of the universe and an alert cameraman, he's become more: a symbol of fallen hubris. A Crying Duke Kid or ...

VCU Students Need To Step Up Their 'Riots'
Virginia Commonwealth is celebrating their upset in the time-honored small school way: causing more mischief than destruction (that's fire extinguisher smoke, not tear gas). Fans jammed Richmond's Broad Street, and even had an old fashionedwelcome-the-team-back-from-the-airport pep rally. I won't ...

VCU Has No Business In The Final Four, And We're Glad They're Here
Last week at this time, we were laughing at the Big East for being a weak conference, despite all the late winter talk about it being the best in college basketball. The evidence proffered was the number of teams left in the tournament. By that logic, the best conferences in college basketball at th...

Your Second Sweet Sixteen Open Thread
Remember kids, now that Duke is gone, UNC is the new Duke. They're up first tonight against Marquette. Also on the slate: Richmond-Kansas, Kentucky-Ohio State, and an intriguing VCU-Florida State game that will decide our weekend's Cinderella representative....

Newark A Horrible Place To Visit, But Better Than Syracuse
Yesterday, the big news was that John Calipari had moved the Wildcats out of their Newark hotel, giving some excuse about wanting a place "on the outskirts of the city ... so they didn't have any distractions." I don't know if I buy that, because I don't think you can get any more outskirty than an ...

BYU And The Mid-Major Hype Cycle
Today's Sports Illustrated asks the question: Are the BYU Cougars America's Team? (They also have an awesome cover photo, by Robert Beck.) The answer is no, BYU's not America's Team, because that phrase really has no meaning beyond a marketing slogan formulated more than 30 years ago. But it speaks ...

NBA Scouts Agree: Jimmer Fredette Is Very, Very White
The best part about yesterday's foreseeable New York Times story on Jimmer Fredette wasn't the obvious notion that Fredette might make for a less-than-dominant NBA player. Far better and more obvious was the list of less-than-dominant NBA players that several front-office types used to assess Fredet...

Your Night Games Open Thread
This one's your open thread for the rest of the evening. First up we've got BU-Kansas, LIU-UNC, St. Peter's-Purdue, and Marquette-Xavier....

Your Open Thread For The Second Block/Batch/Wave Of NCAA Tourney Games
Memphis-Arizona, Hampton-Duke (in Charlotte), FSU-Texas A&M, and UTSA-OSU. Fun fact: late afternoon is always the lowest-rated block of games on TV. It's why you see a ton of mismatches there, and we could be in for a few blowouts today. Let's hope not: go Hampton....

What It Feels Like To Hit A Buzzer-Beater
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Butler's Matt Howard on making the "One Shining Moment" montage....

Your Tourney Day 2 Open Thread, Featuring The Debut Of Gus Johnson
The opening slate of games features Oakland-Texas, Tennessee-Michigan, Akron-Notre Dame, and George Mason-Villanova. We've been aware of a growing mini-backlash against Gus recently, so we'll lay down our official position now: he seems like a nice guy who really likes basketball, and isn't overexpo...

Today's Viewing Guide For March Madness: Office Tricks, Game Schedules, And Gus Johnson
Day One of the 2011 NCAA tournament was The Best Day One Anyone Can Remember, which no one ever says! But there were four buzzer-beaters and a sad bird, which is a pretty damn good day. Here's your guide to watching in the workplace, along with an updated broadcast-announcer schedule for today's act...

Your Early Evening NCAA Tournament Open Thread
Have a nice, refreshing mini-break? After dinner, it's time for UCSB-Florida, Wofford-BYU, Bucknell-UConn, and Belmont-Wisconsin. Remember, just because everyone's picking upsets, doesn't mean you have to. Now, isn't it about time you went home and figured out what channel number TruTV is....

Here Are The Four Buzzer-Beaters From The First Five Games
Matt Howard's putback at the horn to put Butler over Old Dominion. Great whistle-swallowing by the refs....

Your NCAA Tournment Open Thread, Continued
Let's make this the place for the Greek chorus to comment on Princeton-Kentucky, UNCA-Pitt, Richmond-Vanderbilt, and N. Colorado-SDSU. Viewer's guide here, complaints about no Gus Johnson on day 1 below. We'll be in occasionally with updates, so go start pretending like you hate Princeton more than ...

Your NCAA Tournament Early Games Open Thread
Consider this a break room to discuss the first block of today's games. First up: Clemson-WVU, ODU-Butler, Morehead State-Louisville, and Penn State-Temple. As always, the viewing guide to the tourney is here, and we'll pop in occasionally with highlights and upset alerts....