Once in a while, a gut feeling and some human instinct can out-think a computer.
It's a stimulus plan on sneakers.
When I began working on a book about the 1979 NCAA championship game, one of the first things I did, naturally, was watch a DVD of the game. NBC's telecast began with host Bryant Gumbel narrating a pregame segment before handing the game off to the trio of Dick Enberg, Billy Packer and Al McGuire. During the segment, Gumbel stood by himself on the court. There was no set, no fancy trappings, no commercial presence at all aside from a small "Pro Keds" sign that disappeared from view when the camera zoomed in on Gumbel's face.
From Bill Russell's 1955 San Francisco Dons to Mario Chalmers '08 Jayhawks, Sports Illustrated has covered the NCAA basketball championship for more than 50 years. Here are the SI game stories for one of sports' biggest events:
Feeling Sweet, Hoopheads? Of course you are. It's our time of year, and this is another week to soak it up. I'm sure devoted readers of this space are not surprised the Sweet 16 includes all the number 1, 2 and 3 seeds for the first time in tournament history. I've been writing for weeks that, for all the tumult at the top of the polls, this was still a very top-heavy season in college basketball. It's too bad there aren't more Cinderellas to spice up the dance, but there's a payoff ahead as we get a weekend full of games played by the most powerful and recognizable brands in college basketball.
Bill James put together a mathematical system that, more or less, figures out what percentage of the time one NCAA tournament seed should beat another. According to his system, for instance, a No. 1 seed should beat No. 16 seed a bit more than 99 percent of the time ... and of course a No. 1 seed has never lost to a No. 16 seed in 100 chances. In fact, the math is pretty easy to figure out this year because the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, which means that this is the 25th year, which means that there have been exactly 100 first-round games played for each matchup.
At this time of year while the entire nation is gambling on the wholesome sport of college basketball, here are a few of the complaints I hear from fans about the NBA in relation to March Madness. I can't tell you how many times I've heard fans who love the NCAA tournament launch into complaints about pro basketball. In some cases their criticism is spot on, but a lot of the arguments are missing the larger point.
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The most famous digit in America right now isn't 64 for the NCAA tournament field, 44 for President Barack Obama's historic presidency, $165 million for AIG's contested bonus money or $787 billion for the government stimulus package.
Northern Iowa Panthers Seed: No. 12 Record: 22-10 (14-4 Missouri Valley) NCAA bid: Automatic RPI: 59 Coach: Ben Jacobson (Third year at Northern Iowa, first NCAA tournament) Best player: Adam Koch. The junior forward was first-team All-MVC and leads the Panthers in scoring at 12.1 points. He also shoots 77 percent from the line and was 23-for-23 at the line over one two-game stretch. Key stat: Northern Iowa committed 10 turnovers or fewer in 16 games, including all three MVC tournament wins Notable games: beat Auburn, lost to Iowa St., lost at Iowa, lost at Siena Record in last 12 games: 8-4 Last NCAA appearance: 2006, as No. 10 seed, lost to Georgetown 54-49 in first round
America's favorite sporting event is also its best. Nothing delivers such an electrifying combination of excitement, unpredictability and competitiveness with such giddy regularity as the NCAA tournament. Below are the five storylines that you'll be hearing about over the next three weeks.
Once in a while, a gut feeling and some human instinct can out-think a computer.
It's a stimulus plan on sneakers.
When I began working on a book about the 1979 NCAA championship game, one of the first things I did, naturally, was watch a DVD of the game. NBC's telecast began with host Bryant Gumbel narrating a pregame segment before handing the game off to the trio of Dick Enberg, Billy Packer and Al McGuire. During the segment, Gumbel stood by himself on the court. There was no set, no fancy trappings, no commercial presence at all aside from a small "Pro Keds" sign that disappeared from view when the camera zoomed in on Gumbel's face.
From Bill Russell's 1955 San Francisco Dons to Mario Chalmers '08 Jayhawks, Sports Illustrated has covered the NCAA basketball championship for more than 50 years. Here are the SI game stories for one of sports' biggest events:
Feeling Sweet, Hoopheads? Of course you are. It's our time of year, and this is another week to soak it up. I'm sure devoted readers of this space are not surprised the Sweet 16 includes all the number 1, 2 and 3 seeds for the first time in tournament history. I've been writing for weeks that, for all the tumult at the top of the polls, this was still a very top-heavy season in college basketball. It's too bad there aren't more Cinderellas to spice up the dance, but there's a payoff ahead as we get a weekend full of games played by the most powerful and recognizable brands in college basketball.
Bill James put together a mathematical system that, more or less, figures out what percentage of the time one NCAA tournament seed should beat another. According to his system, for instance, a No. 1 seed should beat No. 16 seed a bit more than 99 percent of the time ... and of course a No. 1 seed has never lost to a No. 16 seed in 100 chances. In fact, the math is pretty easy to figure out this year because the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, which means that this is the 25th year, which means that there have been exactly 100 first-round games played for each matchup.
At this time of year while the entire nation is gambling on the wholesome sport of college basketball, here are a few of the complaints I hear from fans about the NBA in relation to March Madness. I can't tell you how many times I've heard fans who love the NCAA tournament launch into complaints about pro basketball. In some cases their criticism is spot on, but a lot of the arguments are missing the larger point.
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The most famous digit in America right now isn't 64 for the NCAA tournament field, 44 for President Barack Obama's historic presidency, $165 million for AIG's contested bonus money or $787 billion for the government stimulus package.
Northern Iowa Panthers Seed: No. 12 Record: 22-10 (14-4 Missouri Valley) NCAA bid: Automatic RPI: 59 Coach: Ben Jacobson (Third year at Northern Iowa, first NCAA tournament) Best player: Adam Koch. The junior forward was first-team All-MVC and leads the Panthers in scoring at 12.1 points. He also shoots 77 percent from the line and was 23-for-23 at the line over one two-game stretch. Key stat: Northern Iowa committed 10 turnovers or fewer in 16 games, including all three MVC tournament wins Notable games: beat Auburn, lost to Iowa St., lost at Iowa, lost at Siena Record in last 12 games: 8-4 Last NCAA appearance: 2006, as No. 10 seed, lost to Georgetown 54-49 in first round
America's favorite sporting event is also its best. Nothing delivers such an electrifying combination of excitement, unpredictability and competitiveness with such giddy regularity as the NCAA tournament. Below are the five storylines that you'll be hearing about over the next three weeks.
The annual March Madness U.S. college basketball tournament, which starts on Thursday, is a pressure cooker for the 65 teams involved.
Here's a hot tip: The University of North Carolina is going to win the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Happy Brackets, everyone! I'm sure we're all glad the speculation about bubbles and seeds is over, and we can get down to talking hoops. My own bracket picks are here. I've gone through each of the four regions and have offered up a few Hoop Thoughts below to explain why I filled it out the way I did. Feel free to follow my advice on your own brackets, but remember my No. 1 rule: No blaming!
When the March to the Arch has finally played out a few weeks down the road, it probably won't matter all that much how the brackets in the women's 2009 NCAA championship were shaped. When you have a team as dominant as Connecticut sitting at the top of heap (as an ESPN graphic pointed out, the undefeated Huskies have beaten ranked teams by more than 31 points a game), it may seem like the next few weeks are just an exercise in determining who gets the honor of being crushed by UConn in the championship final.
Since 1985, the NCAA tournament has been structurally consistent -- with the same number of teams (okay...so the last few years have had a 65th bid), the same seed match-ups, and even the same days that rounds are played. That consistency is a big reason why historical data has such relevance in predicting future outcomes.
Over the course of my 15-year career, I have lived the dream. My dream. I've covered all four major sports; attended multiple World Series and All-Star Games; surfed with Barry Zito, traveled in a pickup truck with Jet and Cord McCord; watched Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken and Frank Thomas take BP; engaged in late-in-their-life interviews with Minnesota Fats and Walter Payton. Should I never leave my home again, I'll do so knowing I've experienced the ultimate pleasures of sportswriting.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Billy Gillispie couldn't find the correct word. "What do you say when it's a lot of different things put together?" the Kentucky coach asked no one in particular Saturday as he dug into the guts of the Wildcats' 60-53 loss to Florida.
Five mid-major conference tournaments to keep an eye on as Championship Week unfolds.
1. Does Memphis deserve a No. 1 seed? This could be the debate that dominates Selection Sunday. Three of the No. 1s -- UConn, Pitt and North Carolina -- are close to being locked in. But the fourth spot is still up for grabs, and a majority of bracketologists consider Oklahoma to be the best candidate, partly under the assumption that the NCAA selection committee will cut the Sooners slack for the two losses they suffered while Blake Griffin was out with a concussion (and blazered up). If OU doesn't win the Big 12 tournament, though, it opens the door for Memphis, Michigan State, Louisville or even Duke to hop up to a No. 1. The Tigers have the weakest nonconference résumé of that crew -- Tennessee and Gonzaga are their only decent wins -- and the Spartans, Cardinals or Blue Devils would, in my mind, have a more rightful claim to a top seed if they were to win out from now 'til the brackets are built. Memphis' case would be built mostly on momentum; it hasn't lost since Dec. 20, and
The passionate Hoop Thinkers who visit this space are certainly not short on ideas on how to improve the greatest spectacle in American sports, the NCAA tournament. On Tuesday, I wrote that I was vehemently against the idea of expanding the tournament, and I'm happy to report that I did not receive a single e-mail from a reader disagreeing with my position. The people have spoken -- at least to me.
We'll begin my inaugural mailbag of the 2008-09 season with a pair of questions about the Orange:
SI.com asked college basketball writers Luke Winn, Seth Davis and Grant Wahl to share their reactions to SI's top 20, which was released Monday.
They'd come from the cities, and they'd come from the smaller towns. Old-timers and recent alums. Forwards and guards. Former players and former coaches. More than 180 in all, they converged on a resort during the last week in August. The event was described on the invitation as an Indiana Hoosiers "basketball reunion," a social gathering of men who had worn the cream-and-crimson jersey and those trademark candy-cane warmups. But, really, it was something deeper. A summit, perhaps, or a council meeting to address the crisis facing the tribe. "Most of all," says Bobby (Slick) Leonard, an All-America guard at Indiana in the 1950s, "it was the first step in healing, making it one big, happy family again."
DAVIDSON, N.C. -- It's a spectacular fall day under a cloudless Carolina sky, with very little wind and a crisp in the air. In other words, it's a perfect day for golf. So I can't help but feel a slight pang of guilt as I stand on the green and watch my opponent line up a putt to potentially clinch our match. His ball is only about four feet from the hole, but given the enormous stakes, I refuse to concede the gimme. "I can't give you that," I tell him, "but I'm rooting for you."
MEMPHIS -- Moments before a banner commemorating the University of Memphis' appearance in the 2008 Final Four was raised to the rafters of Fed Ex Forum last Friday night, the 14,000 blue-clad fans who had gathered for Midnight Madness were treated to a spine-tingling highlight video of the Tigers' march through the tournament bracket.
DANICA AND ANNIKA may sound like a Saturday Night Live duo on the order of Hans and Franz, but during a midsummer night in Los Angeles they induced schoolboy panic in Davidson guard Stephen Curry, the baby-faced breakout star of March Madness. When Danica Patrick and Annika Sorenstam, glammed-up for the ESPY Awards, stepped into his hotel elevator on their way to the show, they instantly recognized their fellow nominee and said hello. Betraying little of the cold-blooded shooter who lit up Gonzaga, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Kansas for 128 points during the NCAA tournament, Curry melted like, well, a starstruck college kid.
As much as we'd like to see the college basketball landscape tidied up in the days following the title game, decisions with domino effects tend to drag out late into the spring. At this time last year, Brandon Rush had yet to even leave Kansas, much less blow out his knee and make his fated return to a future national champion. Brandan Wright, who might have been the missing piece in a North Carolina title run in 2007-08, had yet to enter the NBA draft. Billy Donovan had yet to become the coach who left Florida for the Orlando Magic -- and then left the Magic for Florida again, all in less than one week in late May and early June.
The ball floated through the air, its pebbled surface spinning softly, as serene and peaceful as a space capsule in a low-earth orbit. At 10:29 p.m. CDT on Monday at the Alamodome in San Antonio, the fate of a college basketball season rested on Kansas guard Mario Chalmers -- or, to be more precise, on his last-ditch three-pointer, a make-or-break heave with 2.1 seconds left that would either send the NCAA title game into overtime or give Memphis, clinging to a 63-60 lead, its first championship in school history.
Bill Self descended to his knees even before Davidson's Jason Richards hoisted an off-balance, 25-foot, buzzer-beating jump shot that could have completed a historic upset and crowned a new tournament Cinderella. The unsung, small-school Wildcats were America's underdog darlings, while perennial power Kansas was just another No. 1 seed on the cusp of its 13th Final Four.
SAN ANTONIO -- On the Friday night before the Final Four, the Memphis Tigers gathered in a meeting room at the Crowne Plaza in downtown San Antonio, bracing for another one of coach John Calipari's bring-down-the-house pep talks. Given the heightened occasion, they were prepared for all kinds of oratorical fireworks. But Calipari, understanding the effect of a dramatic pause, said nothing at first. He simply handed out photocopies of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, arguably the most powerful pep talk in American history. Then he asked a few of his players to read it aloud.
SAN ANTONIO -- Early in the regular season, long before there were any brackets or No. 1 seeds, Kansas teammates Russell Robinson and Darnell Jackson were watching North Carolina destroy yet another overmatched opponent on television when Robinson declared to Jackson: "I want to play North Carolina."
This might seem like the year of the evil stepsisters in the NCAA tournament. All four No. 1 seeds got a spot in the Final Four.
GREENSBORO -- Get her now. That's the advice for Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer because Maya Moore will be a freshman only once. Everything in this tournament is new for Moore, though you would not know it based on her comportment (calm) and performance (otherworldly). Stringer's team kept Moore in check for most of its 72-69 win Feb. 5, the only loss UConn has suffered in 36 games. Moore, a 6-foot forward, had two fouls before she scored her first point and was on the bench for much of the first half. She finished with 15 second-half points, including consecutive three-pointers in the final minutes.
Four seconds. That's all it took. Four seconds for UCLA freshman forward Kevin Love to bury Xavier for good after the Musketeers had mounted a comeback with an 11-2 run in the second half of last Saturday's West Regional final. Four seconds for Love to snatch the ball out of the net, take one step out-of-bounds -- his right foot planted, his left foot inches above the floor -- and snap an immaculate, 70-foot chest pass to teammate Russell Westbrook for a layup and a 14-point lead. Four seconds to crush Xavier with basketball's answer to a 60-yard touchdown throw. For one glorious, fleeting moment the old-school chest pass was as sexy as a Dwight Howard slam dunk. "I love hearing the oohs and aahs you get from the crowd," Love says, "because you rarely ever hear them for a pass. You usually just hear them for a dunk."
DETROIT -- As Stephen Curry dribbled the ball down court with less than 16 seconds left, a chance for a historic NCAA tournament upset and improbable Final Four berth resting squarely on his shoulders, 57,563 Ford Field spectators watched wide-eyed in anticipation.
The schedule taped to the wall Saturday in the North Carolina locker room lacked one critical, final entry.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- An inch or two to the left, and Wayne Ellington would have celebrated beneath a pile of delirious teammates. He would have seen his shining moment run on continuous loop every March alongside Lorenzo Charles, Tate George, Christian Laettner ('90 and '92), Bryce Drew and that other North Carolina player -- you remember him; he went on to play minor league baseball -- who hit a jumper with 17 seconds remaining to beat Georgetown in the 1982 national title game. For generations, children in driveways from Wilmington to Asheville and everywhere in between would recreate the scene.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- For my money, the first week is always the best week of the NCAA tournament, not least because there are so many games being played all the time. And while that's not the case in week two (which is why we're giving you some good reading links below to pass the time between games), I'm still psyched to be in Charlotte, the most stacked regional I've covered in years.
With his braided cornrows and thick Baltimore accent, Memphis senior forward Joey Dorsey looks and sounds a lot like a character from HBO's crime drama The Wire. But unlike Dorsey's favorite TV show, the NCAA tournament doesn't have to be a Greek tragedy, its actors doomed by the cruel Fates. And so, in the days before last week's games in North Little Rock, the notoriously downbeat Dorsey ignored the negatives -- his February swoon, the Tigers' two straight Elite Eight exits, his backfiring smack-talk toward Ohio State's Greg Oden in last year's tournament -- and at the behest of his coach, John Calipari, wrote his own fairy-tale script in the pages of a blue spiral notebook.
When this year's NCAA tournament pairings were announced a week ago Sunday night, I took a look at the page and, for the first time in 20-plus years as a bracket hound, found myself tempted to pick all four No. 1 seeds to reach the Final Four.
You might think that Mount St. Mary's doesn't belong on the same basketball court with North Carolina in Friday night's NCAA match-up. But the small school from rural Maryland is a lot closer to the Tar Heels in talent than they are in earning power off the court.
Five things we learned while wondering if Kansas State is really the best upstart this NCAA tournament can come up with:
Butler Bulldogs Seed, Region: No. 7, East Record: 29-3 (16-2 Horizon) NCAA bid: Automatic RPI: 17 Coach: Brad Stevens (First year at Butler, first NCAA tournament) Best player: Mike Green. A.J. Graves may be better known nationally, but Green has blossomed as a senior, leading Butler in points (14.6), rebounds (6.4) and assists (5.2) and becoming a Wooden finalist. Key stat: Butler held 10 opponents to 50 points or less and allows just 57.8 points per game, fifth best in the nation. Notable games: beat Michigan 79-65; beat Virginia Tech 84-78; beat Texas Tech 81-71; beat Ohio State 65-46; beat Florida State 79-68; lost to Drake 71-64 Record in last 12 games: 11-1 Last NCAA appearance: 2007, as a No. 5 seed, beat Old Dominion 57-46; beat Maryland 62-59; lost to Florida 65-57 in Sweet 16
1. Bill Raferty's voice at high noon on the first day.
The NCAA tournament wouldn't be what it is today without its annual dose of upsets and unpredictability. If everyone that was supposed to win did win, we wouldn't be able to call it March Madness. It would be Mundane March. Or March Morphine Drip.
NEW YORK -- It seems the Big East's "luckiest" team has done it again, folks.
After discussing the merits of the Pac-10 tournament, the complexities of the NCAA seeding process, and the possibility that his team will reach the Final Four for the third year in a row, UCLA center Kevin Love pondered a far more pressing question. "Are we the Duke of the West?" Love asked. "Does everybody hate us now?"
Greetings, Hoop Thinkers. For today's submission, I have resurrected my wildly popular Hoop Thoughts Stock Report to get you primed for the final stretch heading into March Madness. You know the drill: The mission is not to assess where teams are but to project where they are headed. Ratings have been assigned relative to a team's status as defined by record, ranking and buzz. So just because one team is rated a Buy and another a Sell, that doesn't mean the Buy team is better. But you knew that already.
ATLANTA -- While the college basketball world focused on the Duke-North Carolina showdown on Wednesday night, a North Carolina native who beat Duke in the NCAA tournament last year played the role of the hero again for Virginia Commonwealth.
We have a pretty big story potentially brewing in college hoops. North Carolina, Memphis and Kansas are all undefeated. Here are the number of games remaining on their schedules against teams ranked in the Top 25:
ATLANTA -- George Mason may be two seasons removed from its historic Final Four run, but the Patriots still have a big target on their back.
College hoops turns the corner into the conference home-stretch this evening, and as much as we think we've learned from the first two months of the season, it's not enough. The final Associated Press poll of December 2006 is evidence of just how worthless early-season assessments can be. No one considered that Top 25 to be a total abomination at the time, and yet there was one future NIT team (Alabama) in the top 10 and three more (Oklahoma State, Air Force and Clemson) scattered below.
Billy Donovan was finally alone. It was late on the evening of June 1, and all the difficult work was done: the press conferences announcing his departure from the University of Florida to coach the Orlando Magic, the meetings with Magic officials, the phone calls to his Florida players, bosses and staff. With a sigh Donovan collapsed into the chair in his home office, surrounded by the spoils of a triumphant career: photographs of his former players; knickknacks from his Final Four run in 1987 as a guard at Providence; magazine covers celebrating his Gators, one of only two Division I teams in the past 33 years to win back-to-back championships. "For the first time in days there was complete silence," Donovan says. "It was just me and this decision."
In the first month of the 25th season after Chaminade's historic upset of No. 1-ranked Virginia, the eye-opening scores came in droves.
Ask and ye shall receive. Last week a loyal 'Bag reader claimed that 9-0 Duke (Duke!) wasn't getting enough attention after the Blue Devils' fast start. And while we'd hardly say that Coach K and the boys are underexposed, it's true that the 'Bag hasn't discussed Duke much this season. So we solicited questions, and you brought them with vigor:
Geno Auriemma and Diana Taurasi reunited in Burlington, Vt., last month for the wedding of Ashley Valley, a teammate of Taurasi's when CONNECTICUT was winning national championships with drumbeat regularity. As part of their long-running comedy act, Auriemma reminded Taurasi how she owed her WNBA stardom solely to the lessons imparted by her college coach. Recalls Auriemma, "She put her arm around me in front of a handful of people and said, 'Coach, I really haven't been following the program lately. How many have you won since I left?' "
When Roy Hibbert disrupted draft boards by announcing, on May 23, he was returning to Georgetown for his senior season, it seemed unlikely a more important piece of player news would emerge from the summer. What, after all, could be bigger than a 7-foot-2 Lottery Pick putting the NBA on hold?
With the deadline for underclassmen to keep their names in the NBA Draft now passed, here are the offseason's biggest winners and losers in college hoops:
Monday's analysis of the 50-team-deep coaching carousel looked at five new hires, in this Age of Impatience, who actually should be expected to win in Year 1. Situations such as Mark Turgeon's at Texas A&M, where he inherited a front line of two pro prospects and a team that's already top-20 caliber, are incredibly rare, however. Rebuilding projects are more the norm, so today I examine five high-profile coaches who should be afforded patience in their new gigs, whether it be one year, two, or the full length of their freshly inked contract.
Gail Goestenkors spent 15 years preparing Duke athletes for the next phase of their lives, teaching them how to overcome challenges on and off the court. Now, she is moving on to her next challenge.
Also in this column: • Scout breaks down phenom O.J. Mayo • Glamour matchups galore this week • Top 10 toughest NBA records to break
ATLANTA -- I love the sweat suit guys. Every year they show up at the Final Four in the same uniform, the masses of assistant coaches from Stetson and Humboldt State and Cal Poly wearing their schools across their chests like a nametag.
ON BOARD DELTA FLIGHT 621 TO ATLANTA -- Time to fire it up, folks: The Final Four is upon us, and I haven't been this hyped about the national-semifinal matchups since, well, since ever. We'll have five things for you to ponder tomorrow, but for now here's one big thing to think about (while wondering why so many people drink in airports at 9 a.m. on a weekday):
UCLA guard Arron Afflalo can close his eyes and conjure every detail, a vision from a childhood spent launching imaginary three-pointers in his family's Compton, Calif., living room: Monday night, final seconds, down two, 50,000 fans watching in the seats and millions more on TV. In his mind's eye he curls off a screen, catches a pass on the wing, jab-steps to freeze his defender and unspools a rainbow three pregnant with possibility. Splash. "Man, that would be so sweet," Afflalo says, opening his eyes and smiling at the thought of UCLA's 12th national title. "But I wouldn't be surprised. I'd expect it to go in. You have to think that way if you're going to make a shot like that."
With Kentucky fans dogging him after another disappointing finish, Tubby Smith is bolting the bluegrass for Minnesota.
SAN ANTONIO -- Five things to ponder heading into this week's NCAA regionals (Gus Johnson screams, sadly, not included):
If this year's Academy Awards marked the return of the big-studio epic, a chance for old-fashioned star power to crush the cuddly Little Miss Sunshines of the world, then the 2007 NCAA tournament was a fitting sequel last week -- even before the games had started. As star vehicles go, the bus that ferried top-ranked Ohio State from Columbus to Lexington, Ky., was doubly blessed, featuring transcendent freshmen in the aisles and The Departed on the TV screens. "Best movie of the year," pronounced center Greg Oden, a budding film critic who owns more than 600 DVDs. "The thing I loved about it was that everybody died. Usually in movies maybe one or two people die, but everybody got killed."
Also in the Weekly Quiz: • MVP race is still Nowitzki's to lose • Pistons sometimes hard to figure
The popularity of the the NCAA Tournament has been tied to its Cinderella stories. But in this fairy tale, the Cinderella teams are showing up at the ball dressed in rags.
To hear Florida forward Joakim Noah tell the story, the notion of a repeat came up only once -- in Minneapolis, one of the Twin Cities, whose very nickname implies replication. Maybe there was a hint of the Duke mystique lingering like carbon 14 in the Metrodome, the same building where, in 1992, Christian Laettner's Blue Devils became the only team since '73 to win back-to-back NCAA men's basketball titles. But as Gators coach Billy Donovan led his star sophomores to the press conference after clinching a berth in last year's Final Four, he turned giddy at the possibilities: "We're going to win it this year, and then we're going to win it again next year, and you guys will be remembered as one of the best teams to ever play the game."
Attention all of you office-poolers out there who follow college basketball for one month out of the year (and then only because you threw $10 in with your bracket). I come to you today with some quick primers on how to fill out this year's entry.
It could be some time before LSU players and fans get a definitive explanation as to why their head coach quit less than a week after the Tigers' appearance in the SEC championship game.
It's March. And you know what that means. For many Americans the world will stop and the only thing that will matter to them is what their brackets look like in their college basketball office pools.
Every so often, somebody comes out with an idea so intuitive that you kick yourself for not thinking of it first. You know, like going on vacation with Rulon Gardner, or putting the NHL on Versus, or throwing money around a Las Vegas strip club but asking the strippers not to touch the money. OK, bad examples. But the second I opened my advance copy of The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything, I knew that editors Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir were onto something big. I'm talking Barry-Bonds'-head big.
This week marks the midway point of conference play, when college hoops heads into the final turn toward March. Here are seven pressing questions facing the field.
Antonie Davis didn't want his dad's new team to play any games. The 8-year-old remembered the end of his father tenure at Indiana all too well, when Mike Davis was under the intense scrutiny from fans that were still clinging to the memory of the icon he replaced. But back home in his native Alabama, as the first-year coach at UAB and away from the ominous shadow of Bob Knight, Davis has found his comfort zone -- and delivered a message to his son that is fitting after his tumultuous time in Bloomington.
We've crunched the numbers, pulled out our slide rule and worked the phones ....
One game down, 63 to go in the NCAA championship tournament. If you're going to get in on your office March Madness Pool, you'll have to get your selections in before tipoff of the first game on Thursday.
Even if it's been a while since you were in college, that's no reason to miss out on one of the finest time-honored traditions of undergraduate life -- March Madness.
(This story originally ran on March 9)
The brackets for the NCAA Tournament were drawn last night. You know what that means? To steal a line from Dick Vitale, it's March Madness, baby!
$700,000 Amount a top male college basketball player generates annually for his school in ticket, merchandise, TV and sponsorship revenue
As everyone knows, some of the most successful technology companies were started by university students. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University to join Paul Allen to pursue their software pro...
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
Video
