Category: NCAA Basketball

Get it? The headline. Brackets.

Anyway, no upsets in the Albuquerque region. The top eight seeds advanced.

Elsewhere three of the nine seeds beat eight seeds. This always happens. The nines are good picks. Pacific was the only eight seed to win.

A 14, a 13, a 12, an 11 and a 10 seed all won.

NewMexiKen picked New Mexico to defeat Villanova. I didn’t know the Lobos were going to phone-in the first half. The score at half time was 34-11. Eleven! Nice gutsy comeback in the second half though. UNM won the second half 36-21.

NewMexiKen picked 13 correct out of 16 Thursday. How’d you do?

… 84-67 to Oklahoma in the NCAA men’s tournament.

32 sudden death games in two days; 16 today, 16 tomorrow. Win or go home.

And here to get us in the mood, at great risk to NewMexiKen’s bandwidth and to the long arm of the copyright gestapo, are Cheech & Chong with Basketball Jones (1.9MB mp3 file).

Brad Stanhope of the Fairfield (California) Daily Republic:

Here are five things you should know about the best sports event on TV:

1. Every newspaper sports copy editor in the country is eagerly awaiting Niagara University’s first appearance since 1970. Not because they expect the Purple Eagles to make a run, but they can’t wait for them to lose, so they can write “Niagara falls” as a headline.

2. Something to watch on TV: CBS analyst Billy Packer will commend coaches for a “great timeout” and will compliment them for the players’ action (“great defense by Roy Williams!” “Great play by Bob Knight”) at least a dozen times a game. The coaches, of course, will be sitting on the bench.

3. Top-ranked Illinois gets a weak team with a great heritage when it faces Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday. Here’s what most people don’t know about Fairleigh Dickinson: His mother is sultry actress Angie Dickinson, his grandmother is noted author Emily Dickinson.

Or, so I say.

4. Everyone should root for Louisiana-Lafayette when it meets Louisville. That’s because the team is “The Ragin’ Cajuns,” the best nickname in college sports.

5. It was bad news for the University of Pennsylvania when it drew Boston College in the first round. Pennsylvania was desperately hoping to face the Chaminade Silverswords in the first round – because everyone knows that Penn is mightier than the Swords.

Link via yoco :: College Basketball.

Tonight in Dayton, Ohio, the Oakland (Michigan) Golden Grizzlies (12-18) play the Alabama A&M Bulldogs (18-13) in the first of 64 games to decide the NCAA men’s national basketball champions. The winner faces North Carolina Friday.

Billy Packer on CBS saying he didn’t think a last-second game-winning shot by Wisconsin was good, saying he wasn’t going to argue about it with Jim Nance while he was doing just that, and then being proven wrong by the replay.

From The New York Times:

Temple suspended its men’s basketball coach, John Chaney, for the remainder of the regular season on Friday, three days after he ordered a player to commit hard fouls that resulted in a potentially career-ending broken arm for a senior forward at city rival St. Joseph’s.
…

This was the second time that Chaney has been suspended. In 1994, he was barred for one game after threatening to kill Massachusetts Coach John Calipari during an argument after a game.

Greg Hansen writes about Salim Stoudamire’s last game at the McKale Center (Arizona’s home arena). The senior had nine threes and finished with 31 points in under 30 minutes.

If he had one regret about Sunday’s game it’s that he didn’t time his exit to stoop down and “kiss the court” as he was removed from the game.

Already a favorite, that move, had he made it, would have brought down the house.

A nice column about Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson from Mike Waldner at the Daily Breeze. The following is an excerpt:

Olson put on a coaching clinic Saturday after UCLA expanded a 39-38 halftime lead to 47-42.

Just when the Bruins thought they were in control, he called a timeout and cleared the cobwebs in the heads of Channing Frye and Ivan Radenovic, his two big men, with more than a few choice words.

He wanted Frye, who is 6-foot-11, to remain inside on offense. He wanted 6-10 Radenovic to move his feet and help out on defense.

How clear the message was is seen in the manner in which Arizona immediately took charge.

“It wouldn’t stop,” a frustrated UCLA coach Ben Howland said following the game.

What would not stop was the 19-0 Arizona run to settle the game then and there.

Olson has 301 Pac 10 victories, second only to John Wooden with 304.

The respect Wooden has for Olson is demonstrated in a trip he plans to take to Tucson.

“Coach Wooden is coming out to practice at our place on the 22nd,” Olson said. “That’s going to be a great thrill for our guys.”

Don’t underestimate how much Olson is looking forward to the day with Wooden.

“I might have him put together the practice plan for the day and run the practice for us,” he said.

Link via College Basketball.

NewMexiKen has added Blah blah blah to the blogroll. It’s a blog subtitled “College hoops by the numbers.”

Do you agree with this college basketball axiom from BrokenCowboy?

“[G]ood juniors and seniors will almost always beat great freshmen and sophomores.”

was on this date in 1896. The Library of Congress has the details, beginning with:

On January 18, 1896, H.J. Kallenberg, an instructor of physical education at the University of Iowa, welcomed Amos Alonzo Stagg, athletic director at the recently founded University of Chicago, to Iowa City for an experimental game in a new sport. The contest, refereed by Kallenberg, was the first college basketball game played with five players on each side. The University of Chicago won by a score of 15 to 12.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In what could best be described as a terrible case of buyer’s remorse, Rick Majerus apparently plans to resign as USC men’s basketball coach, only days after calling it his “dream job.”

Majerus, 56, who said last week he had bought himself out of his reported five-year, $500,000 contract as an ESPN analyst, will return to the cable network, ESPN officials said Saturday night.
…

Days	Name	Team	Outcome
1	Eddie Stanky	Rangers	Quit after managing one game in 1977.
2	Britney Spears	Celebrity	Annulled ’04 marriage to Jason Alexander.
4	Wally Backman	Diamondbacks	Fired in ’04 when legal trouble discovered.
5	George O’Leary	Notre Dame	Resigned in ’01; lied about background.
9	Cher	Celebrity	Divorced Gregg Allman in ’75
21	Dan Marino	Dolphins	Quit as team executive in 04.
31	William Henry Harrison	Presidency	9th president died of pneumonia in 1841.
34	Magic Johnson	Lakers	Finished ’94 season as coach; didn’t return.

Arizona Daily Star columnist Greg Hansen:

Sometime in the 2005-06 basketball season, it’s possible [Arizona Coach] Lute Olson will start a lineup of players from around the globe:

Nigeria’s Chukwuma Okwandu at center; Mali’s Mohamed Tangara at power forward; Serbia’s Ivan Radenovic as a wing shooter; Puerto Rico’s Jesus Verdejo at shooting guard; and Australia’s Daniel Dillon at point guard.

Imagine Arizona meeting Kentucky in the ’06 Final Four. UK’s starting lineup that day might include 7-foot Lukasz Obrzut of Poland; shooting guard Kelenna Azubuike of Nigeria via Great Britain; and Montreal guard Thomas Sheraf.

From Los Angeles Times: Morning Briefing:

The University of Connecticut became the first college to win men’s and women’s Division I basketball championships in the same season. Now comes the hard part: sharing the spotlight.

Men’s Coach Jim Calhoun and women’s Coach Geno Auriemma have had a difficult relationship even in calm times.

“Jim and Geno’s relationship has a lot to do with the egos of coaching, and when you are a coach, you are actually putting what you think works against what someone else thinks works, whether it be X and O’s, recruiting or promotion,” St. Joseph’s men’s Coach Phil Martelli, a friend of Auriemma’s for 30 years, told the New York Times.

“From the handful of times I’ve been with them both, they do not have what I relate to as a friendship, but it isn’t like they’re the Hatfields and McCoys, and I don’t think of them as two guys in the Wild West who want to go out and have a duel.”

After the women’s team won the national championship in 1995, Calhoun was not amused by a popular bumper sticker that read: “UConn: where men are men, and women are champions.”

And Auriemma was hardly chuckling, a few years ago, when Calhoun said that UConn might be wise to have a day-care center and a senior citizens home for fans of its women’s team.

As Martelli said, they’re not friends.

NewMexiKen just doesn’t understand a culture that starts a national championship game at nearly half past nine for half the population (the Eastern time zone). Something we might actually like for kids to watch starts at 9:21 — which means it won’t be over before midnight.

Update: For the record, the game ended at 11:35 ET.

From the Los Angeles Times: Morning Briefing —

Of Bill Walton’s 21-for-22 performance against Memphis State in the 1973 NCAA championship game, reader Cy Bolton recalled that the one miss was a made basket that was disallowed because it was ruled a dunk. Dunks were not allowed in 1973.

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

In a “SportsCentury” profile of John Wooden airing on ESPN Classic today at 5 and 8 p.m., Bill Walton says that he and Wooden “fought about everything” when he played for Wooden, particularly his hair.

“I’m the two-time NCAA player of the year and he says, ‘That’s not good enough. Your hair is too long,’ ” Walton says.

Says Wooden: “He said, ‘You don’t have the right to tell me how long to wear my hair.’ I said, ‘You’re right, I don’t have that right. But I do have the right to say who will play. And we will miss you.’ ”

Walton: “I jumped in the barber’s chair and said, ‘Cut it all off.’ “

If NewMexiKen were a betting man I’d have to play a hunch and put some cash on Xavier to win the NCAA men’s basketball championship. Playing Scrabble Saturday evening I found the letters X-A-V-I-E-R in my little tray.

The downside of this was, of course, that Xavier is not an acceptable Scrabble word because it is a proper noun.

It appears the Mountain and Pacific time zones need to hold their own March Madness. The final eight is 5 Eastern, 3 Central.

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

A savvy coach: On Packer’s assignment by CBS to work the Saint Joseph’s-Wake Forest game, Martelli said, “The first thing I did was laugh out loud. Then I silently applauded CBS because they get it. This makes a good story above and beyond the game.”

*

Billy who? Of Packer, Saint Joseph’s senior guard Tyrone Barley said, “None of the guys on the team knew who he was. I was watching ESPN Classic and he was doing one of the games. It was like, ‘Is he still doing games?’ ”

*

What about 1961? Much has been made of the NCAA tournament game involving Wake Forest and Saint Joseph’s in 1962, when Packer, a guard for Wake Forest, helped the Demon Deacons win in overtime.

Reader Harry Doyle, an alumnus of Saint Joseph’s, points out that in the 1961 East Regional final, Saint Joseph’s defeated Wake Forest, 96-86, in a game in which Packer fouled out and scored only four points.

“I guess it was too much to ask Billy to retort with a reference to that game,” Doyle said in an e-mail.

*

Clean escape: The late Al McGuire once said of Packer: “Call him ‘Washroom Billy.’ When the check comes, Billy is always in the washroom.”

From Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times:

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, with a tournament update: “Sorry, can’t talk right now. There’s 16:30 left, but Billy Packer says, ‘This is a very important possession for UTEP.'”

From Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times —

Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, after CBS’s Billy Packer drew the ire of Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli when he said the Hawks didn’t deserve a No. 1 seed: “If I were Martelli, I would have said that the only thing in need of reseeding is Packer’s scalp.”