COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Before the season coach Mark Gottfried talked about taking North Carolina State to new heights. He wasn't referring to anything as lofty as a Sweet 16 berth.
One game can mean so much, good or bad, at this point in the season. A number of teams took significant steps toward or away from the Field of 68 this week. Ahead of Tuesday's next full update, here's an interim look at the biggest bubble results from this week (teams in alphabetical order):
If brevity is the soul of wit, what more humorous way is there to recap a summer of college hoops happenings than a Twitter-themed state of the CBB union? Forget those annual previews already coming out. It's football season and no one has time for all those words, especially when they'll be outdated the instant UConn shoehorns three more top-five recruits onto its roster.
The actor offers life lessons, and declines to take his clothes off, in a speech at his alma mater
You can see size on film but you can't feel it, and as much as Georgetown coach Terri Williams-Flournoy watched tape on Baylor's Brittney Griner prior to their NCAA tournament game on March 22, it was only when Griner lined up to take the opening tip that Williams-Flournoy realized what she was facing. "I looked at her next to my center," said Williams-Flournoy, "and thought to myself, 'Wow, she's really, really big'."
Something disturbing happened last year when I did my annual "Pick the NCAA tournament in 64 seconds" thing. I actually got some picks right. I picked North Carolina to beat Michigan State in the final, and that's what happened. This led numerous people to make the remarkably absurd assumption that I actually know something about college basketball or making picks. I will simply say that this year's picks should clear up that misunderstanding.
While UConn practiced on Tuesday afternoon in Storrs, Jim Calhoun was at home, serving the first day of his medical leave of absence. His doctor had recommended that the 67-year-old Hall of Fame coach "address some temporary medical issues" -- issues that are not a cardiac problem or cancer, according to a UConn spokesman. Calhoun is a three-time cancer survivor who has also dealt with lesser health problems: He missed UConn's first-round NCAA Tournament game last March after being hospitalized due to dehydration, and this summer, broke several ribs (and later fainted) in a charity bike-race accident. So while Tuesday's news about his health was breaking, it was not, in any way, out of the ordinary.
Giving you a rundown on the top three games (and a few bonus contests) on tonight's college basketball slate:
Last week, while most people were waiting by their chimneys for a jolly old fat guy, true Hoopheads were hoping their favorite team would get a visit from the Jigsaw Man. Unlike you-know-who, the Jigsaw Man is lean and mean, but his gifts keep on giving right through the Final Four.
NEW YORK -- Three things we learned from No. 15 Georgetown's 72-65 win over No. 22 Butler in Tuesday's Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden ...
Every major-conference team that I'd consider ranking in a preseason top 25 -- well, every team other than Mississippi State -- has made its 2009-10 schedule public, and I spent the last few days poring over them.
We really should do something to replace this term "student-athlete." Sometimes you wonder how the college presidents, conference commissioners, television executives and all the other suits who run big-time college sports even manage to keep a straight face when they utter it. At the very least, they should reverse the order so that the phrase accurately reflects the true priorities of many of the people in charge. Maybe "athlete-student" sounds a little awkward at first, but it's far more honest.
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.
It had been a rough week for Syracuse junior forward Paul Harris, one of many tough ones in the meat grinder known as the Big East Conference. He had played a mediocre game in a 102-85 loss to Villanova on Feb. 7 and a far-less-than-mediocre game in a 63-49 loss to the nation's No. 1 team, Connecticut, on Feb. 11, both on hostile courts.
1. Will anyone beat UConn again? The Huskies, whose only loss was on Dec. 29 against Georgetown, officially established themselves as TTTB (The Team To Beat) with their pasting of Louisville this week. Of their final five regular season games, they have two games against Pittsburgh and a road date at Marquette.
We are reaching the point in the season where coaches are pouring over stats, scouring through their rosters and channeling Dennis Green as they arrive at a stark realization: We are who we thought we were. This being college hoops, there's nothing you can do in late January when you decide you have a serious deficiency. You can't draft someone, you can't trade for someone, you can't call someone up from the minors. If you really want to fix the problem, there is only one thing you can do.
It's hard to imagine a coach enjoying a more important week than the one Oregon State first-year head man Craig Robinson just had.
I started writing about college basketball during the 2004-05 season, and let me tell you that back in my day things were different. The three-point line was a foot closer, Billy Packer still worked the Final Four, and, most notably, the Pac-10 played a really fast-paced brand of basketball. My, how times have changed ....
The tanking numbers on the NASDAQ got you down? Tired of seeing your 401(k) turn into a 201(k)? Had enough of that bald guy in the vest on CNN speaking about a financial panic?
WASHINGTON, DC -- Out of the far corner of the floor where he had been waiting for the game to roll to its inevitable Pitt victory, DeJuan Blair strolled over to the bench and looked up at the scoreboard, just to make sure. After banging against Greg Monroe, who had put the Hoyas in the headlines this week after an upset of second-ranked UConn, Blair looked up at the final score, smiled and headed off the floor with one thought in mind: "We did it."
In the two years since the NBA's age-minimum rule took effect, so many preternaturally gifted freshmen have flitted through college basketball on their way to the first round of the draft (24, to be exact) that the recently matriculated class of 2012 suffers by comparison. That's not exactly fair, considering that the recruiting crops of '06 and '07 were two of the best ever, but a quarter of the way through this season, no first-year players have emerged as surefire lottery picks next spring, or even appeared capable of leading their teams to a national title.
When the NCAA passed legislation in 2006 that repealed the "two-in-four" rule -- which had limited college basketball teams to playing in only two exempt, early season tournaments over a four-year span -- the biggest casualty was the value of the word "classic." The legislation opened the floodgates on what the colorful wordsmiths behind the NCAA Division I manual call "Multiple-Team Events," which provide teams with an exemption to sneak in two extra regular-season games, upping the max allowed from 29 to 31. Thus there are 50 of of these tournaments scheduled for 2008-09, and no fewer than 28 of them have "classic" in their title.
Happy Midnight Madness, Hoopheads! No other sport in America gives its fans the thrilling opportunity to watch their favorite teams go through layup lines. The start of practice is so much fun if only because teams are so flush with optimism and possibilities. That is, until a curmudgeon like me shows up, spouting skepticism, spewing doubts and spying deficiencies. I admit it: I am a buzz-kill.
Could the fourth time be the charm to knock off three-time defending national champion Northwestern? Perhaps. The Wildcats' 36-game win streak dating back to last season was broken by Penn when mental breakdowns and lackluster plays kept Northwestern from getting past the Quakers' tough defense.
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.
After three days spent covering the NCAA tournament in Washington D.C., I finally got a chance to watch the tournament Sunday from the comfort of my couch. What followed was some of the most gripping television since the first season of Real World.
To understand why Georgetown coach John Thompson III regards basketball the way he does -- as an accretion of details and small remediations -- it's worth revisiting a February night in Providence in 1988. Back then Thompson served as Princeton's senior co-captain, and the Tigers led Brown by two points with seconds to play. As he prepared to inbound under his own basket, Thompson began to experience what he calls "the loneliest feeling in basketball."
NEW YORK -- It seems the Big East's "luckiest" team has done it again, folks.
The AP poll's old No. 1 lost on Saturday. Its new No. 1 lost on Tuesday. There's chaos at the top of the college basketball world, but in chaos can be found opportunity.
I love reading bracket projections as much as the next hoops geek, but even the folks who do them would concede that it is still very early. With so much basketball left, we're a good three weeks from being able to see what will be revealed on Selection Sunday.
In the wake of last week's New Hampshire primary, this is not exactly the best time to call yourself a pollster. Fortunately, when I conduct a college hoops poll, I yield results with zero margin for error. That's because the only person I poll is myself. The answers, therefore, are always correct.
We know what has happened in the world of college basketball thus far. But with the conference season under way, what will the future hold?
PROTAGONISTS: Jim Boeheim, John Thompson III, John Thompson Jr., Donte Greene
OK, so Midnight Madness doesn't happen at midnight anymore. And it doesn't always go down on Oct. 15. A few years ago, the NCAA decided the midnight sessions were too onerous for college students, who would otherwise be tucked into their beds at that time of night or working on extra-credit term papers for chemistry class. So the NCAA changed the start of practice to a more reasonable hour the Friday before the 15th.
Before Roy Hibbert tries to end one championship drought at Georgetown, the star center wants to halt another and win the gold for Team USA at the Pan American games.
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?
Name: Willie Bodrick School: Georgetown Year/Age: Sophomore, 19 Major: English, Sociology Job: Intern, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Paid/unpaid: Paid School Credit: No Hours/duration: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., June 4 to Aug. 4
When Georgetown's Roy Hibbert strode into the gym at Haverford College on Thursday night, his head bobbing above a pack of 29 other college stars at the tryouts for USA Basketball's Pan American Games team, a few things were immediately apparent:
I present the first, post-draft-deadline Power Rankings, based on a few educated guesses: Georgetown's Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, Kansas' Brandan Rush and Julian Wright and Georgia Tech's Thaddeus Young will stay in, while Texas A&M's Joseph Jones, USC's Gabe Pruitt and Marquette's Dominic James will come back.
ATLANTA -- As Florida's Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green -- affectionately known as the Oh-Fours -- pointed to a sea of orange-clad Gator fans after winning their second straight national championship on Monday night, the crowd chanted, "One more year." Some of the Gators don't need another year, as they are ready to move on to the NBA, but others could use one more year of college to improve their draft stock. Here's a look at the underclassmen who should stay in college and who are ready to enter the draft.
Assuming that Florida's Corey Brewer, Taurean Green, Al Horford and Joakim Noah, Georgetown's Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, Kansas's Brandon Rush, North Carolina's Brandan Wright, Ohio State's Greg Oden, Texas's Kevin Durant, UCLA's Arron Afflalo and USC's Nick Young all jump to the NBA, this is how next season's rankings shape up.
Click here for five reasons Florida will win
ATLANTA -- While I like to think I know a little something about the sport I cover, by no means would I ever claim to be the smartest guy in a room of 500 sportswriters.
ATLANTA -- At 1:30 p.m. Friday, the doors to Ohio State's Georgia Dome locker room opened, and a not-so-small army of reporters and cameramen immediately bolted to the near-right corner to surround a particular 7-foot center. At that point, mind you, I could not have told you for certain that the subject at the center of this paparazzi was in fact Greg Oden, because, unfortunately, I was stuck in about the eighth row of the circle.
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):
It's Final Four week, Hoop Thinkers. Time to rip it and run:
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."
1. Peyton Manning hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend. Apparently he was difficult to work with. He insisted on preparing multiple scripts for each sketch, then choosing the premise just before the sketch started depending on what look the audience was giving.
SI.com caught up with Seth Davis, who's serving as a CBS studio analyst during the tournament, to get his impressions of Friday's regionals action.
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."
1. The Sweet 16 is set without a double-digit seed for the first time since 1995. In fact, the biggest shock so far is that the Xavier player that Greg Oden manhandled can still walk.
If you happen to run into a member of the NCAA selection committee this week, be sure to shake his hand or pat him on the back. A few complimentary words would be nice, too. Considering how much flak these guys usually take this time of year, a rare acknowledgement of a job well done will undoubtedly be appreciated.
WINSTON-SALEM -- If you didn't know it was the NCAA tournament and the venue was Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem, you'd have sworn it was the Big East Tournament and a cozy little joint called Madison Square Garden.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Boston College was looking for a little separation.
You may have read recently that the ever-savvy NFL is attempting to trademark the phrase "The Big Game" in an effort to reap whatever remaining Super Bowl-related money in which they're not already swimming.
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."
Underrated: Texas The fourth-seeded 'Horns are as formidable as all the No. 3s -- and even a couple of No. 2s -- in the bracket. Skinny wunderkind Kevin Durant (25.6 points, 11.3 rebounds per game, unlimited entertainment) strikes fear into the hearts of opposing defenders. Durant will be on a chest-thumping scoring mission in his one-and-done farewell tour; he and freshman point guard D.J. Augustin lead a free-wheeling, Phoenix Suns-style offense that ranks fourth nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency. UT is glaringly inexperienced, starting four freshmen and one sophomore, but the green-Horns play fearlessly, and that's what makes them dangerous.
SI.com caught up with Seth Davis to get his reaction to the announcement of the NCAA tournament field.
Now that the committee has spoken, I suddenly realize my fellow pundits and I wasted a whole lot of time and energy these past two weeks hemming and hawing over the identity of the four No. 1 seeds.
NEW YORK -- Eric Devendorf admits he's been a little nervous lately about his team's NCAA tournament status.
A few thoughts to keep in mind as you read yet another bubble column:
Also in this column: • Teams to keep an eye on • Complete projected bracket
He's just a baby, all arms and legs as thin as capellini. Kevin Durant only turned 18 in September, but with his soft, open face he could pass for 15. After a recent loss the Texas freshman walked to meet the press clutching the right hand of his mother, Wanda Pratt, who says she can tell when her son is distraught because "he'll call me Mommy instead of Mom" in text messages. On most nights, just before bedtime, Durant will kneel down to pray and digest a few more pages from a personalized Bible. Asked which book he's reading, Durant flashes a look of palpable pride.
It's February, which means the 'Bag has reached the point where we've been on the road long enough that we have no idea where we are in the morning when the alarm clock goes off. Yet, there are indeed benefits to so much travel, not least picking up those little nuggets that you can only learn on the road. To wit:
You have to win your way into the NCAA tournament, not back in. Thus, if you end up being a bubble team Selection weekend, it's important to have what I call a "hang-your-hat win."
When Mike Dunleavy was traded from Golden State to Indiana, many believed he would quickly be shipped back to the West Coast to play for his father, Mike Sr., with the Clippers. Two weeks have passed and Dunleavy appears to be sticking with the Pacers.
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