Category: College Basketball

(Deep breath, wiping sweat from forehead, big smile) IT’S HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!  (More giddy laughing, thinking about dancing, thinking twice). It’s that week, boys, girls and shareholders. The week we’ve all been waiting for, the only marketing slogan we’ve collectively as a nation completely caved into: MARCH MADNESS!  I have a friend from Turkey who didn’t even know it was an actual tournament. She just kept repeating: “I can’t wait for March Madness,”  as if CBS paid for her rights, too. If I had a few of those millions, I’d hire Michael Buffer to pick it up from here (deciding to hell with it and dancing anyway). We finally got here; Olympics, the ridiculous posturing of NFL lawyer-types and Dick Button be damned! Barry Bonds could shoot up with Pedro Gomez on American Idol and hoops fans wouldn’t give a flying cow hormone for the next 20 or so days. I apologize for the childlike excitement and pure jargon of the opening (Dick Button?), but this time of year just does something to me, as it does to seemingly every man, woman and employee across the land.

Everything  normal about us goes out the window this half of the month. Work ethic? Ha! We’re as productive as an army of one-armed Mario Mendozas when it comes to work. Morals? Puh-leeze. When it comes to gambling, we`re a weird cross-pollination of Janet Gretzky and Pete Rose.  We drop more dimes than Henry Hill on these games with our point spreads, polls and parlays. Common sense and intelligence? Depends on the outcome of Iona-LSU.

By Sean Quinn

It was never Gerry McNamara’s fault. A player with his heart doesn’t get motivated by some meaningless newspaper articles. He was already motivated, has been since his days in Scranton, Pa. The attacks on the Orange’s leader, though, was the kick in the pants that woke up his surrounding cast.

It’s nice to finally see Darryl Watkins reading something other than Marmaduke.

by Trevor Freeman

Derrick Whittenberg, Lorenzo Charles, Bo Kimble, Hank Gathers, Bryce Drew, Keith Smart, Danny Manning, Tate George, Sean Woods, Christian Laettner, Hampton, East Tennessee State, Coppin State, Murray State, Princeton, Coach K, Jim Calhoun, Jimmy V.  March Madness has finally arrived.

By David J. Cohen

It’s that time of year again. It’s the time of year where the true passion of basketball takes center stage. It’s a time where buzzer beaters, big plays, and upsets captivate us all.

It’s also that time of year where millions of Americans try to create the perfect bracket and take home the cash from various tournament pools. And as the tournament tips off everyone feels that they have the winning combination of teams to get a little richer. Then Valparaiso hits a half-court shot and, well, better luck next year.

Picking the upsets in the big dance is tough enough as it is, but this year promises to be especially difficult. It is truly wide open for the first time since 2000. After UConn, Villanova, Memphis, and Duke there is a noticeable decline of dominance. It seems as if anyone can win, and thus, there should be upsets all over the place in this year’s big dance. Oh yeah, and all four #1 seeds won’t make the final four. That never happens. As a matter of fact, usually one of them is bounced in the second round (last year was an exception).

One of the keys to picking a good bracket is knowing the teams before Selection Sunday. Here’s a little description of six teams that may wreck your bracket if you’re not careful.

by Trevor Freeman

I am writing this article because every March I plug Hank Gathers name into the Yahoo search engine to see what articles come up.  And every time I open up an old article, I cannot believe it has really been sixteen years since arguably the biggest tragedy in the history of college sports spawned one of its most remarkable stories.  

How many times have you heard someone say this:

    “Oh, no! Duke lost!?! They aren’t undefeated anymore!?! How could this be? This could ruin their entire season! Now, instead of getting a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, they might get a 2 seed! This really sucks.”

    Hopefully, nobody has ever heard that. Here’s why: the college basketball regular season has absolutely no point. Really. Its only objective is to decide who’s playing in the NCAA Tournament–which is one of the best playoff systems in sports today. Obviously the goal in any sport is to reach the playoffs, but none is more exclusively focused than college basketball. In what other sport do people worry more about their team’s seeding for the tournament than the team’s actual record?

I have nothing against college basketball. I really don’t. I greatly enjoy watching the Tournament in March where every game matters. My problem is that none of the regular season games matter at all. Here are the arguments against my theory and why they are all untrue.

It’s been seven years since that pesky bunch of Gonzaga Bulldogs entered the NCAA Tournament as a number ten seed, and stunned the college basketball world by making it to the West Regional final against Connecticut.   Now, in 2006 Coach Mark Few’s squad is receiving more national attention that ever, thanks to All American Adam Morrison.  But yet, for one reason or another, many are still overlooking this dangerous team.  For whatever the reason is, it’ll prove to be a mistake.  When the Final Four assemblies in Indianapolis in six weeks, the Bulldogs will be there.

Now that everyone understands the power of Penn State Football again, maybe it’s time for college basketball fans to realize the Nittany Lions are, maybe for the first time, in the midst of a serious rebuilding stage. Penn State, who just finished a stretch where they played five consecutive ranked opponents, finally came through in the end and defeated a top-notch program, while boosting the hopes and future of their program as well.

By David J. Cohen

The 7th ranked Florida Gators defeated the Kentucky Wildcats 95-80 Saturday night. Florida dictated the style of play from the tip and dominated Kentucky in the second half. It was an impressive victory for the team that should turn some critics into believers of the “orange and blue.”

by Trevor Freeman

“I can’t even explain him.  He’s scary.”
-Armando Surratt, point guard, University of San Francisco

I remember the first time I heard his name.  Dick Vitale was hyping him up to be the next Larry Bird.  This was before he was about to take the court at Madison Square Garden for the first game of his collegiate career.  Imagine the pressure he must have felt.  Imagine knowing that from now on, the only person you would ever be compared with is “The Hick from French Lick.”  The fact that this eighteen-year-old kid didn’t seem fazed by it was the first sign of his future greatness.