If “March Madness” hadn’t officially arrived yet, it definitely made its presence felt yesterday. ‘Twas a crazy day of hoops, capped off by a buzzer-beating bank-shot 3 for West Virginia, beating Cincinnati and ending the Bearcats’ longshot NCAA hopes: The day’s theme was bubble teams doing their damndest to play themselves out of the conversation, as SI’s Andy Glockner explains:… Read more »
Schlabach says there are currently six available bubble spots for the 17 teams he lists as having “work left to do,” namely, in no particular order: Georgia Tech, Seton Hall, South Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona State, Florida, Mississippi, Mississippi State, San Diego State, Rhode Island, Dayton, Saint Louis, Utah State, UAB and Memphis. (Notre Dame, Cal and UNLV are… Read more »
After breaking their own NCAA record with consecutive win #71 by — ho-hum — beating the #6 team in the country by 15 points*, the Huskies have just seven games left on their road to 78 straight and another national title. Then comes the real drama, maybe: can Geno beat John? Auriemma > Wooden? The Sorcerer of Storrs bests the… Read more »
As regular readers know, I’ve got three primary college basketball rooting interests: my alma maters, USC and Notre Dame, and the team I’ve randomly followed since just before they became a household name, Gonzaga. There’s also team number four, the UConn Huskies, who I grew up rooting for, but who I now only casually follow, at best. But there are… Read more »
The latest bubble update from Mike Scullin’s NIT-ology is instructive, both for thinking about this year’s NCAA Tournament, and for thinking about how an expanded, 96-team field would change the nature of the discussions that we have at this time of year. With respect to the current state of the NCAA bubble, Scullin writes: I’m sure this is a common… Read more »
Here’s how Joe Lunardi assesses the bubble as of now. He’s got 33 teams as “locks,” including Louisville — which closed out historic Freedom Hall in memorable fashion by beating #1 Syracuse today — and Northern Iowa. Lunardi’s “bubble” consists of 22 teams competing for 11 spots, which he lists, in order, thusly: IN (11, in S-Curve order): Marquette, Wake… Read more »
Bubble guru Andy Glockner says Notre Dame’s win over UConn yesterday gives the Irish some much-needed “wiggle room” — and means UConn is in “a lot of trouble”: Notre Dame (20-10, 9-8, RPI: 61, SOS: 54): The Irish’s unexpected push without Luke Harangody continued on Wednesday with a so-ugly-it’s-beautiful home win over bubble rival UConn. Now even if the Irish… Read more »
The UConn women’s basketball team routed #6 Notre Dame at the Joyce Center tonight, 76-51, earning their 69th straight victory — all of them by double-digit margins, even though the Huskies routinely play Top 10 teams — and finishing their second straight undefeated regular season. UConn will tie its own record for longest winning streak in women’s NCAA history (70)… Read more »
As Andy Glockner points out, today’s awesome game-winner (at the 0:55 mark of the clip) by Maryland to beat Georgia Tech… …is strikingly reminiscent (albeit under less dramatic circumstances, obviously) of a certain Georgia Tech shot to beat USC in the Big Dance, 18 years ago this March:
Break out the brooms, baby! In the words of one tweeter, “The football monopoly in LA ain’t over, and the basketball monopoly is alive and well too! Fight On!” Hahaha. If only I’d made a bet with Tran this year! (And if only there was some potential for a postseason payoff for the Trojans!)
