Once upon a time, coach Bobby Gonzalez took an underdog Manhattan team to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, where hey were national darlings and a Cinderella story. This year, the lowest seed to advance out of the first two rounds of the tourney is UCLA, and we would be hard pressed to describe them as a Cinderella in any way, shape or form … not with that school’s history. This year’s Sweet Sixteen is loaded with quality teams, from the
As it often does, the NCAA Tournament provided a wild first weekend. Mercer saved Warren Buffett $1 billion, Dayton won the state of Ohio and reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in 30 years, Stanford sent Andrew Wiggins and Kansas packing, and the young Kentucky Wildcats ended Wichita State’s dream season. So out of the 32 second and third-round games won by the 16 teams still in contention for the national championship, what statistical trends and insights can we gain
Just minutes after the last conference championship game wrapped up Sunday evening, the annual NCAA Tournament selection show was underway to announce the field of 68 for this years tournament. This years tourney appears to be wide-open, but the Florida Gators come in as the team to beat as the No. 1 overall seed. Other No. 1 seeds are Wichita State, Arizona and Virginia. They will all have their work cut out for them. The tournament fun is not just limited to
CHICAGO — Three headlining freshmen. Three spectacular performances. Julius Randle? All he did was take his youthful Kentucky Wildcats and rally them with a dominant second half performance of 23 points and eight rebounds against Michigan State, one of the more consistently well coached and talented teams in college basketball. [Read more…]
The deadline to enter the 2013 NBA Draft was Sunday, and we now know this much — the 2013 draft will be OK at best. The 2014 draft? It’ll be one for the ages. [Read more…]
Things have changed since we published Mock 1.0 on April 1. The NCAA field is down to four teams, and a couple of the players in our Top 30 have decided to return to school or wait another year in Europe (Darko Saric). Hence, Mock 1.0.1. [Read more…]
It was an exciting and historic first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament over the weekend, with the blue bloods of college basketball reaching the second week of the tourney along with surprise teams including LaSalle, Wichita State and No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast. But what did it really take for the teams to win two, and in LaSalle’s case, three, games last week? [Read more…]
In an extremely loaded four-team preseason tournament, the Legends Classic in Atlanta tonight will place No. 7 Kansas against No. 14 Michigan State on one side of the bracket while the defending national champion No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats will face the No. 9 Duke Blue Devils. Although Kentucky escaped its matchup with the Maryland Terrapins on Friday at the Barclays Center, it’s clear that this Kentucky team is a work in progress and will try to find itself as the season