Michigan State’s up-and-down team might be peaking at just the right time.
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NCAA Tournament
College basketball fans, start your brackets. March Madness kicks into high gear this week with the start of the NCAA Tournament, the time hoop-heads circle the calendar like it’s Christmas.
UCLA vs. Arizona; New Mexico vs. San Diego State: SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt says Las Vegas was the place to be for the prelude to March Madness.
It’s cool to be popular in high school. It’s not always a positive sign to be the public’s hot pick in the NCAA Tournament, so maybe Michigan State coach Tom Izzo should be concerned.
The WAC moved into The Orleans on Wednesday morning, but nobody not on the conference payroll can guess the nine basketball teams. The answer is: Utah Valley, Texas-Pan American, Missouri-Kansas City, Idaho, Chicago State, Grand Canyon, Cal State Bakersfield, New Mexico State, Seattle U.
Correctly predicting the outcome of every game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is no layup. There’s now a $1 billion prize waiting for anyone able to pull off the feat this spring.
The fear two days later: That what we saw in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament on Monday night is an aberration, a tease, an exception to the rule that insists college basketball has lost its way at the offensive end.
Jerry Tarkanian’s long basketball journey is finally complete.
When he reached the stage, supported along the ballroom path to such an exclusive group by a walker, Jerry Tarkanian was helped up a few stairs to basketball immortality.
History is meant to be judged, and yet each classic that has been a national championship game of the NCAA Tournament has owned a unique significance.
Rick Pitino became the first coach in NCAA history to win men’s basketball championships with two teams, as his Louisville Cardinals defeated Michigan in the championship game in Atlanta 82-76.
LOUISVILLE (34-5)
vs. MICHIGAN (31-7)
ATLANTA — The idea was to not miss left. If he did, Tim Henderson would be forced to retrieve the basketball by running down the long ravine that bordered the driveway of his family home, the one sitting on 10 acres of rural Louisville land, the one with a backdrop of nothing but open space and woods, the one where a Final Four hero was born from thousands of jump shots launched into another bright orange sunset.
This is what one coach in tonight’s national championship of college basketball was asked about Sunday:
This is what becomes a common theme in such times: That when you consider what Wichita State did in college basketball this season that it should give hope to hundreds of teams around the country that such a journey is possible.