ReportWire

Tag: NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship

  • Led by Castle and Clingan, defending champ UConn returns to NCAA title game, beating Alabama 86-72

    Led by Castle and Clingan, defending champ UConn returns to NCAA title game, beating Alabama 86-72

    GLENDALE, Ariz. — The final result showed UConn winning its 11th straight NCAA Tournament game by at least 13 points.

    The reality: The Huskies were tested unlike any other time during their run toward a possible second straight national title.

    UConn kept its composure and its bid to repeat as national champion intact, getting 21 points from freshman Stephon Castle while clamping down defensively in the second half of an 86-72 win over Alabama in the Final Four on Saturday night.

    “Our identity is to be pretty relentless,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We might not break you for 18 minutes, 25 minutes, but at some point if what we’re doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”

    The top-seeded Huskies (36-3) put on a March Madness show before arriving in the desert, a stretch that included a 30-0 run in a decimation of Illinois in the Elite Eight.

    This was more of a slow burn.

    Alabama (25-12) made the most of its first Final Four, hitting a flurry of 3-pointers to go toe to toe with a team that trailed for 28 total seconds during its first four NCAA Tournament games.

    Crafty point guard Mark Sears did his best to keep Alabama in it, scoring 24 points. Grant Nelson had another big game in March Madness, finishing with 19 points, 15 rebounds and one highlight-reel dunk over UConn big man Donovan Clingan.

    UConn, as it usually does under Hurley, wore the Tide into submission.

    Clingan started asserting himself in the post offensively, finishing with 18 points and four blocked shots. Castle and Alex Karaban (14 points) hit big shots as the Huskies stretched the lead.

    And one of the nation’s best defenses flexed at just right time, holding the Tide without a field goal for a game-turning five-minute stretch that put UConn on the cusp of becoming the first repeat champion since Florida in 2006-07.

    “They’re close to being bulletproof,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said.

    Next up for the Huskies is what should be a heavyweight bout in Monday’s national championship game against Purdue. It will not be for the meek, with the 7-foot-2, 280-pound Clingan facing the rare person on Earth who’s bigger than him in 7-foot-4, 300-pound Zach Edey.

    “A battle of the giants. I think it’s just great for college basketball. Us and Purdue have clearly been the two best teams in the country the last two years,” Hurley said. “I think it’s just great for college basketball to get the two big dogs playing on Monday.”

    The Huskies spent the tournament’s first two weeks terrorizing opponents to the tune of a 27.8-point average margin of victory.

    Alabama stuck a stick in the spokes of the juggernaut by pulling Clingan away from the basket and burying 3-pointers.

    Clingan had two early blocks and appeared to be on his to duplicating his Elite Eight performance, when Illinois went 0 for 19 on shots he contested.

    Once the Crimson Tide started forcing Clingan into high pick-and-rolls, lanes to the basket starting opening up — as did the 3-point line.

    Alabama thrived from 3 all season, taking down Clemson in the Elite Eight by making 16 shots from deep. The Tide kept it rolling against UConn, making 8 of 11 in the first half while Sears repeatedly got to the rim, putting the Huskies seemingly right where they wanted them.

    Nope.

    The Huskies kept their composure amid the Alabama 3-point barrage, calmly ran their offense and led 44-40 at halftime.

    “We just had to stay together, tighten up on the defensive end,” Karaban said.

    UConn kept rolling in the second half and Nelson kept the Tide within reach. His thunderous dunk over Clingan had Oats screaming and squatting like he was doing the Haka.

    Oats’ friend Hurley had the last laugh — or scream.

    Hurley has built UConn in arguably the best two-way team of a generation, and the Huskies showed off both sides in their closing flourish.

    UConn shut down Alabama’s open looks from the 3-point arc and started getting the ball into Clingan, who overpowered the Tide when he got near the rim.

    “They’re a really great team,” Sears said. “We turned the ball over and they made us pay for it.”

    The Huskies gradually stretched the lead, pushed the Tide back every time they made a run and put themselves in position to make history.

    ___

    AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

    Source link

  • Alabama rides tidal wave of 3-pointers to beat Clemson 89-82 and reach 1st Final Four ever

    Alabama rides tidal wave of 3-pointers to beat Clemson 89-82 and reach 1st Final Four ever

    LOS ANGELES — Every time Clemson tried to cut down its deficit, Alabama fired up a 3-pointer. Over and over and in such quick succession that the Crimson Tide looked like a video game.

    Mark Sears made seven 3-pointers and Alabama recovered from its early long-distance woes with 16 3s to beat Clemson 89-82 on Saturday night, sending the Tide to the Final Four for the first time.

    “Man, just feeling a lot of emotion,” said Sears, the only Alabama native on the team. “Being from the state of Alabama and to do it with this group of guys, it’s amazing.”

    The Tide (25-11) will face defending national champion UConn in Glendale, Arizona, next Saturday. Alabama knocked off top-seeded North Carolina to reach the Elite Eight.

    Sears’ 3-pointers were one off his career high. He finished with 23 points and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament’s West Region.

    Freshman Jarin Stevenson airballed a couple 3s in the first half, when Alabama missed 12 of its first 13 from long range. He ended up making a career-high five 3s and had 19 points off the bench.

    “We don’t win this game without him,” Sears said. “Jarin hit 3 after 3 after 3 and kept us in this ballgame. He was huge.”

    Tide coach Nate Oats added, “Jarin grew up tonight.”

    The Tide donned red T-shirts with the entirely appropriate slogan “Net Worthy” as they celebrated while a bucket of red-and-white confetti was dumped on them. Oats walked into the postgame news conference wearing the net around his neck.

    Clemson (24-12) was seeking its first Final Four appearance, too, in a matchup of schools better known for their national championship football teams.

    Joseph Girard III led Clemson with 19 points, and Ian Schieffelin had 18 points and 11 rebounds.

    The Tide buried the Tigers in an avalanche of 10 3s in the second half to pull away. Sears hit a 3, turned and put his fingers to his lips. After he sank the Tide’s eighth 3 of the half, Sears playfully stuck out his tongue and nodded his head as he ran up the court.

    “I live for those moments. This is what March Madness is about,” Sears said. “When you’re a kid, you want to be in these moments. It feels like my dream came true today. My dream definitely came true today.”

    Clemson had allowed only 14 3-pointers in its first three March Madness games.

    “They get those 3s up fast and it seems like they’ll never miss,” Girard said.

    The Tide were shooting before the Tigers could get back downcourt and set their zone defense.

    “There’s not very many teams that play that way,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said.

    The Tigers tried desperately to keep up and finished 8 of 26 from 3-point range. While Sears was putting on a show, Girard, who struggled offensively in the regional semifinal, hit back-to-back 3s and PJ Hall added another that left Clemson trailing 68-62.

    “They hit big-time shots and we couldn’t quite get the misses we needed them to make,” Hall said. “Credit to them, man, they went out there and hit them. It was big-time basketball.”

    Girard’s 3 cut Clemson’s deficit to 76-73. But Nick Pringle was in the midst of scoring eight in a row for the Tide, making 4 of 6 free throws down the stretch. He finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

    Sears stepped back left of the key and sank the Tide’s 10th 3 of the half for an 82-75 lead, drawing applause from Alabama alum and seven-time NBA champion Robert “Big Shot Bob” Horry.

    “What a basketball game. The shot-making was elite,” Brownell said. “Their second-half performance was outstanding and for whatever reason we had a hard time guarding them.”

    The fourth-seeded Tide were in the Elite Eight for just the second time in school history. They lost in the 2004 regional final to UConn.

    The sixth-seeded Tigers upended second-seeded Arizona in the regional semifinals to earn their second Elite Eight berth in 44 years.

    Clemson broke the game open with an early 16-4 run, including six straight by RJ Godfrey, to take a 26-13 lead.

    Alabama answered Clemson’s burst with a 22-6 spurt — including 11 in a row — to close the first half leading 35-32. The Tide hit five 3s after missing 12 of 13 to start the game.

    “We’re big, physical, tough and smart, but we’re not very fast,” Brownell said. “In the second half that was a problem for us.”

    UP NEXT

    Top-seeded UConn has won a March Madness record 10 straight games by double digits, reaching the Final Four with a 25-point drubbing of Illinois.

    ___

    AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

    Source link

  • UConn emerges victorious after March Madness full of upsets

    UConn emerges victorious after March Madness full of upsets

    The Cinderellas certainly had their moments in this March Madness. Morethanafew, actually.

    In the end, it was a familiar face that won the NCAA Tournament.

    UConn — a No. 4 seed — beat No. 5 seed San Diego State 76-59 on Monday night in Houston for its fifth title in the past 24 years. The Huskies and coach Dan Hurley cruised through the tournament in impressive fashion, winning all six games by at least 10 points.

    The Aztecs of the Mountain West Conference didn’t go quietly, cutting UConn’s lead to six points late in the second half before the Huskies used one more run to put the game away. It was San Diego State’s first trip to the title game.

    Before Monday night, college basketball fans enjoyed three weeks of great moments. Here are a few that stood out:

    FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON SHOCKER

    Little-known Fairleigh Dickinson — a private, commuter school in Teaneck, New Jersey — provided an early stunner, becoming just the second No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed with its 63-58 win over Purdue.

    Only in the NCAA field due to a technicality, FDU, which went 4-22 last season, won a First Four game in Dayton before the win over the Boilermakers. FDU lost the Northeast Conference tournament title game 67-66, but still received the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA bracket because champion Merrimack remains ineligible for postseason play after moving up from Division II to Division I.

    PRINCETON, TOO

    Smart kids made it all the way to the Sweet 16 when Ivy League champion Princeton — a No. 15 seed — won not just one, but two games in the tournament to advance to the second weekend.

    The Tigers used a late-game run to earn their first NCAA Tournament win in 25 years, beating No. 2 seed Arizona 59-55 before a dominant 78-63 win over No. 7 Missouri.

    TOP SEEDS BITE DUST

    Purdue’s loss to Fairleigh Dickinson was just the opening salvo in a tough tournament for No. 1 seeds.

    The men’s tournament did not have a No. 1 seed in the Elite Eight for the first time since seeding began in 1979.

    Kansas bowed out in the second round, with Arkansas taking down the reigning national champion Jayhawks. Alabama, the bracket’s No. 1 overall seed, succumbed in the Sweet 16 to San Diego State.

    Later in the Sweet 16, Miami capped the No. 1 carnage with a dominant 89-75 win over Houston.

    BUTLER’S BUZZER-BEATER

    San Diego State’s Lamont Butler hit a buzzer-beating jumper that will live a long time in college basketball lore, sending the Aztecs to their first national championship game with a 72-71 win over fellow mid-major Florida Atlantic in the Final Four.

    The clock ticking down, Butler dribbled to the baseline, found that cut off and circled back. He stepped back to create a little room and hit a jumper that sent the Aztecs racing out onto the floor and had San Diego Padres fans going wild at Petco Park.

    THAT WAS COOL

    Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell broke the NCAA Tournament record for assists in a game with 19, including one late in the game that was among the most creative in postseason history.

    Nowell found Keyontae Johnson for a reverse alley-oop with 52 seconds left in OT to give the Wildcats the lead for good over Michigan State in the Sweet 16. Nowell appeared to be arguing with coach Jerome Tang right before the pass, catching the Spartans flat-footed in one of the most important moments of the game.

    GREAT GAMES

    There were a lot of great games in this year’s tournament. Among the best: Gonzaga’s 79-76 thriller over UCLA in the Sweet 16.

    Julian Strawther hit a 3-pointer with 7.2 seconds left to answer a 3-pointer by UCLA’s Amari Bailey, lifting Gonzaga to the wild win over the Bruins. The Bruins stormed back from an eight-point deficit in the final 1:05 and took a 76-75 lead on Bailey’s 3-pointer with 12.2 seconds left before Strawther’s shot.

    NANTZ’S FINALE

    Announcing legend Jim Nantz has called his last NCAA Tournament game.

    The 63-year-old called his 354th and final tournament game on Monday night when UConn beat San Diego State for the title.

    Here’s his call of Saturday’s buzzer-beating shot by SDSU’s Butler in the semifinals. Nantz estimates he’s had 20-something such last-second winners over his years in the tournament.

    “It’s Butler. With 2 seconds. He’s gotta put it up. Aaand. He wins it! He wins it! With the jumper!” Then, 5 seconds of silence, followed by, “A San Diego State miracle!”

    ___

    AP National Writer Eddie Pells, AP Basketball Writers Aaron Beard and John Marshall, and AP Sports Writers Tom Withers and Tom Canavan contributed to this story.

    ___

    More AP coverage of March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • A San Diego St-UConn title game brings Fab Five memories

    A San Diego St-UConn title game brings Fab Five memories

    HOUSTON — Thirty years ago, a group of disrupters with baggy shorts and black socks changed college basketball as we know it, and took a good slice of American culture along for the ride.

    Those freshmen known as the Fab Five ended up one win short of the title, which is exactly where San Diego State — a team coached by a former Fab Five assistant, Brian Dutcher — finds itself in 2023 during another transformative period in college hoops.

    The Aztecs (32-6) themselves certainly aren’t trying to deliver change to the game or the culture when they face UConn (30-8) in the title game Monday.

    But the fact that they’re here — a team with Michigan bloodlines that was forged quickly through the newly liberated transfer portal and enriched by opportunities that have sprung from name, image and likeness deals — speaks volumes about where those Fab Five superstars were trying to take the game three decades ago.

    “We got to college and started understanding the hypocrisy in the game, with the schools making millions and us sitting around poor as hell,” said Fab Five guard Ray Jackson. “We wanted to change the dynamics of that, get the athletes feeling empowered a little more.”

    One of the greatest ironies is that the coach who essentially built the 21st-century version of San Diego State is Dutcher’s longtime boss at both Michigan and SDSU, Steve Fisher. Fisher made his way to the West Coast after losing his job at Michigan in the wake of one of the most complex and sordid illicit-benefits scandals in NCAA history.

    In essence, the coach, who retired and handed over the SDSU reins to Dutcher in 2017, got caught up in a series of events that, frankly, wouldn’t be frowned upon nearly as harshly today. Back then, it was a shady booster with gambling ties trying to funnel money to players. These days, sports gambling is legal in many states (the NCAA brought the Sweet 16 to Las Vegas for the first time last week), while everyone from car dealers to social media conglomerates pay players in the open.

    Fisher is in Houston this week, hanging with his son, Mark, a special assistant for the fifth-seeded Aztecs who has ALS.

    “I had the ability to close my eyes and dream, and dream of this, to be honest with you,” Fisher said earlier this week.

    A Final Four wasn’t so much a dream as an expectation for the Fab Five — Jackson, Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jimmy King — who, in many opinions, remain the most electric single recruiting class in college history.

    They showed up at Michigan in 1991 and made not one but two appearances in the national title game. They got blown out by Duke 1992 with Bobby Hurley, the brother of current UConn coach Dan Hurley, doing some of the damage. In 1993, it was Webber’s costly timeout when the Wolverines didn’t have one that made the difference in a close loss to North Carolina.

    So, no title, but the Fab Five ended up with more — namely, they opened the world to embracing the style they brought to the playground, while making an indelible statement about the way they felt college players should be treated.

    “It could get frustrating and un-fun at times,” Jackson said. “We just wanted to be transcendent. We wanted to bring the culture we came from, which was street basketball, community basketball, and bring that fun back to game.”

    They also ended up as successes after college, building careers in worlds as diverse as nonprofit, finance, TV and even coaching; Howard just finished his fourth season as coach of the Wolverines.

    “Isn’t that the end goal, when the ball stops bouncing, you’re doing something that’s productive with your life?” said Dutcher, who has heard from everyone in the group during his program’s first run to the cusp of a title.

    In many ways, Dutcher’s group came together in the polar opposite fashion as the Fab Five. San Diego State’s starters came from different places at different times. They could separate themselves from the Michigan greats in another way if they can win the title that eluded Dutcher & Co. for all those years.

    It’s a tall task.

    SDSU is coming off an emotionally and physically taxing 72-71 win over Florida Atlantic on Saturday night. When Lamont Butler hit the game-winner at the buzzer, it marked the first time in Final Four history that a buzzer-beater took a team from trailing to a victory.

    In addition to the bounce back, there is the opponent. Nobody has come within double digits of fourth-seeded UConn during the tournament. Adama Sanogo has averaged 20 points and nearly 10 rebounds a game over the stretch for the Huskies.

    But Jackson, for one, insists this is far from a lost cause. He says Dutcher is a master at “breaking down film, knowing game strategy and preparing for a short turnaround.”

    “I remember sitting in film sessions and going crazy, laughing at some team and thinking, we’re going to beat their” butt, Jackson said. “Dutch is running film back and saying, ‘I’m not kidding, these guards are good, and if you don’t take this seriously, they’re going to beat your’” butt.

    That, Jackson said, was key all those years ago to the lasting success of a group of cocky teenagers whose impact went well beyond how they fared against the next day’s opponent.

    ___

    AP Sports Writer Larry Lage contributed to this report.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • A different March Madness: Online hate for the athletes

    A different March Madness: Online hate for the athletes

    HOUSTON (AP) — It wasn’t so much that social media was criticizing his son. That happens sometimes — especially after a loss like THAT.

    But when a post came up suggesting Terrance Williams II, a junior forward for Michigan, be left for dead in a ditch, his dad decided enough was enough. Terrance Williams Sr.’s profanity-laced response to all the haters was, in many ways, an expected byproduct of social media vitriol that bubbled up after the Wolverines blew an eight-point lead in a one-point loss to Vanderbilt earlier this month — not in the NCAA Tournament but in the NIT.

    “You actually root for them when they’re good,” Williams Sr. said of the Michigan fans in an interview with The Associated Press two days after the season-ending loss. “But then they make a mistake, and a game doesn’t go your way and you turn to hate. That’s unacceptable.”

    The episode was just one of countless examples of the toxic minefield that athletes, coaches, friends and family face all too often on social media, all of it amplified for college basketball players when the calendar flips to March and the madness begins.

    College administrators and coaches alike have warned for several years that students and athletes are facing increasing mental-health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. And never have there been more outside voices that not only scrutinize every move players make on the court, but impact their emotional well-being away from it.

    “The feedback right now, it can be so harsh and it’s so immediate, and I think that’s the hardest part,” said Melissa Streno, a Denver-based mental health consultant for high-level athletes. “It’s the immediacy of the feedback from people they don’t even know. And it can be so impactful on their identity and how they see themselves as a player on the court.”

    Turning off social media is one option, but it’s not really practical, not with the way society interacts in the 21st century. And many athletes use social media to open the door to cash. It comes with a toll.

    A survey conducted by the NCAA in the fall of 2021 found spikes among athletes who experienced mental exhaustion, anxiety and depression compared with a similar survey two years earlier — before the pandemic, and also before name-image-likeness deals became an everyday reality of college sports. The survey also found that despite a growing recognition of mental health as something to be addressed, fewer than half the respondents felt comfortable seeking support from a counselor on campus.

    Even so, those counselors have been busy; a growing number of questions they field from the players involve how to manage social media.

    “For some of them, social media brings pressure to put out information, to create content, build their brand and that can cause anxiety,” said Charron Sumler, a former college basketball player who is now an athletic counselor at Ohio State. “On the flip side, there’s the input where they’re receiving messages. And with phones in the locker room, sometimes they’re receiving that negative feedback and content before they’ve even had a chance to debrief with their coaches or with themselves.”

    Just this month, Virginia’s Kihei Clark started trending for the wrong reasons when his ill-advised pass at the end of a first-round March Madness game against Furman allowed the Paladins to make the game-winning 3-pointer that sent the Cavaliers home.

    After the game, Clark sat in the locker room and patiently answered every question. Predictably, social media was destroying him before the final buzzer even sounded.

    Among those who knew the feeling was Matthew Fisher-Davis. He was the Vanderbilt guard who, thinking the Commodores were trailing, fouled a Northwestern player in the waning seconds of a first-round game in 2017. In fact, Vanderbilt was ahead by one; Northwestern made both free throws after the foul and won by a point.

    Before the next season, Fisher-Davis released a slickly produced video showing him working out, the main theme of which was: “Everybody’s got something to say.”

    “It gets to the point where, the stuff coming from outside the locker room doesn’t make anything easier,” Fisher-Davis told the AP in an interview this month.

    Stanford’s Haley Jones was named most outstanding player at the women’s Final Four after helping the Cardinal win the national title in 2021. Two weeks ago, when Stanford made an early exit from this year’s March Madness, Jones’ performance — and her prospects for the upcoming WNBA draft — were being dissected, sometimes cruelly, on social media.

    “Right after every game. I know what I did well, and I know what I didn’t do well,” said Jones, who is part of a program called Game 4 Good that focuses on mental wellness for athletes. “I don’t need to go and listen to thousands of people who don’t know me tell me these same things, and probably say it in a lot meaner way.”

    On rare occasions, players get ripped for doing something good.

    In an episode that illustrates the parallel explosive growth of both social media and online sports wagering, TCU’s Damion Baugh was the object of scorn in the second round this month when he launched a shot at the buzzer from near the halfcourt logo in a game that had already been sealed by Gonzaga.

    Baugh’s 3 went in. It trimmed TCU’s final deficit to three, which allowed the Horned Frogs to cover the 4.5-point spread. That shot did nothing to change the brackets, but it did flip millions of dollars across the country and Baugh was roundly ripped on Twitter.

    Baugh barked back: “I don’t get how y’all mad because I played until the last buzzer.”

    Former Ohio State guard E.J. Liddell also felt compelled to defend himself after he missed a late free throw that was key to an upset loss to Oral Roberts two years ago.

    “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said in a post in which he posted screenshots of some of the insults directed at him, including a death threat.

    Even one of social media’s biggest stars, Oregon’s Sedona Prince, who became famous after her video outlining the disparity between men’s and women’s weight rooms at the 2021 NCAA Tournaments went viral, had to take a brief break last year from TikTok.

    “I’m not any different because I’m on TikTok. I’m still a person,” Prince said in a tearful video since taken down, while acknowledging her mental health had been declining.

    Streno, the mental health consultant, said social media can exacerbate depression and anxiety.

    During a three-month stretch last spring, at least five college athletes died by suicide. Among the reasons given by friends and family were the constant pressure of performing at a high level, the pressure to maintain a certain weight or physique, the fear of being perceived as weak because of injuries and the limited social opportunities because of the demands of a sports schedule.

    Given the amount of daily interaction athletes have with friends and family on social media apps, Streno said it’s more realistic to coach players on how to deal with feedback than simply advising them to shut down everything.

    “If it were as simple as ‘don’t look at your phone,’ then this wouldn’t be an issue,” she said. “But there’s such a quick, immediate, ‘Oh, this must mean this about me. I’m not good enough, or I’m not living up to this level.’ And then your mind can kind of start going down into this spiral.”

    Williams, the father of the Michigan forward, said his son does a good job of shutting out social media during the season. After the events of this month, the dad planned on going dark for a while, too.

    “People said he didn’t play well, and I get that,” Williams said. “But when you say my son, who I’ve raised and who I love tremendously, that you wish him to be dead in a ditch, that’s when I’ve got to turn the switch.”

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • FAU holds off Nowell and K-State to reach 1st Final Four

    FAU holds off Nowell and K-State to reach 1st Final Four

    NEW YORK — Alijah Martin, Vlad Goldin and ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic became the first and lowest-seeded team to reach this year’s Final Four as the Owls withstood another huge game by Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell to beat the Wildcats 79-76 on Saturday night.

    FAU (35-3), making just its second appearance in the NCAA Tournament, won the East Region at Madison Square Garden and will head to Houston to play the winner of Sunday’s South Region final between Creighton and San Diego State.

    In one of the most unpredictable NCAA Tournaments ever — all four No. 1 seeds were out by the Elite Eight — the Owls from Conference USA typified the madness.

    “I expect the prognosticators to pick us fifth in the Final Four,” fifth-year FAU coach Dusty May said.

    The winningest team in Division I this season had never won an NCAA Tournament game before ripping off four straight, all by single digits, to become the first No. 9 seed to reach the Final Four since Wichita State in 2013 and the third to get that far since seeding began in 1979.

    Nowell, the 5-foot-8 native New Yorker, was incredible again at Madison Square Garden, with 30 points, 12 assists and five steals, coming off a Sweet 16 game in which he set the NCAA Tournament record with 19 assists. He didn’t get enough help this time.

    Nae’Qwan Tomlin was the only other player in double figures for Kansas State (26-10) with 14 points. Keyontae Johnson, the Wildcats’ leading scorer, fouled out with nine points.

    Martin scored 17 points, including a huge 3 down the stretch, the 7-foot-1 Goldin had 14 points and 13 rebounds, and Michael Forrest made four clutch free throws in the final 20 seconds for the Owls, who held steady as the Wildcats made a late push.

    Cam Carter made a 3 from the wing with 22.8 seconds left to cut FAU’s lead to 75-74 and Kansas State fouled and sent Forrest to the line with 17.9 seconds left. The senior made both to make it a three-point game.

    Nowell found Tomlin inside for a layup with 8.6 seconds left to cut the lead to one again, and again K-State sent Forrest to the line. With 6.9 remaining, he made them both.

    With no timeouts left, Nowell rushed down the court, gave up the ball to Ismael Massoud outside the 3-point line, and never got it back. FAU’s Johnell Davis swiped it away and time ran out.

    “It was trying to get Ish a shot,” Nowell said. “Coach wanted to Ish to set the screen, and I waved it off because I felt like on the right side of the court, that’s where Ish hits most of his shots. And they closed out hard to him, and he didn’t get his shot off.”

    Nowell was named the most outstanding player of the regional, but FAU turned out to be the best team. As the Owls built their lead in the final minutes, Kansas State fans who had packed the building became anxiously quiet and the “F-A-U!” chants started to rise.

    The Owls rushed the floor to celebrate a historic moment for the school. FAU didn’t even have a basketball program until the late 1980s and has only been in Division I for the last 30 years.

    “I’m living the dream right now,” Forrest said.

    FAU held up to Tennessee’s bully ball in the Sweet 16 and dropped a 40-point second half on the best defense in the nation to eliminate the Southeastern Conference team.

    Against one of the Big 12’s best, FAU dominated the boards, 44-22, and became the first team from C-USA to to reach the Final Four since Memphis in 2008.

    The Owls aren’t hanging around much longer. They’re moving to the American Athletic Conference next season. But first: a trip to Texas.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Nowell breaks NCAA assist record, KSU beats MSU 98-93 in OT

    Nowell breaks NCAA assist record, KSU beats MSU 98-93 in OT

    Markquis Nowell broke the NCAA Tournament record for assists in a game with 19, his last two on spectacular passes in the final minute of overtime, and Kansas State beat Michigan State 98-93 in a Sweet 16 thriller at Madison Square Garden

    ByTOM CANAVAN AP Sports Writer

    NEW YORK — Markquis Nowell broke the NCAA Tournament record for assists in a game with 19, his last two on spectacular passes in the final minute of overtime, and Kansas State beat Michigan State 98-93 on Thursday night in a Sweet 16 thriller at Madison Square Garden.

    Playing in his hometown and fighting through a second-half ankle injury, Nowell found Keyontae Johnson for a reverse alley-oop with 58 seconds left in OT to give the Wildcats (26-9) the lead for good in this back-and-forth East Region semifinal. He then threw an inbound pass to Ismael Massoud, who knocked down a jumper with 15 seconds left for a 96-93 lead.

    With Michigan State needing a 3 to tie, Nowell stole the ball from the Spartans’ Tyson Walker and drove for a clinching layup at the buzzer. The 5-foot-8, Harlem-raised Nowell finished with 20 points and five steals in a signature performance at basketball‘s most famous arena.

    Johnson scored 22 points for the Wildcats. A.J. Hoggard led Michigan State (21-13) with 25 points.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • College hoops staffs specialize to meet roster, NIL demands

    College hoops staffs specialize to meet roster, NIL demands

    Kelvin Sampson has been around college basketball long enough to remember when preseason practices started in October following a true offseason, teams remained largely intact for multiple seasons and players weren’t permitted to pursue endorsement deals.

    It might as well be a different planet now.

    The way Houston’s coach sees it, the top-tier programs must evolve to better manage recruiting, the transfer portal and roster demands, and athlete compensation deals.

    “Absolutely, you have to,” the 67-year-old Sampson said as March Madness headed to Sweet 16 weekend. “To (manage) those kinds of things, you’ve got to have specialization on your staff.”

    That means bolstering support staffs, much like how analysts and quality control staffers have become common across college football. Specialized roles for recruiting, scouting or analytics. Adding special assistants to aid head coaches, general managers to navigate the new era of players profiting from use their name, image and likeness (NIL), even creative-content staffers to pump out videos or social media to promote the program’s brand.

    If anything, staffs are starting to resemble their counterparts in the pros.

    “I’ve got three – I guess there are four of them now – former (graduate assistants) and managers that work in the front office at the (NBA’s) Phoenix Suns,” Kansas State first-year coach Jerome Tang said before clinching a Sweet 16 appearance. “Those guys told me that the four guys that are on the bench across the country are probably the same. It’s the next level that separates you.”

    March Madness resumes Thursday, and there are examples of these increasingly specialized staffs on teams still chasing a national title.

    Six teams — Houston, Xavier, Texas, Arkansas, San Diego State and Florida Atlantic — have an assistant or special assistant to the head coach, often designed as catch-all helpers who shoulder administrative duties while potentially taking on tasks such as breaking down film. Tang and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo each has a chief of staff.

    Top overall seed Alabama has a director of scouting and analytics. Fellow Southeastern Conference team Tennessee has someone overseeing analytics.

    Titles vary. The goal doesn’t.

    “I have people on my staff in charge of something with one of our kids 24 hours a day,” Sampson said. “And it’s all built around relationships. You know, these kids can transfer today and not even have to tell the coach. They can just go to the compliance office. … So in order to combat those kinds of things, it’s more and more important that you’re involved in their daily lives.”

    Kevin Sutton joined Kansas State’s staff as director of strategies, working with game plans, scouting and film review. He is part of a broader effort to deal with roster management in the portal era, when rosters change dramatically from one year to the next.

    “It’s the college version of free agency and it’s something that goes on all the time and it continues to grow on a daily basis,” Sutton said. “We have to retain our players. … So having a larger to staff to be able to be involved in the current players’ lives and then have an eye on what’s happening outside of your program in terms of the transfer portal.”

    Juggling that with the core goal – winning games — isn’t easy, either.

    For Arkansas coach Eric Musselman, that meant stopping game-prep work last year for recruiting Zooms on the eve of beating No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga to reach a second straight regional final.

    “I think it was five, maybe four (Zooms), before we played Gonzaga the night before, up until maybe 11:15, 11:30 at night doing Zooms when you are trying to make an Elite Eight, playing in a Sweet 16 game,” he said.

    Musselman, whose team is fresh off beating 1-seed and reigning national champion Kansas, has a 14-person support staff beyond his three assistants and the goal of being “at the forefront of analytics.” That includes a director of internal operations, director of scouting, recruiting coordinator, assistant director of recruiting and scouting, and seven graduate assistants.

    Consider it the trickle-down of NBA influence into college ranks.

    “Players watch the NBA guys, they want to be like them, play like them, be in an offense like them,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team reached the tournament’s second round. “Then you look at staffs. And as universities try to keep up and provide the best for their student-athletes, then you’re getting into analytics. You’re getting into nutrition. You’re getting into player development.”

    That has included the very-pro-sounding role of GM, arriving at Duke and DePaul as an NIL resource to players.

    Daniel G. Marks fills a similar role as the first chief program strategist at Howard, which reached the NCAA tourney for the first time since 1992. He spent nine seasons with the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, including the 2020-21 championship season.

    Marks said he is coming with an open mind to work with coach Kenny Blakeney.

    “Even when coming up with a title for my job, it’s like: What’s a title that other people are going to say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, what does he do?’” he said. “(Blakeney) wants programs across the country to look at Howard and say … ‘How can we learn that and emulate that?’”

    Those were all things Duke’s Jon Scheyer considered in building his first staff to replace retired Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. Notably, the 35-year-old added former Elon head coach Mike Schrage as special assistant to provide experience, then hired former Nike and NBA staffer Rachel Baker as general manager.

    Guard Jeremy Roach said the setup gave players “so many people who can help us out.” And it helped Duke win an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title before falling in the NCAA second round.

    The challenge for Scheyer and his peers? Be ready for whatever comes next.

    “Communication’s really important and just being current,” Scheyer said. “I’m not even talking age. I’m talking current in terms of understanding what these guys are going through, their families.

    “It’s so much more than it used to be. … We have the staff to do that. We’ve done an amazing job while still getting a feel for each other. So that’s something where we have to be better next year, because it can be all different next year.”

    ___

    AP Sports Writers Dave Campbell, Stephen Hawkins and Eric Olson contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aaronbeardap

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Women’s Sweet 16 features new format and historic field

    Women’s Sweet 16 features new format and historic field

    The Sweet 16 features a new format and a bit of history when it begins later this week.

    The NCAA changed its setup for the women’s tournament this season, trimming the traditional four regional sites to two. Seattle and Greenville — a city of 71,000 in South Carolina about halfway between Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina — will each host eight teams before sending the winners on to Dallas for the Final Four.

    It is also just the second time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1994 that two of the No. 1 seeds didn’t reach the regional semifinals after Mississippi and Miami knocked out Stanford and Indiana, respectively. It also happened in 1998.

    The other top seeds — South Carolina and Virginia Tech — advanced. The Gamecocks, led by star Aliyah Boston, are four wins from completing their own historic journey and back-to-back national championships. They are seeking just the 10th undefeated season ever in women’s basketball, and the next steps for coach Dawn Staley’s team are just a 90-minute trip from campus.

    There are a lot of teams that have ended long Sweet 16 droughts, like the Hokies, Hurricanes, Colorado and Villanova. UConn, on the other hand, will be playing in its 29th consecutive regional semifinal.

    Despite the parity that took place during the regular season and the exit of those two No. 1 seeds, it is the second time in the past six years that no double-digit seed reached the round of 16. It’s also the first time since the Big 12 was formed in 1996 that no teams from the conference reached the second weekend.

    There’s plenty of star power across the field with Angel Reese, Maddy Siegrist, Caitlin Clark and Elizabeth Kitley joining Boston in the regional semifinals.

    GREENVILLE 1

    The Gamecocks are the heavy favorite to come out of this region and, for that matter, to win another title. The regional semifinal opponent is No. 4 seed UCLA. The Bruins gave the Gamecocks a competitive game back in November, leading at halftime by four before losing by nine.

    No. 2 seed Maryland will play No. 3 seed Notre Dame in the other semifinal. The Terrapins, led by Diamond Miller, used a strong second half to get by Arizona in the second round. The Fighting Irish overcame season-ending injuries to Olivia Miles and Dara Mabrey to get to the Sweet 16. Notre Dame got a strong effort from post Lauren Ebo, who set a school NCAA tourney record with 18 rebounds in a win over Mississippi State.

    GREENVILLE 2

    With Indiana losing, the bracket is more open, with Villanova and Siegrist playing the Hurricanes in one of the semifinals. Siegrist, who leads the nation in scoring, has the Wildcats back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003. Miami’s drought was even longer, not making it this far since 1992.

    The other semifinal in the region pits two of the most talented forwards in the country against each other: LSU’s Angel Reese and Utah’s Alissa Pili. Reese helped the Tigers reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2014. The “Bayou Barbie” had 25 points, an eye-popping 24 rebounds and six blocks in the third-seeded Tigers’ rout of Michigan. Second-seeded Utah is back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006 after edging Princeton in the second round.

    SEATTLE 3

    Second-seeded UConn, which has dealt with injuries all season, will face third-seeded Ohio State in one semifinal. The Buckeyes needed a shot in the final few seconds by Jacy Sheldon to advance this far for the fourth straight season.

    Top seed Virginia Tech is the newcomer here, making its first appearance in the Sweet 16 since 1999 after two impressive home wins in the first two rounds. Kitley and Co. head across the country for a rematch against Tennessee. The two teams played Dec. 4 and the Hokies came away with a three-point win. The Lady Vols were missing Rickea Jackson for that game and it was the final one that Tamari Key played in before being sidelined for the season with blood clots.

    Tennessee has run through the first two rounds, becoming just the fourth team to win each of its first two games by 45 points or more. UConn did it the other three times, according to ESPN.

    SEATTLE 4

    Ole Miss crashed the party with its upset of Stanford and is back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2007. Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s defensive-minded squad will face a Louisville team that routed Texas on the Longhorns’ home court. Cardinals star Hailey Van Lith grew up in Central Washington, a few hours from Seattle.

    The other matchup will feature Clark and her logo-range shooting for Iowa against Colorado. Iowa edged Georgia in the second round, erasing the memory of last season’s round of 32 defeat to Creighton. The Hawkeyes will face a Colorado team in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Ole Miss stuns Stanford, reaches first Sweet 16 in 16 years

    Ole Miss stuns Stanford, reaches first Sweet 16 in 16 years

    STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Sobbing as she received hugs from friends, family and administrators, Mississippi coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin tried to grasp the magnitude of her team’s stunning win against top-seeded Stanford when someone reminded her there’s more basketball to be played.

    Her two young daughters danced for joy on the floor.

    Her proud father provided a shoutout to everybody back home in The Bahamas.

    Her team posed at midcourt and shouted, “Seattle!” That’s where the Rebels are headed next.

    Madison Scott hit a pair of free throws with 23 seconds left that gave Mississippi the lead for good, Angel Baker scored 13 points, and the Rebels delivered on their declaration to get defensive, stunning top-seeded Stanford 54-49 on Sunday night to reach the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the first time in 16 years.

    “First of all just incredibly grateful. I have a lot of mentors in my life and one of my mentors would always say to me that the person with the experience is at the mercy of the one with the anointing,” the 40-year-old McPhee-McCuin said in reference to Hall of Famer and winningest women’s coach Tara VanDerveer. “He spoke that over my life maybe 10 years ago. And so to be in this situation right now, to take down an historical program like Stanford, a coach and a woman that I admire I have watched is incredible.”

    Behind the entire game and never with a lead, Stanford called timeout with 28 seconds left then Hannah Jump turned the ball over and Scott converted. Haley Jones lost the ball out of bounds on the Cardinal’s last possession with a chance to tie then again in the waning moments.

    Marquesha Davis hit a pair of free throws with 15.4 seconds to play as Ole Miss overcame not making a field goal over the final 5:47, going 0 for 8.

    “This is such a big accomplishment. A lot of us came here to make history and that’s what we’re doing,” freshman Ayanna Thompson said.

    These upstart Rebels (25-8) advance to the Seattle Regional semifinal next weekend, while VanDerveer’s Stanford team (29-6) is eliminated far earlier than this group envisioned — the season ending on the Cardinal’s home floor. Jones fought tears after her final game, finishing with 16 points and eight rebounds but five turnovers.

    “Some of the things we did were self-inflicted. The turnovers really hurt us,” VanDerveer said. “They’re really a tough team, they’re a lot better than (No.) 8 teams we’ve played before. Sometimes you don’t have a really good matchup.”

    Only four No. 1 seeds had lost before the Sweet 16 since 1994, with Duke the last one in 2009. Stanford did so once before, falling to 16th-seeded Harvard in the first round of the 1998 tournament.

    The Cardinal had reached 14 straight Sweet 16s and hadn’t lost in the first or second rounds since No. 10 seed Florida State shocked the fifth-seeded Cardinal 68-61 at Maples Pavilion in the second round exactly 16 years ago to the day before on March 19, 2007.

    Cameron Brink came back from a one-game absence because of a stomach bug to finish with 20 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocked shots, but Stanford never led and tried to come from behind all night. The program’s career blocks leader, the junior star finished with 118 on the season and has 297 total.

    “Cam wasn’t 100% today but I thought she really battled,” VanDerveer said.

    Stanford had won 21 consecutive NCAA games on its home floor and is 41-5 all-time at Maples during March Madness.

    Ole Miss led the entire first half on the way to a 29-20 advantage at the break at raucous Maples Pavilion, where the crowd went wild when Brink blocked three straight shots in the same sequence by Rita Igbokwe midway through the second quarter. About two minutes later, Igbokwe grabbed at her mouth after being hit.

    The Rebels got a scare when senior guard Myah Taylor went down hard grabbing at her chest with 6:41 left in the third after colliding with Francesca Belibi while moving to defend Indya Nivar. After a short break to catch her breath, Taylor was back running the point.

    The Rebels declared from Day 1 arriving in the Bay Area they were ready to play their tenacious defense to make a mark on the NCAA Tournament. Stanford’s layups regularly rolled out. The Cardinal got called for repeated offensive fouls. They made mistakes when it mattered most.

    “It brought tears to my eyes,” said Gladstone McPhee, coach McPhee-McCuin’s father. “It’s beautiful. This is what you wait for.”

    BIG PICTURE Ole Miss: Parents Gladstone and Daisy cheered on fifth-year coach McPhee-McCuin as her team reached the second round after last year’s first-round exit by South Dakota. Her daughters, 10-year-old Yasmine and Yuri, 5, rooted the team all the way, with Yasmine yelling, “That’s my mom!” when Ole Miss came out before tipoff. … The Rebels advanced to the Elite Eight in 2007. After grabbing 24 offensive rebounds in the win against Gonzaga, the Rebels crashed the boards again to create second chances with 20 more.

    Stanford: The Cardinal also never led in the first half of 55-46 loss at USC on Jan. 15. … They had a 14-game home winning streak since a 76-71 overtime loss to No. 1 South Carolina on Nov. 20. … VanDerveer announced Jump plans to return for another year of eligibility. Jones will turn pro and Belibi has been accepted into a program at Harvard.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Gonzaga, Timme move to Sweet 16 with 84-81 win over TCU

    Gonzaga, Timme move to Sweet 16 with 84-81 win over TCU

    DENVER (AP) — Drew Timme added something new to his twisting, turning, head-faking, mustachioed repertoire — a 3-pointer to help Gonzaga get over the hump and back to the Sweet 16.

    The Gonzaga big man extended his one-of-a-kind college career by at least one more game, finishing with 28 points Sunday to help the Zags make their eighth straight Sweet 16 with a come-from-behind 84-81 win over TCU.

    Timme made his first 3 since December — and only his third of the season — as part of a 13-1 run that helped the third-seeded Zags (30-5) take a seven-point lead with just under nine minutes left after trailing most of the night.

    “It was huge — the clock, the two-point lead,” Timme said of the margin before he made his shot. “I just launched one up there. All you can do is smile and laugh.”

    After TCU pulled back within three late, Timme made a twisting shot in the lane with a defender draped all over him to trigger a 4-0 mini-run that put the game out of reach.

    Next stop for the 6-foot-10 senior and his social media-friendly mustache: Las Vegas for the West Region semifinals and a meeting with UCLA on Thursday. It will be a rematch of the teams’ Final Four game two years ago, when Jalen Suggs banked one in from the half-court logo at the buzzer for the win.

    Mike Miles Jr. finished with 24 points and four assists in his second straight electric game for the sixth-seeded Horned Frogs (22-13), who were trying to win two games in the same tournament for the first time in program history.

    Gonzaga coach Mark Few pulled Miles aside briefly during the postgame handshake.

    “He said that he’s coached a lot NBA players and that I am one,” Miles said. “It’s appreciated.”

    Damion Baugh finished with 15 points for TCU, including a not-so-meaningless 3 he hit at the buzzer to help the Horned Frogs cover the 4.5-point spread listed on FanDuel Sportsbook.

    Small consolation for TCU, though for 30 minutes-plus, the Frogs looked like very much like one of the 16 best teams in the country. They came at the Bulldogs in waves, trying to stop Timme with every big man on the roster.

    But while the Gonzaga big man worked for every one of his 12 baskets and his eight rebounds, TCU’s bigs were all in foul trouble as the game wound down. One of the two Horned Frogs who fouled out was JaKobe Coles, who made the last-second runner that gave TCU the first-round win against Arizona State.

    “Obviously, it was pretty early in the first half when we had to make some adjustments, play a lot of different lineups, probably even deeper than I thought we would,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said.

    TCU had led by as many as 10 in the first half.

    Rasir Bolton (17 points) led Gonzaga’s first big run. His two 3-pointers and another by Julian Strawther gave the Bulldogs a 46-45 lead after they had missed 12 of their 14 attempts from behind the arc in the first half.

    Strawther, a Las Vegas native, will head home for his team’s next game. And Timme joined a list that includes Bill Bradley, Elvin Hayes and Danny Manning as only the seventh player with nine NCAA Tournament games of 20-plus points.

    “I think he’s going to go down as one of the all-time great college players in the history of the game,” Few said. “And he still wasn’t supposed to shoot that 3. But that’s what makes him good. He does things like that every once in a while.”

    TIMME ON SOCIAL MEDIA

    Timme said he was annoyed by what he called “some nice things on the internet before” the game that took shots at him and Gonzaga. “Throw a little lighter fluid on the fire if you wish,” he said. “I thought TCU was a highly educated school, and they didn’t sound so smart with their comments pregame, so you know. …”

    SWEET 16 ANNIVERSARY

    The meeting Thursday with UCLA in Vegas will fall on the 16th anniversary of their classic Sweet 16 game, won 73-71 by the Bruins. Over the final, frenetic 40 seconds, UCLA made two steals, scored the last five points and left Zags star Adam Morrison nearly crying on the court.

    ONE FEWER BIG MAN

    With TCU’s big men in foul trouble, one difference might have been the absence of Eddie Lampkin. Lampkin, a key cog in the TCU frontcourt much of the year, entered the transfer portal just before the Big 12 tournament.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madnes and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Michigan State outlasts Marquette; Izzo back to Sweet 16

    Michigan State outlasts Marquette; Izzo back to Sweet 16

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Tom Izzo leaned on star guard and native New Yorker Tyson Walker to get Michigan State to Madison Square Garden for the Sweet 16.

    Walker, a fourth-year player who grew up in Westbury on Long Island, delivered against Marquette in March Madness on Sunday night, scoring 23 points and punctuating Michigan State’s 69-60 victory with a steal and his first ever collegiate dunk late in the game.

    And Walker wants to make sure his 68-year-old, Hall of Fame coach has a quintessential Big Apple experience.

    “It means everything,” said Walker, who played two years at Northeastern before transferring to Michigan State. “Just growing up, seeing everything, playing at the Garden. Just to make those shots, look over see my dad, see how excited he was. That means everything. And I just owe Coach some pizza now. And a cab ride.”

    Joey Hauser — a Marquette transfer — had 14 points and A.J. Hoggard had 13 as seventh-seeded Michigan State (21-12) took over in the last three minutes. The Spartans advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time in four years and will play third-seeded Kansas State in the East Region semifinals on Thursday.

    “I’ve been in Elite Eight games; I’ve been in the Final Four — that was as intense and tough a game as I’ve been in my career,” Izzo said. “And a lot of credit goes to Marquette and (coach) Shaka (Smart) and how they played, too.”

    Izzo reached his 15th regional semifinal and won his record 16th March Madness game with a lower-seeded team — one more than Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, who retired after this season.

    This one was particularly meaningful. Izzo became the face of a grieving school where three students were killed in a campus shooting on Feb. 13.

    “It’s been a long year,” an emotional Izzo said in a courtside interview. “I’m just happy for our guys.”

    Olivier-Maxence Prosper led second-seeded Marquette (29-7) with 16 points and Kam Jones had 14 points, including three 3-pointers, for the Big East champions.

    Michigan State led by as many as 12 in the first half, but Ben Gold and Prosper made back-to-back 3-pointers to help the Golden Eagles close within 33-28 at halftime.

    Prosper hit two more 3s in the first minute of the second half to give Marquette its first lead of the day. Michigan State grabbed back the lead with an 8-0 run and didn’t relinquish it.

    Back-to-back baskets in the paint by Hoggard and then Walker, both times as the shot clock expired, gave the Spartans a 60-55 lead with 2:20 left. Mady Sissoko then blocked shots on consecutive Marquette possessions, and Walker had a steal followed by a game-sealing dunk with 39 seconds left.

    Marquette’s nine-game winning streak ended, concluding a season in which the Golden Eagles exceeded expectations under coach Smart, who has referred to Izzo as a mentor.

    Michigan State, meanwhile, finished fourth in the Big Ten but appears to be improving at the right time.

    “We’ve still got some dancing to do,” Izzo said. “And we’re going to New York. I couldn’t be more excited for Tyson and even A.J., being a Philly guy.

    “After watching the tournament, it doesn’t matter who we play, when we play, where we play, or how, it’s going to be a hell of a game. And I’m looking forward to it.”

    BIG PICTURE

    Marquette: Coming off their first Big East Tournament title, the Golden Eagles dominated Vermont in the first round of March Madness, but Michigan State was a much tougher opponent. The Golden Eagles committed 11 of their 16 turnovers in the second half, and those giveaways led to 19 Spartans points.

    “I thought (Michigan State) played with great aggressiveness, particularly early in the game and at the very end of the game,” Smart said. “And those two the stretches were the difference in the outcome of the game.”

    Michigan State: The Spartans came out of their shooting funk after the halfway point of the second half and pulled away. They made 15 of their 17 free throws after halftime.

    KOLEK HURTING

    Tyler Kolek, the Big East Player of the Year, injured his thumb when he caught it on the jersey of a Vermont player in the opening round Friday night.

    He finished that game with eight points. He wasn’t much of a factor against Michigan State, either, scoring seven points, losing six turnovers and committing four fouls.

    Kolek insisted the thumb “wasn’t an issue at all.”

    “Just trying to be out there for my team and command the game. And I didn’t do that today,” he said.

    UP NEXT

    Michigan State’s next opponent, Kansas State, is making its first Sweet 16 appearance since 2018 and first under coach Jerome Tang.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Ole Miss stuns Stanford, reaches first Sweet 16 in 16 years

    Ole Miss stuns Stanford, reaches first Sweet 16 in 16 years

    STANFORD, Calif. — Sobbing as she received hugs from friends, family and administrators, Mississippi coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin tried to grasp the magnitude of her team’s stunning win against top-seeded Stanford when someone reminded her there’s more basketball to be played.

    Her two young daughters danced for joy on the floor.

    Her proud father provided a shoutout to everybody back home in The Bahamas.

    Her team posed at midcourt and shouted, “Seattle!” That’s where the Rebels are headed next.

    Madison Scott hit a pair of free throws with 23 seconds left that gave Mississippi the lead for good, Angel Baker scored 13 points, and the Rebels delivered on their declaration to get defensive, stunning top-seeded Stanford 54-49 on Sunday night to reach the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the first time in 16 years.

    “First of all just incredibly grateful. I have a lot of mentors in my life and one of my mentors would always say to me that the person with the experience is at the mercy of the one with the anointing,” the 40-year-old McPhee-McCuin said in reference to Hall of Famer and winningest women’s coach Tara VanDerveer. “He spoke that over my life maybe 10 years ago. And so to be in this situation right now, to take down an historical program like Stanford, a coach and a woman that I admire I have watched is incredible.”

    Behind the entire game and never with a lead, Stanford called timeout with 28 seconds left then Hannah Jump turned the ball over and Scott converted. Haley Jones lost the ball out of bounds on the Cardinal’s last possession with a chance to tie then again in the waning moments.

    Marquesha Davis hit a pair of free throws with 15.4 seconds to play as Ole Miss overcame not making a field goal over the final 5:47, going 0 for 8.

    “This is such a big accomplishment. A lot of us came here to make history and that’s what we’re doing,” freshman Ayanna Thompson said.

    These upstart Rebels (25-8) advance to the Seattle Regional semifinal next weekend, while VanDerveer’s Stanford team (29-6) is eliminated far earlier than this group envisioned — the season ending on the Cardinal’s home floor. Jones fought tears after her final game, finishing with 16 points and eight rebounds but five turnovers.

    “Some of the things we did were self-inflicted. The turnovers really hurt us,” VanDerveer said. “They’re really a tough team, they’re a lot better than (No.) 8 teams we’ve played before. Sometimes you don’t have a really good matchup.”

    Only four No. 1 seeds had lost before the Sweet 16 since 1994, with Duke the last one in 2009. Stanford did so once before, falling to 16th-seeded Harvard in the first round of the 1998 tournament.

    The Cardinal had reached 14 straight Sweet 16s and hadn’t lost in the first or second rounds since No. 10 seed Florida State shocked the fifth-seeded Cardinal 68-61 at Maples Pavilion in the second round exactly 16 years ago to the day before on March 19, 2007.

    Cameron Brink came back from a one-game absence because of a stomach bug to finish with 20 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocked shots, but Stanford never led and tried to come from behind all night. The program’s career blocks leader, the junior star finished with 118 on the season and has 297 total.

    “Cam wasn’t 100% today but I thought she really battled,” VanDerveer said.

    Stanford had won 21 consecutive NCAA games on its home floor and is 41-5 all-time at Maples during March Madness.

    Ole Miss led the entire first half on the way to a 29-20 advantage at the break at raucous Maples Pavilion, where the crowd went wild when Brink blocked three straight shots in the same sequence by Rita Igbokwe midway through the second quarter. About two minutes later, Igbokwe grabbed at her mouth after being hit.

    The Rebels got a scare when senior guard Myah Taylor went down hard grabbing at her chest with 6:41 left in the third after colliding with Francesca Belibi while moving to defend Indya Nivar. After a short break to catch her breath, Taylor was back running the point.

    The Rebels declared from Day 1 arriving in the Bay Area they were ready to play their tenacious defense to make a mark on the NCAA Tournament. Stanford’s layups regularly rolled out. The Cardinal got called for repeated offensive fouls. They made mistakes when it mattered most.

    “It brought tears to my eyes,” said Gladstone McPhee, coach McPhee-McCuin’s father. “It’s beautiful. This is what you wait for.”

    BIG PICTURE Ole Miss: Parents Gladstone and Daisy cheered on fifth-year coach McPhee-McCuin as her team reached the second round after last year’s first-round exit by South Dakota. Her daughters, 10-year-old Yasmine and Yuri, 5, rooted the team all the way, with Yasmine yelling, “That’s my mom!” when Ole Miss came out before tipoff. … The Rebels advanced to the Elite Eight in 2007. After grabbing 24 offensive rebounds in the win against Gonzaga, the Rebels crashed the boards again to create second chances with 20 more.

    Stanford: The Cardinal also never led in the first half of 55-46 loss at USC on Jan. 15. … They had a 14-game home winning streak since a 76-71 overtime loss to No. 1 South Carolina on Nov. 20. … VanDerveer announced Jump plans to return for another year of eligibility. Jones will turn pro and Belibi has been accepted into a program at Harvard.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • March Madness: Top-seeded SC moves on after topping USF

    March Madness: Top-seeded SC moves on after topping USF

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — Aliyah Boston showed once more she’s far from a one-dimensional superstar.

    While South Carolina All-American collected her 81st career double double with 11 points and 11 rebounds in a 76-45 victory over South Florida to advance to the Sweet 16 on Sunday, she also used her uncomparable defense to energize her team and lift them out of a slow start to keep their drive for back-to-back national titles going strong.

    “She made a lot of plays that don’t show up on the stat sheet,” South Florida coach Jose Fernandez said.

    Like when next month’s No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draf t twice dove on the floor to corral a loose basketball, then after blowing up Maria Alvarez’s drive to the basket ran out to the sideline to double team Emma Johansson and force a turnover.

    “This is who she is,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who’s watched and admired the effort the past four seasons.

    Zia Cooke scored 21 points for the Gamecocks, who improved to 34-0, won their 40th straight game and moved four victories away from repeating as national champs. They’ll head to Greenville, where they won the Southeastern Conference Tournament two weeks ago, to play for a spot in the Final Four.

    “Just because I know my teammates are giving me their all, I want to do the same,” Boston said. “I’ve always had that energy on defense when I was younger and I’ve just kept it going now that I’m in college.”

    South Florida (27-7) had hoped for a program-record 28th win this season and its first berth in the Sweet 16, but after a feisty start, couldn’t hang with the Gamecocks.

    Elena Tsineke, just 5-of-16 shooting in Friday’s OT win over Marquette, scored seven of the Bulls’ first 10 points on the way to a 16-12, first quarter lead in front of an edgy crowd on South Carolina’s home court.

    The Gamecocks, outrebounded 10-9 the first 10 minutes, took control of the glass after that, finishing with a comfortable edge of 52-28.

    South Florida made just five of its 28 shots the final 20 minutes and was held to its lowest point-total this season, 25 below its season’s average.

    Tsinkeke led the Bulls with 20 points. Fankam Mendjiadeu was held to just four points on 2-of-9 shooting.

    “Their physicality started to kick in, so I guess we just couldn’t really keep up with that,” Tsineke said.

    BIG PICTURE

    South Florida: It should be a different Bulls lineup with fifth-year senior Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu and Tsineke likely gone. Sammie Puisis, the Florida State transfer listed as a junior, can return and if she does, could become an even more dynamic scorer than she was this season. Carla Brito was a freshman starter and should play a bigger role next season. “I told them, ‘Don’t let this define the year that we had,” said Fernandez, the USF coach.

    South Carolina: Just another day at the NCAA Tournament office for the Gamecocks, who’ve been a near Sweet 16 lock under Dawn Staley the past decade of so. They’ve reached the round of 16 in 10 of past 11 tournaments, only missing in 2013. There was no tournament in 2020 due to COVID-19.

    CHEYNEY SHOUT OUT

    Dawn Staley wore a replica jersey for Cheyney State, the lone HBCU program to play in a Final Four. Staley wore the No. 44 of Yolanda Laney, who she said put together youth basketball summer leagues in the Philadelphia area that the Gamecocks coach took part in as a hoops hopeful.

    HOME ADVANTAGE

    South Carolina’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class from 2019 closed out their four years at home with a 60-1 record, the lone defeat coming to North Carolina State in Dec. 2020 during their sophomore seasons. That class featured Boston, Cooke, Brea Beal, Laeticia Amihere and Olivia Thompson. It was also a milestone victory for Staley, who won her 400th game with the program since taking over before the 2008-09 season.

    UP NEXT

    South Carolina will face either fourth-seeded UCLA or fifth-seeded Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 next Saturday. The Bruins and Sooners play Monday.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Arkansas ousts defending champ Kansas from March Madness

    Arkansas ousts defending champ Kansas from March Madness

    Kansas’ national title defense ended in the second round of NCAA Tournament when Arkansas’ Ricky Council IV made five free throws in the closing seconds and the eighth-seeded Razorbacks beat the No. 1 seed Jayhawks 72-71

    ByERIC OLSON AP Sports Writer

    DES MOINES, Iowa — Kansas’ national title defense ended in the second round of NCAA Tournament on Saturday when Arkansas’ Ricky Council IV made five free throws in the closing seconds and the eighth-seeded Razorbacks beat the No. 1 seed Jayhawks 72-71.

    Davonte Davis scored 25 points and Council added 21 as Arkansas rallied from a 12-point second-half deficit. Kansas, playing without ailing coach Bill Self, became the second top seed not to escape the tournament’s first weekend after Purdue lost on Friday night to No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson.

    Arkansas (22-13) and coach Eric Musselman return to the Sweet 16 for the third straight year. The Razorbacks will play either Saint Mary’s or UConn in the West Region semifinals in Las Vegas on Thursday.

    Musselman and his players rushed to a second of fans sitting courtside after the final buzzer. Musselman ripped his polo shirt off, waved it over his head and shouted with joy.

    Self has been with the Jayhawks (28-8) since they arrived in Des Moines and has attended practices and meetings, but he still doesn’t feel well enough to coach a game after having a heart procedure March 8 to clear clogged arteries.

    Longtime assistant Norm Roberts was acting coach for a fifth straight game in Self’s absence.

    Kansas, bidding to become the first repeat national champion since Florida in 2006-07, was ahead 35-27 at halftime and lost for the first time in 27 games when entering the second half with a lead. Kansas had been 47-0 in the NCAA Tournament when leading by eight points or more at the half.

    Davis scored 21 of his points in the second half. He fouled out with 1:56 left, turning things over to the veteran Council, a transfer from Wichita State who scored nine of the Razorbacks’ final 11 points.

    Council’s free throw put Arkansas ahead to stay, 68-67, with 24 seconds left. He then rebounded his own miss of the second free throw and made two more to give the Razorbacks a three-point lead.

    The teams traded free throws, and Arkansas sent the Jayhawks’ Jalen Wilson to the line with 3 seconds left to prevent a potential tying 3-pointer. Wilson made the first free throw and appeared to try to miss the second intentionally, but it banked hard off the glass and in, and Kansas never regained possession.

    Arkansas was playing a No. 1 seed for the third straight year. Last year, the Razorbacks knocked out Gonzaga on the way to their second straight Elite Eight.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Paige Bueckers’s AP Diary: getting ready for March Madness

    Paige Bueckers’s AP Diary: getting ready for March Madness

    STORRS, Conn. — I’ve always been a fan of March Madness.

    Growing up I remember watching UConn own it. Sure, I remember Stewie (Breanna Stewart) winning four in a row, but my first memory was when Stefanie Dolson helped the Huskies win. She was my favorite UConn player growing up.

    Fast forward to the last few years where I’ve actually got to experience playing in it myself. It may not have been the norm with my first year being in the San Antonio bubble because of COVID and last season I was coming back from injury, but it’s an amazing feeling to play on the game’s biggest stage.

    You work so hard as a competitor to play in this and win at the end of the season.

    As many of you know this year I’m out recovering from a torn ACL injury that I suffered over the summer. I’ve been working hard over the last six-to-seven months on rehabbing. There’s still a ways to go, but every day I’m getting strong and healthier. I’ve been able to do more basketball drills during practice, but still am a bit way from contact.

    I’ve trusted my faith and know that God does everything for a reason and that’s helped me through this. Even though I can’t play I’ve found other ways to help the team. You don’t see certain things when you’re playing and I’ve broken things down on the bench giving tips here and there. I’d rather be “Player P” than “Coach P” but now I do what I can to help us win.

    I learned last year never take anything for granted when I went down with an injury and was fortunate enough to come back and play in my hometown of Minneapolis for the Final Four.

    The season is long and grueling and some people get tired and I remind them that they are blessed to play basketball and play here at UConn.

    I also know that I can still be a positive role model for kids while I’m not playing. I remember when I was young trying to get Maya Moore or Lindsay Whalen’s signature and how special that made me feel. Whenever I’m at games, I take a few minutes and take selfies with people and sign autographs.

    I can also be a role model in other ways. My injury is unfortunately too common in women’s basketball and there are many others who have gone through it. It’s a long process and I hope my recovery can help inspire others to keep their faith and continue to work hard to get back healthy.

    Obviously we have one goal in mind and that’s winning a championship, but associate head coach Chris Dailey does a great job of helping us have fun, too.

    The other night we had dinner at Coach’s (Geno Auriemma’s) restaurant and played a mystery game with a pajama party theme where we had to figure out who the “Riddler” was. Everyone on the team was assigned a role and coach was on the side not playing, but stirring the pot trying to distract everyone.

    There’s no doubt that Amari (DeBerry) and Aaliyah (Edwards) were the most committed to their roles and costumes.

    Of course Azzi (Fudd) was the culprit we had to guess. It was a fun night.

    CD puts these things together to help us get out of our apartments where we spend most of the day watching basketball. Of course that’s half the fun of March Madness — watching all the games. We’re especially excited to watch our men’s team play.

    Until next time, go Huskies!

    ___

    UConn Huskies star Paige Bueckers is checking in periodically during the NCAA Tournament. She’s still recovering from an ACL injury.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Fairleigh Dickinson stuns No. 1 seed Purdue in March Madness

    Fairleigh Dickinson stuns No. 1 seed Purdue in March Madness

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Fairleigh Dickinson brought down a giant.

    Pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history, the undersized, underdog Knights stunned top-seeded Purdue 63-58 on Friday night, becoming the second No. 16 seed to win a game in March Madness.

    The shortest of the 363 Division I teams in the country, the Knights (21-15) showed no fear in swarming 7-foot-4 All-America center Zach Edey from the start and simply outplayed the Big Ten champion Boilermakers (29-6).

    “If we played them 100 times, they’d probably beat us 99 times,” FDU coach Tobin Anderson said. “Play them 100 times, we have one win. But tonight’s the one we had to be unique, we had to be unorthodox. We had to make it tough on them, just be different.”

    Sean Moore scored 19 points to lead FDU and a relentless defensive charge — the Knights pressed most of the game — by a team that now has everyone’s attention.

    Five years ago, UMBC showed the way for the little guys by overwhelming Virginia in the first 16-over-1 victory after numerous close calls over the years. Still, No. 16s had a 1-150 record against No. 1s and were 1-151 overall before FDU’s shocker.

    After the final horn, FDU’s players mobbed each other on the floor of Nationwide Arena, where the fans from Memphis and Florida Atlantic who were waiting for the day’s final game joined forces in cheering on the Knights in the final, frantic minutes.

    The Knights will meet FAU — a 66-65 winner over Memphis — on Sunday for a Sweet 16 berth and a trip next week to play at Madison Square Garden in New York, just a short drive from the private school’s main campus in Teaneck, New Jersey.

    “Man, I can’t even explain it,” Moore said. “I’m still in shock right now. I can’t believe it. It’s crazy. But it feels amazing.”

    Fairleigh Dickinson didn’t even win the Northeast Conference Tournament, falling by one point in the title game to Merrimack, which couldn’t participate in the NCAA Tournament because of an NCAA rule that bars it from the postseason because it’s still completing its four-year transition from Division II.

    FDU held Purdue scoreless for more than 5 1/2 minutes down the stretch and moved ahead by five on a 3-pointer by Moore — who is from suburban Columbus — with 1:03 left.

    The Knights held on from there, becoming the third straight double-digit seed to send the Boilermakers home. Purdue was a No. 3 seed when it lost to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s, another small New Jersey school, in the Sweet 16 last year. The Boilermakers were bounced in the first round by 13th-seeded North Texas in 2021.

    “Our job was just to come into the game and throw a punch,” said FDU’s Demetre Roberts, 20 inches shorter than Edey. “We knew they would throw multiple punches. Just throw a punch back. We knew what type of game this was.”

    Edey finished with 21 points and 15 rebounds in what may have been his final college game, but the Knights were masterful against him in the second half. Edey didn’t attempt a shot in the final nine minutes, and anytime he touched the ball there were FDU players draped all around him.

    “A lot of times they would have one dude guarding from behind and one dude basically sitting in my lap,” Edey said. “They were full fronting the entire game. Made it very hard to get catches. Credit to them, they had a great game plan coming in. And they executed it very well.”

    When Purdue’s late push fell short and its season ended, Edey squeezed the shoulder straps on his jersey and walked stone-faced toward Purdue’s locker room.

    The junior center is a possible NBA lottery pick, but the bitterness of this defeat could sway Edey to stick around for another year.

    “I have no opinion on that,” Edey said when asked about his future. “I’ll make my decision going forward.”

    The Knights’ two prior NCAA Tournament wins came in the First Four, including this year, when they drubbed Texas Southern 84-61. After that game, Anderson told his players he believed they could handle Edey and Co.

    “The more I see Purdue, the more I think we can beat them,” Anderson said with a camera in the locker room.

    Some of Purdue’s players said they felt disrespected by the comments, which turned out to be prophetic.

    “It was the right message, wrong audience,” Anderson said. “I would have said that with no camera in there. I didn’t mean to get Purdue upset. That was not the idea at all. But that’s got to be the message. We’re trying to win the next game. We just can’t be happy to be here.”

    “And the guys gotta believe.”

    Just being in the tourney was quite an accomplishment for FDU, which went 4-22 a year ago and now has two NCAA tourney wins in three days.

    This was Anderson’s first season at the school, and after he landed the job in May, he held a practice the first night just so he knew what he had to work with from a team that had the second-worst record in the program’s 58-year history.

    It wasn’t a lot, so he brought three players — Roberts, Grant Singleton and Moore — along with him from Division II power St. Thomas Aquinas.

    Turns out, they’re giant slayers.

    “We’re the shortest team in the country,” Anderson said. “But we made him (Edey) uncomfortable. And the things he made were not easy baskets. I don’t think he ever felt terribly comfortable. And that was just a great team effort.”

    “We were sagging in the paint. We went off certain shooters. Let’s make them make 3s, but not give them 3s — make them make 3s. Just an unbelievable team effort.”

    Purdue finished 5 of 26 from beyond the arc — including 3 of 15 in the second half.

    It was the Boilermakers, not the undersized Knights, who were scrambling from the opening tip.

    Purdue may have had Fairleigh Dickinson outsized on the floor and in the stands as a boisterous group of Boilermakers fans gave their team what felt like a home-court advantage despite being 240 miles from West Lafayette, Indiana.

    However, when the Knights’ Joe Munden drained a step-back 3-pointer in the first half, “F-D-U!” chants broke out inside the arena and it became obvious this small team had big dreams.

    Without a player on its roster taller than 6-6, Fairleigh Dickinson sometimes needed two players to guard Edey — one in front and one behind — and he missed his first three shots before a dunk.

    Edey showed some frustration and at one point told one of the officials, “Sir, he’s holding my left arm.”

    Purdue eventually settled in and reeled off 11 straight points — four on Edey free throws — to take 24-19 lead. The Knights, though, responded with their own spurt and Heru Bligen’s layup after a steal helped FDU take a 32-31 into halftime.

    Roberts finished with 12 points and 6-4 forward Cameron Tweedy had 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting for FDU.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Most March Madness brackets bust before sundown on Day 1

    Most March Madness brackets bust before sundown on Day 1

    NCAA Tournament brackets were busted early Thursday

    ByMARK ANDERSON AP Sports Writer

    From No. 13 seed Furman beating fourth-seeded Virginia to No. 15 Princeton defeating second-seeded Arizona, most NCAA Tournament brackets were busted Thursday before the sun went down.

    The NCAA March Madness Twitter account posted after Thursday’s late games concluded that only 787 brackets of unspecified millions remained perfect.

    Numbers were similar elsewhere.

    In ESPN’s Tournament Challenge bracket game, only 658 perfect brackets remained by the end of the first day. More than 20 million had gotten at least one of the 16 games wrong.

    Furman received a decent amount of support. The Paladins were picked to win their opener in 18.2% of ESPN’s brackets. Only 6.6% picked Princeton to beat Arizona, and the Wildcats going down did tremendous damage to many brackets. They were picked in 4.9% of brackets to cut down the nets at the national championship game.

    Arizona was a popular pick at CBS Sports, too, appearing on 96.9% of brackets win its opener, 84.9% to make the Sweet 16, 55.2% to make the Elite Eight, 21.5% to reach the Final Four and 5% to win it all.

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • Travel logistics can be tricky amid March Madness whirlwind

    Travel logistics can be tricky amid March Madness whirlwind

    COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Holy Cross found out Sunday it would face second-seeded Maryland in the women’s NCAA Tournament.

    Then the more immediate challenge began — figuring out how to travel there.

    The Crusaders eventually arrived following a lengthy bus ride Wednesday, one of a handful of teams to face logistical challenges during March Madness this week. Charleston’s men’s team arranged for a charter flight to its game, but the return trip from Florida was up in the air. Grand Canyon arrived for its men’s game in Denver, but luggage was delayed.

    The San Diego State men had their charter delayed for a more prestigious reason.

    “Restricted airspace around Air Force One,” coach Brian Dutcher said.

    Charleston played San Diego State in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday. The South Carolina school is about 380 miles from Orlando, just below the 400-mile threshold at which the NCAA would pay for a charter flight. So Charleston paid for its own flight — and the Cougars had a little more incentive to win.

    The plan was to return by bus if they lost in the first round. If they advanced to Saturday, there would be time to arrange a charter home. Charleston lost to San Diego State 63-57.

    Holy Cross is located in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 350 miles from College Park. There was also the matter of a nor’easter that affected New England this week.

    “The travel piece was a huge question mark, obviously finding out that we couldn’t charter by a couple miles,” Crusaders coach Maureen Magarity said. “Figuring out the buses, the impending snowstorm, there’s a lot of moving parts. I’m just so grateful to our staff and our administration to help figure all that out for us.”

    The Lopes of Grand Canyon found themselves in a bind Wednesday when they arrived in Denver, but their gear didn’t make it. So they borrowed equipment from Regis University in Denver and used scout jerseys provided by Baylor.

    Baylor coach Scott Drew was all too willing to assist his little brother, Bryce, the coach of Grand Canyon. The brothers’ teams just so happen to be playing at the same site, but in different regionals.

    “We charge them by the hour,” Scott Drew cracked. “Whatever we can do to help.”

    Just a minor hiccup, Bryce Drew explained, as the Lopes get set to play third-seeded Gonzaga on Friday.

    “We’re all ready to go and shoes and jerseys and practice gear is all delivered,” he said.

    ___

    Follow Noah Trister at https://twitter.com/noahtrister

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link

  • March Madness top teams bring talent and, for some, baggage

    March Madness top teams bring talent and, for some, baggage

    Kansas and Alabama are no strangers to playing for national championships.

    For the Jayhawks, another high-expectations trip to March Madness is a rite of spring. For the Crimson Tide, well, this path to glory travels through some unfamiliar ground — the basketball court.

    Alabama rolls in as the top overall seed in an NCAA Tournament that feels both familiar and foreign this season. Yes, there are plenty of heartwarming stories and unbelievable upsets to come when the action begins Tuesday with the first of four play-in games.

    But this was also a season clouded with police blotters at Alabama and Texas, injuries at Houston and UCLA, some unsightly losses at Kansas, and enough twists and turns at the top of the field to make this as unpredictable a bracket as ever.

    “I’m not sure we would’ve predicted this,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said of the top seeding that belongs to the Crimson Tide for the first time.

    Alabama’s ability to set aside distractions — namely, the inevitable questions that will be directed at its star, Brandon Miller, and others about an o ngoing murder case against a former member of the team — could have as big an impact on the Crimson Tide’s chances as anything.

    But all these teams, especially at the top, have their issues.

    It starts with Houston, the 1 seed in the Midwest, which was cruising along until Saturday, when its star guard, Marcus Sasser, fell awkwardly and left the game with a groin injury.

    Sasser didn’t play in his team’s conference title game and Houston lost. How quickly he gets back to form could dictate whether the Cougars make the Final Four, which will take place at NRG Stadium, not far from their home arena.

    Or take the Jayhawks, who looked like the top overall seed for a time. Two double-digit losses to Texas knocked them down a few notches. They are top seeded, but will play in the West, not the Midwest — one of those rare teams that might have preferred a possible trip down the road to Kansas City over a flight to Las Vegas for the Sweet 16. Not helping the situation was the recent illness of coach Bill Self, who was feeling chest tightness and checked himself into the hospital before the Big 12 Tournament. He was released Sunday and is expected to be with the Jayhawks this week.

    “They mark it how they feel and we’re just going to do what we need to do to get where we need to be,” Kansas forward KJ Adams said.

    There are issues one notch down the bracket, too.

    No. 2 UCLA has been dealing with injuries all season. Most recently, guard Jaylen Clark (Achilles) and big man Adem Bona (shoulder) have gone down. Clark won’t be back; Bona might. It takes a hunk out of a team that still has the core of a roster that lost to Gonzaga on a buzzer-beater from near midcourt at the Final Four two years ago.

    Another 2 seed, Texas, has had months to bounce back from the firing of coach Chris Beard, whose fiancee called in a domestic dispute that led to the coach’s arrest. Charges were eventually dropped. By then, Rodney Terry had taken over the team and it found its footing, though the ugliness of the episode is bound to be rehashed during basketball’s biggest month.

    Back among the No. 1 seeds, Purdue has a 7-foot-4 playmaker, Zach Edey, leading the way and also has a little baggage of its own. Coach Matt Painter’s program has now made the tournament 14 times in his 18 years but has advanced as far as the Elite Eight only once. This is the first time one of Painter’s teams has come in as a top seed, though.

    The coach is as aware as anyone how a trip to the Final Four might just cover up a lot of those old blemishes.

    “Obviously, I know,” Painter said, “you get judged on what you do in the tournament.”

    ___

    AP March Madness coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

    Source link