Buzzer beaters are the best part of the NCAA tournament. Here’s ESPN’S take on the top 10 NCAA Tournament buzzer beaters of all time. You don’t really even have to watch to know who #1 is going to be. (Hint: a teammate cries like a little girl.)
Tag: College Basketball
I’m unbiased baby!
At some point every year, college hoops fans come to a crossroads when it comes to filling out their tournament brackets. Whether it’s in the first round or the Final Four, there are always those toss-up games that will drive you to the brink of insanity. Well, now you don’t have to frantically scan through all the menial stats and scenarios because celebrities like Doogie Howser, Lauren Holly, and Dicky V (actually stay away from Dick’s picks, his bracket has Coach K’s kids winning it every year) have already done all the hard work for you. And if you think that all their predictions suck then you can rely on the national popular opinion. But, why do that when it’s so much more fun to ridicule individuals for your own mistakes.
Neil Patrick Harris,
Jeff Probst,
Tony Kornheiser,
Sam Hornish Jr.,
Lauren Holly,
Seth Davis,
Dick Vitale,
Clark Kellogg,
ESPN Experts,
National Bracket
It looks like an overwhelming number of votes are being cast for the Gators to make it through the entire field win a second consecutive championship. That’s just fine with us, as long as we can see a repeat performance of Joakim Noah’s spastic boogey.
The tournament is full of upsets other than the 12-5 and one of our favorites is to take a 10-7 upset. (Actually, a couple of these 10-7s look good this year…) But the main reason you want Creighton over Nevada is maybe we’ll witness Nevada coach Mark Fox going nuts after the game. Fox was almost arrested after losing to Utah State in the WAC tournament.
Quent Pirtle, the police officer who was on security duty for the officials that night said that Fox used “loud, boisterous and profane language toward the officials” and at one point chased an official up a stairwell. Fox also cursed at the officer and that Pirtle considered arresting him on charges of assault on a police office (What?) and a conventional assault charge for harassing the officials but decided to let college officials deal with it.
Fox will not be suspended from Nevada’s game on Friday in the opening round. College basketball is getting so soft. Nobody was talking about arrests when John Chaney threatened to kill John Calipari after a game. And by the looks of it, Chaney actually meant it.
Links:
[SI]: Police: Nevada’s Fox abusive, profane
Categories
New School Bracketology
Every year sports dorks from around the country can’t wait for the selection show to end so that they can run over to their X-Box and meticulously enter the entire field into their favorite NCAA hoops game and fill out their brackets according to the random crap that the simulations spit out. Kinda sounds like the BCS. But regardless, the game has pull when it comes to some office pools so here are the results from NCAA March Madness 07 and College Hoops 2K7.
In March Madness 07, No. 2 Wisconsin defeated No. 3 seed Pittsburgh, 90-72, on the left side of the bracket to set up a championship game against No. 4 Texas after the Longhorns defeated No. 1 seed Ohio State, 76-73, in a battle of freshman phenoms. In the final game, Kevin Durant’s 27.5 point per game average throughout the tournament was simply too much for the Badgers to overcome as Texas takes the title with an 87-64 victory.
2K7 comes up with a totally different scenario. Their Final Four consist of Maryland, Kansas, North Carolina and Texas A&M. In the semis, No. 4 Maryland upsets the top seeded Jayhawks by three, 64-61, while North Carolina narrowly avoided the third seed Aggies, 77-73. In the end, the Tarheels cut down the nets as Tyler Hansbrough led North Carolina to an 83-80 victory over the Terps.
Wonder how far George Mason made it in March Madness 06?
Links:
[IGN.com]: MARCH MADNESS PREDICTIONS
Who runs a $22 office pool?
Michigan state representative Kim Meltzer wants to decriminalize NCAA tournament pools because “what makes March Madness unique is that all kinds of people and sports fans of all levels fill out their brackets and enjoy the tournament. It’s a crime we consider that a crime, and I want to change it.”
Bravo Kim! Bravo! Any pool that’s $20 or less would be legal. Although nobody ever gets prosecuted over an office pool, it shouldn’t be illegal to throw your money away to the guy who just moved here from Bangladesh and is picking teams based on mascots. Hell, the office pool is probably the only chance sports geeks get a chance to talk to that cute girl in marketing. God Bless America and the bracket!
In other news…
[Sign On San Diego]: Adonal Foyle is now free to make fun of Canadians
[WrestleZone]: When your false teeth come flying out during a match, you might want to stop wrestling
[Nashville City Paper]: Even Pacman Jones knows he’s in a heap of trouble
[The Offside]: Sometimes you just gotta check the ol’ undercarriage
[The Big Lead]: Bill Belichick won’t have to testify for banging Sharon Shenocca
[10,000 Takes]: Yeah but where are the strippers?
And finally, we hope you signed up for March Madness On Demand cause it’s gonna be crazy this Thursday. Here’s a list of the announcer schedules. Sadly, one of the most intriguing Cinderalla matchups (Butler/ODU) has Kevin Harlan on the mic.
We’re all degenerate gamblers at heart, so what better time to cut loose and let your inner Pete Rose come out than March Madness. After all, who doesn’t love to place a bet on a Cinderella school? Usually, they’ll get bounced in the first or second round but, hope was given to small schools across the country when the March magic carried George Mason all the way to the Final Four in last year’s tournament. Not too shabby considering that they opened the tourney with 400 to 1 odds.
Here are some of the lines for this year’s tournament, starting with the favorites to win it all.
#1 Seeds: Florida 7/2, Kansas 4/1, North Carolina 5/1, Ohio St. 6/1
#2 Seeds: Georgetown 8/1, UCLA 9/1, Wisconsin 15/1, Memphis 20/1,
Notables: Texas A&M 10/1, Texas 12/1, Maryland 25/1, Pittsburgh 25/1, Butler 35/1, Oregon 35/1, Washington St. 35/1, Arizona 40/1, Louisville 40/1, S. Illinois 40/1,Virginia Tech 45/1, Duke 50/1
Long Shots: Texas Tech 125/1, BYU 150/1, Gonzaga 150/1, Arkansas 200/1, Illinois 200/1, Purdue 200/1, Stanford 200/1
Don’t see any action that you like? Well, your odds are still better than trying to fill out a perfect bracket, 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1, but the payoff isn’t nearly as good.
Links:
[Bodog]: ODDS TO WIN 2007 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
We’ve heard a lot of theories of the selection committee setting up matches not because of relative strength of teams but because of possible second round matchups that would be phenomenal for TV ratings. Gonzaga – UCLA anyone? Well, this is the first we’ve heard of the reasoning why teams like Syracuse and Drexel didn’t get in this year.
Two years ago, the NCAA bought – that’s right, the organization spent more than $50 million to purchase – the National Invitation Tournament. The other tournament, March Not-So-Madness, had gone along very nicely for years by hosting the NCAA’s rejects in a separate-but-unequal shadow tournament.Now the NCAA owns it. Now the NCAA has incentive to make sure some attractive teams are available for the NIT field. The committee can’t get away with sending Wisconsin and Pittsburgh to the NIT – even Dick Vitale would figure that scam out – but it can send a few big programs from a few big markets.
Drexel and Syracuse, Kansas State and Florida State. They will draw nice crowds and decent TV ratings to their NIT games.
As if Drexel and Syracuse fans aren’t pissed enough. Now they find out that they didn’t make the tourney cause they are too good… for TV ratings anyway.
Links:
[Philly.com]: Phil Sheridan | Enough unfair exclusions: Add teams
We know that a coach sleeping with his or her players is wrong (unless that player is Jennie Finch, in which case we say, bravo…) but did assistant coach Carla Berry really have to go all Judas on her? It wasn’t like Pokey was having sex with a current player. It was a former player. We’re talking former. Not current. Former! (Thank God for AI.)
According to ESPN, Berry is a longtime friend and colleague of Chatman’s and her motivation for alerting university officials was “unclear”. Chatman, meanwhile, is hiding out until this whole thing blows over and then she’ll get a fat contract from a program who just wants to win. Sex with players or not, Pokey delivered as a coach. Although her contract will be the first with a “no sex with players” clause.
In other news…
[Sports By Brooks]: U. OF WASHINGTON LOSES PRIDE FIGHT ON OWN WEBSITE
[Dallas Morning News]: T.O. didn’t bother to learn the playbook
[USA Today]: Who knew Hang Time could prepare Reggie Theus for the NCAAs?
[The Offside]: I really am a soccer player!
[WBRS]: Phil Simms in a skit with Geico Caveman TV Show (there’s just so many things wrong with this)
[HeraldNet]: How the hell did Shaun Alexander not get laid till he was 24?
[SoccerBlog.com]: Steve Nash’s soccer skills
Once again folks, it’s time for our journey back into the 3rd grade where we make fun of people’s names and secretly wish we had others. The tournament every year is filled with great names. This year we have a bunch of celebrities in Charles Bronson (Xavier), Chris Tucker (VA Tech) and Michael Knight (Albany and Knight Industries Two Thousand). Will any of this year’s All-Names Team be inducted into the God Shammgod Hall of Fame? Only time will tell.
1st Team
C: Idong Ibok, Michigan State: Sorry ladies, this isn’t the ipod attachment you were looking for.
F: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA: Making his way up to 1st team this year with the coolest name in the NCAAs.
F: Taj Finger, Stanford: “…and Finger bangs the boards!”
G: Pierre Marie Altidor-Cespedes, Gonzaga: It’s tough to be named Marie in the tourney.
G: Mario “Superintendent” Chalmers, Kansas: The greatest pop culture nickname in tournament history.
2nd Team
C: Zach Peacock, Georgia Tech: Completely juvenile selection that we’re not touching with a ten foot pole or anything else for that matter.
F: Jason Love, Xavier: Is that his porn name?
F: Obie Nwadike, Central Conn State: Gotta love a name that reminds us of little Ron Howard but on a 6’4″ black guy
G: Max Paulhus Gosselin, Davidson: Didn’t he play Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell?
G: Matt Coward, VCU: That’s a tough last name come crunch time.
Honorable Mention: Octavious Spann, Georgetown; Thaddeus Young, Georgia Tech; Major Wingate, Tennessee; Rome Sanders, Florida A&M; Chamberlain Oguchi, Oregon; Alex Moosmann, Miami (Ohio).
Did we leave anyone out?
Step aside Mark Madsen, move over Bob Kraft; you are no longer the benchmarks for the most humiliating championship celebrations of all time. In fact, Joakim Noah might have set the bar to an unreachable height when he flailed about like a sugar starved eight-year-old who just slammed a Double Gulp Slurpee after the Gators knocked off Arkansas in the SEC title game. (We think that’s Noah, or maybe someone just let a retarded epileptic kid on the floor.)
Look, anybody would be happy to win their conference’s championship; it’s just that most wouldn’t celebrate by performing their best Beavis and Butt Head dance impression on national television during the post-game festivities.
Links:
[YouTube]: White People Should Not Dance