2007 March - Final Four News, NCAA Tournament Bracket, News and hubbub

ORU Headed to NCAA Tournament

As the NCAA Basketball Tournament invites continue to get handed out during Champs Week, Oral Roberts University locked up an automatic bid last night in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In an apparent battle for gilded namesake, the ORU Golden Eagles beat the Oakland Golden Grizzlies 71-67 in the Mid-Continent Conference Championship game.

ORU came into the conference tournament as the top seed at 23-10, but will undoubtedly draw a tough opponent in the fist round of the NCAA Tournament.

Not but a couple of years ago, Oakland and Oral Roberts met in the Mid-Con championship, with the Golden Grizzlies winning and advancing to March Madness.

This goes against every thing I’ve ever been taught. When I was a school boy, “Oral” Roberts always got asked to the Dance.

There’s still plenty of great champs week games. If you want to see some of the action, get NCAA basketball tickets at your source for March Madness, StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 7, 2007 - Post a comment

The Wright Stuff Wins Horizon, Moves on to NCAAs

Wright State received an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament last night with their Horizon League Tournament Championship game victory. The Raiders took down No. 17 ranked Butler on their way to the Dance, their first trip in almost 20 years.

Butler is expected to also receive an at large bid to the tourney, but will have to sit and wait for official word. The Bulldogs have never played well at the Nutter Center, Wright State’s home arena. They have lost six of their last seven games in Fairborn.

Whined Butler’s humorously named coach Todd Lickliter, “This was not neutral.”

No, and neither will the arena you play in the NCAA Tournament, so you had better get used to it, and quick. NCAA basketball tickets to see teams in unfamiliar arenas will be available at StubHub.com, your source for teams that don’t need constant reassurance.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 7, 2007 - Post a comment

Knight vs. the Hall of Fame

NCAA men’s basketball’s winningest and most infuriated head coach, Bob Knight, has picked a new enemy in the basketball Hall of Fame. Knight is apparently so upset at the basketball Hall of Fame for not admitting Dick Vitale that he has taken to the least likely of Bobby intimidation tactics- a letter campaign.

Knight has also convinced other famous college hoops coaches to write letters on Vitale’s behalf. John Wooden, Dean Smith, Jim Boeheim, Lute Olsen, and Mike Krzyzewski have all, for some reason, hurriedly taken up the cause for Vitale.

Who would have ever thought that Knight and Vitale would team up to take on the Hall of Fame? One is the personification of rage and the other is the uptime of unabashed life-loving.

This is really the most unlikely pairing since any cop movie ever. Or since Dick Cheney had a daughter.

Even if they don’t come written in magazine cut-outs, a letter from Knight should get your attention. Just picture Knight calmly and rationally sitting down at his desk on the Texas Tech campus, pulling out a sheet of paper from the drawer and penning a congenial letter with the sore wound at the tip of his finger. Pretty convincing, I think.

If you like Bobby when he uses his words, you can check him out live by getting NCAA basketball tickets at your source for non-violent conflict resolution, StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 6, 2007 - Post a comment

Kansas Moves into No. 2

Both the USA Today and AP NCAA Basketball Polls ranked the Kansas Jayhawks as the second best college basketball team in the nation. The Jayhawks have taken advantage of the recent failings of Florida, UCLA and North Carolina to move up the polls, possibly securing a No. 1 seed by the time the brackets come out.

The Jayhawks are on an 8-game wining streak, including a come-from-behind victory over 15^th ranked Texas, and a close one at Oklahoma.

UCLA lost to Washington on Saturday, leaving room for the Jayhawks to swoop on in, and Florida has been looking terrible at the worst possible time. North Carolina drops to No. 8 in both polls after losing at Georgia Tech, but beating Duke.

The conference tournaments will be the final time for teams to jockey for position in the postseason. Of course, StubHub.com will be your destination for all the best NCAA tournament tickets, no matter who gets the No. 1 seed.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 6, 2007 - Post a comment

Reason Number 1,482,966 for NCAA Fans to Root Against Duke Basketball

If you needed another reason to hate Duke, and you probably have plenty, you just got another fresh one over the weekend. In the closing seconds of another North Carolina victory over the Blue Devils, Gerald Henderson elbowed the Tar Heel’s star big man, Tyler Hansbrough, in the face, fracturing his nose.

The resulting waterfall of blood from Hansbrough’s nose flowed down into the mouth of “Psycho T,” who was restrained from charging at the Duke gang. The image will probably be one of the most memorable from recent Duke-UNC games, and one of the most recognizable replays in NCAA basketball from this year.

As for damage control, Coach K (K for Klass-Act) blamed Heels coach Roy Williams. Said the catty Coach K, “That’s unfortunate, too, that those people were in the game in that play. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. We should have probably both had our walk-ons in.”

There’s a few problems with Coach K’s moral/logical hindsight.

Is Gerald Henderson a walk-on? I forgot. Is he?
Coach K was still calling timeouts with less than a minute to play in another blowout loss. Yeah, time for the walk-ons. Don’t be too hard on your own player, now.
Even supposing Williams ought to have taken Hansbrough out of the game earlier, how does that justify Henderson elbowing Hansbrough? Hansbrough deserved it? For continuing to play, or for just being there, or as a message to Williams? Which, because I fail to see the logic, much less the ethics.
So if it hadn’t been the Heel’s star player- if it were a walk-on, as Coach K suggests- that would make it okay?

Hopefully, Coach K and the Dukies get what they deserve- a quick exit from the ACC and NCAA Tournaments. To root for whomever the Blue Devils face in their next games, check out StubHub.com for NCAA basketball tickets.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 5, 2007 - Post a comment

NCAA Bubble Teams to Cheer on Gonzaga

Gonzaga, one of the top bubble teams heading down the stretch run of NCAA regular season of basketball, will have a lot more fans outside of Spokane than usual this year.

If the Bulldogs can pull off a WCC Tournament win, the rest of the bubble field will see their windows into the NCAA Tournament open just a bit wider. Being that Santa Clara isn’t high on the Dance invite list, Gonzaga looks to be the only representative of the West Coast Conference- if they can win in Portland.

Conferences like the Colonial Athletic Association will be rooting for a Bulldog sweep of the WCC Tournament, and will be hoping to take another invitation to March Madness from the WCC. But if the ‘Zags falter and Santa Clara wins, there’s one less invitation that gets handed out.

If you like the ‘Zags, ‘shrooms, or bubbles in general, check out the WCC Tournament by getting NCAA Basketball tickets at StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 5, 2007 - Post a comment

It’s all Madness from Here on out

Some games featuring teams at the top of the rankings will be played before their respective conference tournaments can begin. For most of these teams, avoiding injuries will be a top priority, but nobody is going to be holding back when conference titles are on the line.

Kansas will try to win the Big 12 regular season outright against a Texas team that’s getting closer and closer to Durrant’s last game.

Plummeting Florida will be grasping to hang on to anything it can, even a cheerleader’s pom-pom, when they meet Kentucky this weekend.

Then, in a classic rivalry gone horribly uncompelling, Duke and North Carolina will meet at the Dean Smith Center.

NCAA Basketball tickets to these and other great games will be available at StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 2, 2007 - Post a comment

A Salute to Small Bidness

It’s championship week, and the automatic bids are going to start pouring into the NCAA Tournament. For a lot of so-called “mid-majors” the only way into the Dance is a ticket paid for with a lot of sweat in a conference tourney.

This week isn’t about the UCLAs and Ohio States of the basketball world. It’s about the Central Connecticut States and Austin Peays and Virginia Commonwealths.

Somebody’s going to make it out of the “special” conferences, and into a 16 seed, and this week is for those guys. Right now, as of Friday night, pretty much every D-I basketball team in the country can entertain dreams of March Madness, and that’s a wonderful feeling. Hope. Let’s just bask in it for a moment, shall we.

For every just-happy-to-be-here team, and every hardworking collegiate athlete who doesn’t get paid and never will to play a game they love, for every student who screams in vain, and every tear wiping mom in the stands, we at StubHub.com salute you.

Sport, as good and as true and as pure as you’re going to see in this world will be played in small gyms around the nation this weekend. Be a part of it. Get NCAA tickets to a conference tournament and experience one of the best parts about amateur athletics: Championships Week.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 2, 2007 - Post a comment

I Wouldn’t Want to Run into that Team in a Dark Tourney

As many of the top ranked teams struggle, several teams are starting to hit their stride at just the right time.

Submitted for your approval: one Maryland Terrapins. The ‘Pins beat back a late surge by their arch nemesis, the Duke Blue Devils, last night, and extended their current winning streak to six games.

The Blue Devils, who had come to Cameron Indoor Stadium with some momentum and a winning streak of their own for once, couldn’t find the means to put away the Terrapins in the last ten minutes.

Unlike Maryland, Duke looks like the college basketball version of former Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst- a team anybody would just love to take a good swing at in the opening round of the Tournament. Plenty of programs have been looking for an excuse to do so for a long time coming.

Maryland swept the Blue Devils this season, and beat UNC on Sunday, so they look pretty scary coming down the stretch of the season.

Hopefully, your favorite team doesn’t have to meet Maryland in the opening round. But if they draw Duke, get NCAA Tournament tickets at StubHub.com and take revenge for all who have been wronged by the Blue Devils.

Permalink - Posted in General on March 1, 2007 - Post a comment

Think of the Children, Durrant. The Children.

Texas kept their hopes alive for the Big 12 Conference regular season championship by beating Texas A&M in double overtime last night.

If the Longhorns can defeat Kansas on Saturday, they will share bragging rights as the regular season champ. In such a case, the only loser will be underprivileged third world children who will not be receiving their “Texas Longhorns 2007 Big 12 Conference Regular Season Champions” t-shirts and ball caps as anticipated.

But if Kansas wins, the Jayhawks get exclusive rights to the honor, and tens of children will be warm enough to make it through the night.

Their fate lies with Texas, and specifically star freshman Kevin Durant, who will probably turn pro after this season and sign a multi-million dollar contract with an NBA team. But I don’t blame him if his heart isn’t truly in the game as he thinks of those poor, naked, innocent children, and the piles of money he will be making in less than a year.

If you’d like to go to the game, but swear that you’ll donate any Texas paraphernalia to Goodwill, you can get Kansas basketball tickets at StubHub.com, your source for pre-printed championship garb.