UCLA Slips By Stanford

Thursday’s contest between the Bruins and Cardinals was nothing like the first meeting on Jan. 31, when UCLA won 97-63. UCLA’s defense has been lethargic and is nowhere close to what it was the last three years when the Bruins reached the Final Four each time. Playing on the road, the Bruins were sluggish defensively at the outset. But they overcame a 14-point deficit to take a 37-35 lead and eventually won the game 76-71. The game remained close and wasn’t decided until Bruins center Alfred Aboya made four free throws in the final 14 seconds.

Stanford did everything they could to stay in the game. Anthony Goods scored 18 points for Stanford, which has lost eight of 10 to endanger its postseason hopes despite a perfect nonconference record. Landry Fields added 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Josh Owens had 14 points for the Cardinal, who lost all three meetings with UCLA last season before receiving a 97-63 thrashing at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 31.

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Stanford pulled within 72-70 when Goods made one free throw with 41 seconds left. However, the Cardinal defense could not keep up with UCLA’s sensational player, Josh Shipp. Shipp’s end-to-end excellence gave UCLA four 3-pointers while scoring 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting. But most importantly, Shipp’s amazing skills gave UCLA a desperately need victory.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 27, 2009 - Post a comment

UCLA Vs. Stanford

The Bruins have lost three of the past four games, but look to rebound tonight against Stanford. Make sure you grab some UCLA basketball tickets at stubhub.com.

Three weeks ago, the Bruins (20-7, 9-5) seemed on the verge of seizing complete control of the Pac-10 Conference race. Their defense smothered Cal, Stanford and USC in consecutive victories by a combined margin of 65 points, and they made a nice midseason statement on behalf of the Pac-10 by embarrassing Notre Dame 89-63. The Bruins are known for their aggressive defense. “We’ve been successful the last couple of years because of our defense, and we didn’t play well enough defensively,” Coach Ben Howland said after the 82-81 loss to Washington State.

The Bruins expect to play hard nose defense against the Cardinals. The Cardinals will attack UCLA’s defense with Freshman Jeremy Green. He scored a career-high 19 points, all of them in the second half, in the loss at Oregon State. He was rewarded with a start against Oregon, but was scoreless in 20 minutes. Senior G Anthony Goods was scoreless on 0-for-3 shooting at Oregon State. It was the first time he’d been held without a point since his freshman season. That performance cost him a spot in the starting lineup against Oregon, but he came off the bench to score 16 points, his highest point total since logging 20 vs. Oregon on Jan. 22. Tonight’s game should be an exciting match-up.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 26, 2009 - Post a comment

Villanova Continues Its Dominance

Can anyone stop Villanova?

Sunday’s victory over Syracuse was a game to remember. Dwayne Anderson scored a career-high 22 points—including two key baskets during what proved to be a decisive 11-0 run midway through the second half for Villanova. Anderson wasn’t the only Wildcat on the roster to bring the heat to the Orange. Corey Fisher added 16 points and was one of six players to score in double digits for the Wildcats (22-5, 10-4), who won for the eighth time in nine games and took another step in securing their spot among the top five in the heavily contested Big East Conference standings.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the court, Syracuse attempted to counter attack Villanova’s defense by shooting 3’s like there was no tomorrow. Unable to work inside against the Wildcats’ swarming defense, the Orange were limited to taking outside shots and attempted a season-high 39 3-point attempts—14 more than they had attempted in a game this season. What was the result? The Orange were only able to sink in 12 of those 3’s and eventually lost a nail bitter to the Wildcats, 89-86. Although Syracuse mounted numerous comebacks after trailing by as many as 12 points in the first half, and 10 in the second, they shot themselves in the foot. Syracuse’s Eric Devendorf, followed by Paul Harris and finally Jonny Flynn all missed 3-point attempts in a furious final 10 seconds.

So who is Villanova’s next victims? Georgetown will face off the Wildcats this Saturday, while Providence will get a chance to battle Villanova on 3-5-09. Don’t miss the chance to grab some NCAA basketball tickets and enjoy a great game at stubhub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 25, 2009 - Post a comment

College Basketball Games to Watch This Week; Tourney Projections

Want a picture-prefect list of the best college basketball games to pay attention to this week?  Check out the slideshow at Sports Illustrated.  The guys at SI have arranged nine games for you to put on your radar as you try to plan your week around hoops.  Starting with tonight’s Providence-Louisville matchup, there’s a great game or two to watch all weekend long. Our pick?  The Michigan State-Illinois game will turn out to be the most entertaining.

If you haven’t started planning out your bracket for the NCAA Tournament, you’d better get on that as soon as possible.  The guys at Sports Illustrated have some projections that you might want to glance at as the conference tournaments ramp up next week.  The field is still completely unknown, but you might want to start getting a feel for how the experts see things if you intend to take home some cash in the office pool this year.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 24, 2009 - Post a comment

UConn Slips vs. Pitt and Other News from the Weekend

In case you were in a cave, at the bottom of the ocean or at the peak of some tall mountain, here’s some quick-hit news from around the NCAA.

  • Pittsburgh won on the road at then-No. 1 UConn this weekend, presumably knocking the Huskies off their top spot in the AP Poll. Pitt is the new No. 1 in the CBS Sports Poll, which might be similar to the new AP Poll, which hasn’t come out as of this blog entry.
  • Oklahoma lost to Texas 73-68.  The Sooners were without their main man, Blake Griffin, for most of the game after he left early in the first half with a suspected concussion. Would have been a much better game if Oklahoma were at full strength.
  • Duke stopped its slide by beating Wake Forest  101-91. They had beaten St. John’s earlier in the week, but there were rumblings that the Dukies had been falling off a bit after losing recently to Boston College, North Carolina and Clemson.
  • Michigan State lost badly to Purdue earlier in the week, but rebounded nicely with a win over Wisconsin.
  • In the Pac-10, UCLA split the Washington schools, beating U-Dub but losing to Wazzu. Arizona State beat Arizona in a grudge match.

This week should be an even better one than the last week for hoops fans, as each game brings the season’s end closer and closer. Most teams have only three or four more games to play before their respective conference tournaments.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 23, 2009 - Post a comment

Top Games of the Weekend

Get out to an arena this weekend! There are tons of great games as the college basketball season completes one of the last weekends of action before the major preseason tournaments begin.  We’re going to give you some of our picks for the best games to watch.
Friday Games – Tonight there aren’t as many games to choose from- unless you’re a fan of the Ivy League. The smart kids always seem to play their games on Friday night. Why is that. Perhaps they know something we don’t. Actually they probably know a lot of things we don’t.

  • Virginia Commonwealth – Nevada
  • Cornell – Yale
  • Illinois State – Niagara
  • Bakersfield – Utah Valley

Saturday Games – Tomorrow is chock full of key matchups. Here’s our top seven, although there are plenty more. No offense if you’re matchup wasn’t selected at the Final Four Blog.

  • Butler – Davidson
  • Louisville – Cincinnati
  • Utah State – St. Mary’s
  • Texas Tech – Texas A&M
  • Florida State – Virginia Tech
  • Oklahoma – Texas
  • Brigham Young – UNLV

Sunday Games – Fewer games, but there are a few regional rivalries out there.  Unless you have tickets (which is preferable), this is a great day for watching some hoops on TV.

  • Duke – Wake Forest
  • Arizona – Arizona State
  • New Orleans – Louisiana Lafayette
  • Wisconsin – Michigan State
  • Illinois – Ohio State
  • Villanova – Syracuse

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 20, 2009 - Post a comment

How To Improve the NCAA Tournament

I know what you’re thinking after reading this title. Impossible. There’s no way to improve the greatest sports spectacle in all the galaxy. It’s too much fun, too exciting, too jam-packed with drama and thrills and chills and buzzer-beaters to ever improve even just a little bit.

But there are those who would disagree. Seth Davis got a few letters from fans addressing some of their gripes with the game. For example: the play-in game. Well, technically the NCAA doesn’t like to call it a play-in game- but you know what we’re talking about. One concerned fan, Casey Hart, pointed out that the game might be improved if the last two at-large teams were the ones who had to play in the game that determines the 64th entrant. As it stands now the play-in teams are the lowest ranking conference winners, usually mid-majors.  Would having big-time schools play in this early game make the Tournament that much better?

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 19, 2009 - Post a comment

Weighted Efficiency Margin Makes It’s Debut, Plus Hot Games Tonight

Have you ever heard of WEM, Weighted Efficiency Margin? Well get use dot hearing it a bunch around the Final Four Blog. Luke Winn, a blog regular here, has come up with a new statistical measurement of a team’s performance in their conference games.  He basically takes the strength of a conference and compares that to how well the team is doing within their conference games.  This is a good way of determining which teams are getting hotter as the last half of the season terminates. For example, UConn comes from one of the best (if not the best) conference in the land, the Big East. Because they’ve done so well in-conference, and they’ve been playing against good teams the whole while, they have the highest WEM in the NCAA at +0.20. Luke Winn also uses this to try to highlight teams that have slipped under the national sports media radar, like Memphis, Missouri, Villanova and Utah State.

If you could get tickets to any college hoops game tonight, what would it be?  Here are our top nine:

North Carolina - North Carolina State
Penn St. – Illinois
Louisville - Providence
Miami – Akron
Notre Dame – West Virginia
Florida – Alabama
South Carolina – Mississippi State
Virginia – Virginia Tech
UNLV – Wyoming

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 18, 2009 - Post a comment

Pat Forde “Minutes” Storylines, Plus Andy Katz Game Picks

We’ve got a couple of interesting articles to discuss here at the Final Four Blog. They both come from ESPN, which has been ramping up its college basketball coverage in the stretch run of the hoops regular season, and in anticipation of the beginning of March, when the conference tournaments begin.

  • First up: Pat Forde’s weekly article discusses some of his favorite storylines that might just play out in Cinderella fashion in the next few weeks. If you were wondering, yes, Pat Forde does include a reference to Ashley Judd, as well as a nice picture.  Arizona, Duke, Mountain West and fans of the CAA should read this article.
  • In Andy Katz’s Weekly Watch, there’s even more college basketball discussion. The whole thing is a diamond mine of good insight, but one thing we love here at the Final Four Blog is his Eight Places to Be this Week. Here you can get the low-down on the best games you ought to travel to see.  He suggested you get tickets to see UConn-Pitt last night. Michigan State-Purdue is tonight.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 17, 2009 - Post a comment

Already Thinking About Brackets?

If you’re already wondering what this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket will look like, you’re not alone. The sports writers and the regular Joes of this nation have been thinking about the Tourney since the last one ended, so there is no shortage of projections out there. Some bracket philosophers like to think about the Tourney field that would form is the NCAAs started today. Others, like CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm, try to see into the future, based on how the rest of the season should play out.

Take a look at Palm’s projected field. Any thoughts?  Most of the projections are fairly standard, nothing too risky.  However, considering the fact that mid major conferences sometimes get two or three teams in the field, I think his major conference projections might be a little too confident. Six Pac-10 teams and five SEC teams? Eight Big East and seven ACC? Seems a bit much. Conferences like the Missouri Valley, WCC, WAC and C-USA might just send two teams instead of one. The big conferences will probably not do as well in the real bracket when it comes out on selection Sunday. But then again, we might be wrong. That’s why there are projections. They get people talking.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on February 16, 2009 - Post a comment


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