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Wednesday, December 25, 2024
The championship game for the 79th annual National Invitation Tournament is set, and it’s a worthy one with two very good teams. How good? Put it this way: if Oklahoma and Syracuse end up playing in the NCAA Tournament final on Monday, their combined win total will be less than that of the two playing in the NIT title game.
Small, private, religious-based, and running an athletics department on a modest budget, Valparaiso is precisely the type of school that makes NCAA Division I basketball so much fun.
The beauty of the NCAA Tournament is not just the upsets, the near-upsets and the close games. Of course, they certainly are a big part of it, and we saw at least two of those categories tapped in games Thursday such as those between Yale and Baylor, Arkansas-Little Rock and […]
The NCAA Tournament bubble was crowded this season, with a lot of compelling candidates. That, along with how even most teams were, means every team had their chances.
The Enlightenment Period of NCAA Tournament selection has come and gone. Once again, we are back in the Dark Ages. And the tournament is far more soulless for it.
Virtually every season as the NCAA Tournament nears, the talk of bracket projections revolves around that season havng a “soft bubble.” It’s often as much of an exaggeration as it is incorrect-you can’t have a soft bubble every year-but this year it’s also not true.
Coaches such as Jim Valvano, Rollie Massimino and Tom Izzo are among those to make the month of March their personal playground over the years, regularly leading teams on extended runs, regardless of the strength of their teams in the regular season. Few would include Ray Harper on that list, but it has become time that they should.
Tthe unabashed chaos of the conference tournaments this year may have reached a climax Monday night, with a pair of teams losing-and maybe even three-who will now be talked about at length for the next week. Then again, the night was pretty much par for the course for this season, so we shouldn’t be surprised in the least if/when it continues.
Arkansas-Little Rock, San Diego State, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Valparaiso, Wichita State. All five share a lot in common as teams who are highly questionable to receive bids to this year’s NCAA tourney if they don’t win their conference tournaments. Those five also share something else in common, though: all will finish the season as sole, undisputed champions of conferences that play a double round-robin schedule.
This Friday night was not so ho-hum with three big matchups on tap. Plus ACC teams will be minus some manpower, and an arrest in Illinois is the latest in a tough season.
