A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
Crooner Rene Rancourt has been singing the American and Canadian national anthems at Boston Bruins games for decades. Last night, before the first Bruins game at Boston’s TD Garden since Monday’s tragedy at the Boston Marathon, Rancourt sang the first line of the “Star-Spangled Banner” then let the sell-out crowd do the rest.
Tonight in New Orleans, a Cinderella (Louisville), an emerging program no longer in the shadow of its rival (California), one of the best programs in women’s basketball history (Connecticut), and a team that is making its third straight Final Four appearance behind one of the nation’s top players (Notre Dame) will meet in the NCAA Women’s Final Four.
Fifty years ago, and three years before Texas Western’s historic NCAA Tournament upset of Kentucky, the 1963 Loyola Ramblers went on an NCAA Tournament run that would change college basketball forever.
In a season where the nation’s top six or seven teams appeared to have set themselves apart from the other 338 or 339, few expected any of the top seeds to be ousted in the round of 16. But in the second half of Saturday night’s Georgia-Stanford game, conventional wisdom failed.
Here is the Sweet 16 schedule, along with television information, for today and tomorrow.
Second round games are tonight and tomorrow. Tonight’s line-up includes a pair of intriguing 4-5 games: Maryland-Michigan State at 6:20 Central and Georgia-Iowa State at 8:50. Tomorrow will see All-American Elena Delle Donne and Delaware take on coach Sylvia Hatchell’s third-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels.
If you’re like me and have already discarded your men’s NCAA Tournament Bracket (I had Wisconsin and Georgetown in the Final Four), you’ll welcome the beginning of the women’s NCAA Tournament and the opportunity to start with a fresh bracket.
A 14 beating a 3 seems like it should be a big deal. It’s a major upset and something that has only happened 17 times in NCAA Tournament history. But the definition of “major upset” changes when Steve Alford is involved.
Mascotology breaks down the entire NCAA Tournament field by looking at who would prevail in a hypothetical meeting of mascots. Who would win in a match-up between a Spartan and a Crusader or between an orange and a grizzly bear? We’re about to find out.
Bubble talk has become an annual college basketball ritual. It is as much a part of the game as pep bands, cutting down nets, and penalizing teams whose coaches make too many phone calls. But it hasn’t always been this way.
Sleeves get results, and thanks to Adidas, UCLA, Baylor, and the Louisville men will wear jerseys with sleeves during March Madness. The situation has noted Evansville supporter Josh Tinley feeling like his Purple Aces are suffering a fate similar to…SpongeBob.
Washington Wizards play-by-play man Steve Buckhantz was ecstatic last night when he saw the Wiz’s Trevor Ariza swish a three-pointer at the buzzer to give Washington what Buckhantz thought was a 98-96 win over the visiting Detroit Pistons. Unfortunately for Buckhantz, and for fans of the Wizards (who have become a semi-legitimate professional basketball team [...]
Life just got even better for fans on the shores of the Great Salt Lake who can afford Jazz season tickets. As a gesture of gratitude the team gave each season ticket holder one of these…
The NBA’s best first- and second-year players will face off tonight in the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge, which has the distinction of being the only NBA game to feature less defense than the All-Star Game (and a handful of Sacramento Kings games).
Six-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt headlines the celebrity roster for tonight’s game, which also features reigning MVP comedian Kevin Hart and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has become a fixture in the Celebrity Game.
