2018 NCAA Tournament Final Review: Villanova, UMBC, Big 12 among big winners

It’s unfortunate but also plenty fair to say that the 2018 NCAA Tournament finished up with a couple games that were relative lemons. That shouldn’t obscure the fact that as a whole, an event that delivers annually did exactly that again this year.

The tourney has a way of salving over college basketball’s wounds, and it did as much yet again, making us all forget for a couple weeks about FBI scandals and the endless debate about rules changes (not that some Ronnie Rainclouds didn’t try their darndest to keep pushing their agendas on the latter). It was an enjoyable tourney-if one that slumped to the finish a little-that will be remembered for, among other things: … Continue Reading

March Madness: Numbers and notes

They captivated a nation. Even fans whose brackets were destined to become part of the next day’s trash. UMBC defeated Virginia 74-54 to become the first 16 seed to take out number one. A few numbers are in order.

In a 62-possession game, UMBC posted an outstanding 119 offensive efficiency while limiting Virginia to 87. That latter figure is also an excellent showing courtesy of the Retriever defense. Virginia had the edge in turnover rates with a nice 11 percent showing. UMBC came in at 19 percent in that category, but was not affected in the long run. Chalk it up to hot shooting and defense.

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2018 NCAA Tournament first week review: Chaos not so surprising in a season full of it

In a 2017-18 college basketball season with so much volatility on a night-to-night basis, where ranked teams regularly showed their vulnerability even when facing squads that ended up firmly in the NIT, an NCAA Tournament with top seeds dropping left and right by the end of the first weekend probably should be of little surprise.

Chaos was the rule all of a regular season where teams in the Associated Press lost 46 times to unranked squads. Regardless, the permanence suggested by numbers attached in front of team names and the rapid-fire succession of one game played after another, many of them close, will always make the tourney seem wild, and we’ll always be thankful for it. … Continue Reading

College Basketball Tonight – March 19, 2018

Welcome to the March 19, 2018 edition of College Basketball Tonight. With the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament in the books, we focus on what transpired and then at what we think is to come.

The opening weekend was a wild one, to be sure. It was just what we could expect given what we saw over the course of the season, where unranked teams beat top 10 teams on a number of occasions. We talk about some of what made it such a wild weekend, and add in some notes that help give a sense of the weekend that was.

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Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis – March 17, 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The NCAA Tournament is off and running, with the first round complete and the field down to 32.

We spend a great deal of time talking about the history that was made on Friday evening. For the first time in NCAA Tournament history, a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed when UMBC beat the No. 1 overall seed Virginia in Charlotte. It’s a game we will be talking about for a long time, and as noted in the Morning Dish, a shocker on a lot of levels.

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The Morning Dish – Saturday, March 17, 2018

So many thought it might never happen, myself included. There were a few close calls, but for some good reasons, it was hard to imagine a No. 16 seed ever knocking off a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

And now that it has happened, it is as shocking as one might imagine. There are so many things about UMBC’s 74-54 win over Virginia that are historical and unbelievable.

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The Morning Dish – Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Until Championship Saturday, Tuesday night will go down as the biggest night in terms of conference championships, with five automatic bids getting handed out. Whereas Sunday’s set of four championship games had a little bit of everything, Tuesday night’s consisted of four convincing wins and an overtime affair. All have their own little stories as well.

We’ll start with the lone overtime game, which was the CAA championship in North Charleston, SC. Northeastern had blitzed their first two opponents in the tournament, and looked like they might be on their way to another convincing win for all the marbles as the first half came to a close. The Huskies ended the half on a 14-2 run to go up by 13 at the break, and the lead would reach 17 a few minutes into the second half. The Cougars, who were the preseason favorites and playing in front of a home crowd just a few miles from campus, got the lead down to ten, then ran off nine unanswered points to get close, and would ultimately send it to overtime. In the extra session, the Cougars took control, going up by six points about three minutes in, and the Huskies could get no closer than three the rest of the way as the Cougars pulled out an 83-76 win. Two of the conference’s top players did all they could for their teams, with Joe Chealey scoring 32 points to lead the Cougars and Vasa Pusica leading Northeastern with 30. We will have more on this later.

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2016-17 America East Post-Mortem

In 2016-17, not much changed in America East at the top. The same three programs that have dominated the conference in recent years were right there once again, even though one looked especially vulnerable this year. The fourth-place team was the same as the past two seasons as well. Meanwhile, the bottom teams haven’t really moved, and there was a big gap between fifth and sixth place.

However, there was one thing that was very different about this year: the degree to which the champion, Vermont, dominated the conference.

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The Morning Dish – Thursday, March 30, 2017

The break in the NCAA Tournament from the regionals to the Final Four allows plenty of room for other NCAA Division I college basketball tournaments to get some time in the sun this week. Thankfully.

While the relevance of events like the College Basketball Invitational and CollegeInsider.com Tournament can be debated, this much cannot: the tourneys are a welcome respite from the sport’s increasingly ridiculous offseason, what with its seemingly constant news of coach firings, coaches looking for their next payday before they get fired, and an endless list of transfers, most sorely mistaken in thinking an NBA career is just a transfer (or two, or three) away.

The CBI and CIT both have one final game left after last night, the former after Wyoming pushed the CBI’s unique best-of-three championship series to a third game Friday. The Cowboys ran away from Coastal Carolina in the second half to win 81-57 at home, and now they’ll have the privilege of trying to win the title at home with the deciding game also being played in Laramie. … Continue Reading

2015-16 America East Post-Mortem

If you looked at how the America East standings have been the past few years, then looked at the final standings this time around, there was a familiar look. Consistency can be a good thing in many contexts, but as it applies to America East, it is not in one respect: right now, the conference appears to be stuck in neutral from a competitive standpoint.

Over the past six seasons, the conference has been dominated by Stony Brook, Albany and Vermont. Boston University was annually a contender, too, before departing for the Patriot League, but the overall pattern doesn’t change. In particular, the past two seasons have seen the same four teams finish in the top four, and then a big drop-off as four games separated fourth from fifth place each season. The bottom of the conference is having a tough time moving up, with most of the programs in some form of transition.

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