The real first round of the NCAA Tournament starts today, with the slate of 16 games that will leave us all wondering which bracket-busting upset will come first—or if the favorites will survive unscathed. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports league will run through the games in the sequence they’ll appear on TV…
The Arizona Diamondbacks lived through a disappointing 2012 season, after winning the NL West the year before. The D-Backs struggled with injuries early, often teased throughout the summer, but never quite put together a sustained run at either San Francisco or Los Angeles. It’s the defending champion Giants and the free-spending Dodgers sucking up all the media air in the NL West in the spring of 2013. TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage today will see if Arizona should be considered in the group of contenders, and we’ll also check on two more potential darkhorses out west, the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners.
It’s the second day of NCAA Tournament play-in action. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports look previews tonight’s action, and looks back on Tuesday’s games.
The NCAA Tournament starts tonight with the first two of the four play-in games that will take place in Dayton over Tuesday and Wednesday. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports look is going to be pretty well tied up in college basketball until we get this pared down to the Final Four, so without further adieu let’s dive into tonight’s games
TheSportsNotebook.com’s college basketball coverage has gone in-depth on each regional individually, made a Final Four pick in each one and included some examination of the betting odds on each team to reach Atlanta. In this post, we pull it all together—to make a final national championship selection, to review the betting odds for winning the whole thing and to coalesce my varied pieces of bad betting advice and put it into a cohesive strategy.
The NCAA Tournament’s West Regional is stacked with coaches hoping to prove a point. It starts with Gonzaga and Mark Few, trying to make their first Final Four. You can say the same for people like Jamie Dixon (Pitt), Bo Ryan (Wisconsin), Sean Miller (Arizona), Mike Brey (Notre Dame). Will any of them make it to Atlanta and fill in a blank spot on the resume? Let’s break down the West, replete with pod-by-pod predictions and assessment of betting lines and TheSportsNotebook’s college basketball coverage continues to prep for the Dance.
Kansas and Georgetown have come a long way since midseason. The Jayhawks were playing so poorly for a brief stretch in February that head coach Bill Self lost it in a postgame press conference. The Hoyas had to suspend center Greg Whittington. Each team recovered to win a piece of its conference regular season title and they come into the NCAA Tournament’s South Regional as the 1-2 seeds. TheSportsNotebook.com will break down this regional pod-by-pod, make picks and assess the betting odds on the contenders to reach the Final Four.
The Blue Devils and Cards haven’t met in the NCAA Tournament since 1986. Now they’re set up as the favorites in the Midwest Regional, which TheSportsNotebook previews here today. We’ll walk through the bracket pod-by-pod, move ahead to the regionals in Indianapolis and make a final selection for the Final Four, along with evaluating the betting odds.
TheSportsNotebook’s college basketball coverage will break down the East bracket pod-by-pod for the first weekend, look ahead to the regionals in D.C., make picks and look at some of the betting odds for each team’s chances of making it Atlanta and the Final Four.
We can’t completely lose sight of the NBA. By the time the sports world comes up for air when the NCAAs conclude on April 8, the NBA season will have just nine days left and all the races that are compelling right now might be mostly settled. As such, today’s daily sports look will double as NBA commentary, and we’ll summarize the key races within each conference and look ahead at the entire week of pro basketball.
There’s going to be plenty of chances in the next couple days for everyone—TheSportsNotebook included—to make Final Four picks and talk about upset possibilities. But here on Selection Sunday Night, let’s look at the newly unveiled bracket from a different perspective. Let’s break it down by pod—the eight teams assigned to each of the opening weekend venues. Which would be the most fun to go if you had the time and money to just pick a spot and go?
One of these AL East teams was aggressive in the offseason, made a big splash and is getting a lot of attention as the candidate to displace the New York Yankees atop the American League East. The other team is coming off a bad year, one of the biggest salary dumps in history and is laying relatively low. Normally you’d have no trouble identifying which of these teams is the Toronto Blue Jays and which is the Boston Red Sox. But this year, the Jays & Sox have reversed roles—Toronto even traded Boston their manager for good measure. TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage previews both teams and measures their chances against the projected win total Las Vegas has posted for each.