A weekend of great basketball concluded with UConn and Kentucky grabbing the final two places in the Final Four, alongside Florida and Wisconsin who won on Saturday. The Huskies beat Michigan State in a good game, and Kentucky survived Michigan in a stupendous game in what is turning out to be a tournament for the ages for the young Wildcats.
The 2014 major league baseball season officially began last weekend in Australia, with an idiotic decision by MLB to have the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks play a couple games that actually count. But the Opening Day that counts is Monday and that means it’s time for TheSportsNotebook’s final 2014 MLB preview.
The Golden Tickets of college basketball are being handed out this weekend. Unlike the great Gene Wilder movie Wily Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, there’s only four tickets as opposed to five, but the first two were claimed by one program making a long-anticipated return and another coach making a long-awaited first-time visit. Florida and Wisconsin are ticketed for Dallas next weekend.
TheSportsNotebook’s MLB spring training review has covered ten National League teams with individual preview posts. Those ten were a combination of the playoff teams from last year, those that at least made a little run at it (Washington & Arizona), along with two others who played poorly, but have a reasonable basis for thinking 2013 was an aberration (San Francisco & Milwaukee).
TheSportsNotebook’s MLB spring training previews have included separate articles on the ten teams in the American League who either made the postseason in 2013, were right in the race to the end or at least should have been the race to the end. That leaves five darkhorses left on the board.
It was quite a night of college basketball in the Sweet 16 on Friday. Three of the four games went literally to the final possession, including both games at the Midwest Regional in Indianapolis where the crowd was out in full force. Here’s a look back on the four games that completed the field for the regional finals…
The last four teams in the NCAA Tournament East Regional converge on New York City to settle a Final Four berth between tonight and Sunday. Friday’s semifinals feature Iowa State-UConn (7:27 PM ET) and Michigan State-Virginia (9:57 PM ET), with both games carried by TBS.
If you look at a regional just from the standpoint of how fun it would be to attend in person and how loud the crowd is going be, it’s tough to get much better than what the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional offers, starting Friday and concluding Sunday. Indianapolis is the site, and all four schools—Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan and Tennessee are from nearby. You have the last two national champions—blood rivals going head-to-head—and the NCAA finalist from 2013. The roof may blow off the RCA Dome before the weekend is finished.
Are we headed for another sibling rivalry to settle a major sports championship? Everyone remembers the Harbaugh Brothers going it in the Super Bowl following the 2012 NFL season when John’s Baltimore Ravens nipped Jim’s San Francisco 49ers. Now the 2014 NCAA Tournament has two brothers still coaching and both took their teams to the regional finals last night. It’s the Millers, Sean leading Arizona and Archie heading up Dayton that have their eyes on meeting in the NCAA final. Here’s a recap on their wins, along with the rest of Thursday in the Sweet 16…
Anaheim is the site of the NCAA Tournament West Regional, as Arizona, Wisconsin, San Diego State and Baylor are converge on SoCal to play for a spot in the Final Four, with semi-final games on Thursday night and a final on Saturday.
The NCAA Tournament South Regional has its Sweet 16 games tip off on Thursday, with a place in the Final Four being settled on Saturday. This is the gutted bracket of this year’s field, with 10-seed Stanford and 11-seed Dayton having advanced, and one of those guaranteed to move forward to Saturday.
The whirlwind of March Madness is over and the hard business of determining a national collegiate basketball champion has begun. The romance of the NCAA Tournament is about what took place this past weekend, when a four-day rush pared the field from 64 teams to 16 and no-name underdogs had their day in the sun.