NCAA Notebook
March 24, 2007
ST. LOUIS (AP) Billy Donovan turned to an old friend to provide some motivation before Florida's victory against Butler in the NCAA tournament.
The Gators' coach asked former wrestling star Ric Flair to speak to the Gators before Friday's game. Flair, who once appeared at Florida's "Midnight Madness," strutted through the locker room and did his well-known "Whoooo!"
"We were up, we were energized," Florida forward Corey Brewer said.
The Gators needed an extra boost to beat Butler 65-57 and advance to the Midwest Regional final against Oregon on Sunday.
"That was a big kick," Florida guard Lee Humphrey said of Flair's visit. "I wasn't a huge wrestling fan growing up, but some of my buddies were big fans. I would watch it occasionally. I remember when we kids, some of my buddies had those dolls and we used to beat up on the dolls - Macho Man (Randy Savage) and Lex Luger and Ric Flair. That was pretty cool to know that he was there supporting us."
Flair sat in the stands right behind the bench and cheered alongside Taurean Green's father, Sidney, and Al Horford's dad, Tito.
His visit also left a lasting impression - and several impersonations.
Humphrey, Brewer and Donovan each imitated Flair's famed catch-phrase Saturday. Humphrey's was clearly the best, but only after a weak first attempt.
PULLING THE CHAIR: On the go-ahead three-point play by Florida's Al Horford late in Friday's victory over Butler, the player guarding him had an usual way of describing what was wrong with his technique.
"I thought it was probably a no-call, but it was more my fault," Brandon Crone said. "I let him back me all the way down without pulling the chair, without giving him something else to look at."
What Crone meant was he should have attempted to induce a charge or backed off suddenly to try to get Horford on a traveling call. The play gave Florida a 57-54 lead with 2:34 to go.
"Really, it went down to me," Crone said. "And I didn't do anything different. He just took advantage of it."
Crone had to be inventive, considering the 6-foot-10 Horford's four-inch height advantage.
"He's a great player," Crone said. "He's also huge. When you have a player with that capability, it's going to be a struggle all night."
TOO CLOSE: Oregon's go-go game plan nearly backfired in the semifinals against UNLV when an 18-point lead was whittled to just four with 50 seconds to go. That's just part of the package, the way coach Ernie Kent sees it.
The Ducks have gone with a smaller, more athletic lineup all season and will do so again in the Midwest Regional final against No. 1 seed Florida. Even though the Gators have a front line of 6-11 Joakim Noah, 6-10 Al Horford and 6-9 Corey Brewer.
Kent has two tall players on the bench, 7-foot Ray Schafer and 6-10 Mitch Platt, and he told them to be ready just in case. Both made one start apiece this season and together they're getting 12 1-2 minutes per game.
"We're not going to change who we are," Kent said. "We are a team that gets up and down the floor. Offensively, we're not a team that's going to run clock on you at all."
Players said they might have relaxed with the big cushion against UNLV.
"I would say that's probably what we're most disappointed about because we're a much better team than we showed down the stretch," guard Bryce Taylor said. "We got a bit tentative and careless with the ball."
TERRY'S TIME: Slowed by strep throat for most of the week, North Carolina forward Reyshawn Terry played a season-low five minutes in the East Regional semifinal win over Southern California.
Terry managed to score nine points, but coach Roy Williams said his only senior starter didn't have a lot of energy.
"How much better he's going to be by tomorrow, I personally don't think it's going to be a real appreciable difference," he said. "But I did hear him laugh this morning for the first time in seven days."
Williams said Terry's illness took its toll in another area.
"It affected his brain, too, because one time he's complaining at the official about getting fouled when he missed the jump shot from the far corner in front of our bench while his guy was scoring at the other end," Williams said. "His tank was out and I emptied it when he did that, because I brought his tail over to sit with me the rest of the night."
SMALL TALK: Turns out Oregon guard Tajuan Porter is a go-to player off the court, too.
The 5-foot-6 freshman from Detroit, who hit eight 3-pointers and scored 33 points against UNLV in the Midwest Regional semifinals, drew a big laugh Friday when he said he didn't know Oregon was even a state before being recruited by the school. He added he's so focused on his game that "basketball is my girlfriend."
Porter claims his diminutive stature has never been a deterrent with the opposite sex.
"I never really had problems getting girls," he said. "But I never wanted a (taller) girl that would have had to pick me up to kiss her. I kept with girls close to my size."
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Jankovich will stay with Jayhawks until end of sea
Kansas assistant Tim Jankovich was named head coach at Illinois State.
Jankovich was introduced at a news conference Tuesday, then planned to rejoin Kansas as it prepares for an NCAA regional semifinal game Thursday against Southern Illinois. The 47-year-old coach will stay with Kansas through the tournament.
Jankovich is a former head coach at North Texas and has been with Bill Self at Kansas as well as spending time on the bench of former Illinois State head coach and current Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings. Jankovich will replace Porter Moser, who was abruptly fired after four seasons.
Kansas announced the move late Monday night so as not to distract from the Jayhawks' Sweet 16 preparation.
Self said in a statement, "We are all so happy and proud for Tim and his family that he has accepted this appointment. Illinois State is a great job with a terrific basketball tradition. They have been to the NCAA Tournament many times, and I am sure it won't be long before the Redbirds will return to the tournament.
We are all very appreciative of Tim's effort at Kansas. He is without a question one of the brightest coaches in the game. I have been blessed to be around many great assistant coaches, and Tim is as talented as any of them.
Tim did not want this to be a distraction for our team, so getting it out now rather than having it leak out was best. Otherwise, he would have been answering questions about this while preparing our team for San Jose. We all know he is the new coach at Illinois State, but his job here is unfinished until our season is complete."
Jankovich, a 1982 graduate of Kansas State, is wrapping up his fourth season at Kansas after serving under Self as an assistant at Illinois.
He also has been an assistant at Vanderbilt, Texas, Oklahoma State and Colorado State, and spent two seasons as head coach at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.
Jankovich takes over a team that hasn't played in the postseason since the 2001 NIT. Northern Illinois hasn't been to the NCAA tournament since back-to-back appearances in 1997 and 1998.
"I'm pleased and honored to be selected as the next head basketball coach at Illinois State," Jankovich said in a statement.
Illinois State returns five of its six leading scorers next season, including the MVC's top returning scorer, 6-foot-11 Levi Dyer, and the conference newcomer of the year, freshman Osiris Eldridge.
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March Madness 2007 Style Begins Today
03/15/2007
By RAY McNULTY
Scripps Howard News Service
The madness didn't really begin until 1982.
That's when Brent Musburger borrowed the phrase "March Madness" from the Illinois High School Association, used it during his CBS broadcast and forever changed our sports vernacular.
Before that, the NCAA Basketball Tournament was exactly what its name says it was.
A basketball tournament.
A postseason playoff to determine the national champion.
The grand finale to the college basketball season.
And now?
Now, we have "The Big Dance," with a "Sweet Sixteen" and an "Elite Eight" and, of course, "The Final Four," which has grown into the second biggest sports day of the year, behind only Super Bowl Sunday.
Now, we have wall to wall TV coverage, all day analysis on sports talk radio and nightly wrap ups on two major networks.
Now, we have a new workplace phenomenon: The first Thursday and Friday of the tournament annually rank among the nation's least productive days on the job.
And why?
Because of the brackets.
Yes, the arrival and rise of ESPN, which did a wonderful job of selling the college game, had something to do with it, too. So did the birth of the Big East, spawned as a made for TV basketball conference. So did gimmicks like "Big Monday" and "Championship Week" and "Selection Sunday."
Heck, even Dick Vitale deserves to take a bow.
But it was the brackets, more than anything else, that captured the country's interest. It was the brackets that compelled America to care about a college basketball tournament. It was the brackets that made March Madness more than a sports story.
The brackets transformed the NCAA Tournament into the best reality TV show you'll ever see. They gave you a stake in the games. They allowed you to share in the drama, the exhilaration, the disappointment.
Because of the brackets, the outcome of that Southern Illinois Holy Cross game now matters to you.
And everyone, it seems, has one. Some of you have several. Most of you have spent the past day or two filling them out, trying to predict the big upset, hoping to plot the right road to Atlanta.
They're everywhere, these brackets at work, at school, at the neighborhood pub. Hard core basketball fans cling to them as if they were winning lottery tickets. But even non sports folks who don't know Billy Donovan from Donovan McNabb still root for their picks.
The NCAA Tournament was a spectator sport. March Madness is a participatory sport. And we're all players.
We're all playing, all trying to choose the champion. We're all hoping to turn Abraham Lincoln into Benjamin Franklin. There's nothing wrong with that.
Truth is, though, as huge as the tournament has become these past 25 years, there wouldn't be half the buzz if there were no brackets. There would be no reason for non fans people who otherwise have no reason to care about college basketball to invest themselves emotionally in what happens across the next three weeks.
Without the brackets, the NCAA Tournament is ... well . . . just a basketball tournament.
Just a basketball tournament that's not as good as it used to be.
Oh, it's still every bit as exciting. The games are still fun to watch. But the quality of the basketball has slipped which isn't surprising, considering that the best college players rarely stick around for more than a year, maybe two, and in recent years many of the best high school players jumped directly to the NBA.
So there's less talent, less continuity, less cohesion on the floor. And for us, there's less familiarity.
Fact is, because most of today's top tier teams turn over their rosters every couple of years, we don't know the players as well as we did in the 1980s and '90s.
We don't know these guys the way we knew guys like Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing, Bobby Hurley, John Salley, Grant Hill, Danny Manning, Steve Alford, David Robinson and Tim Duncan guys who stayed in school and gave us a chance to get to know them.
Imagine: If LeBron James had gone to Ohio State, he'd be a senior playing alongside Greg Oden.
Now, though, we root for the jerseys. And we root for our brackets. For many of you, this month is the only time you root for anything in college basketball.
That's because March Madness, complete with its "Championship Week" lead in, has become so big that the season is little more than a warm up act so much so that automatic bids go to conference tournament winners rather than the regular season champions.
Which is silly.
It makes no sense to hold conference tournaments and reward bad or mediocre teams that put together one great week in March, rather than award the bid to the team that played the best basketball over the course of a full season. But it makes plenty of dollars.
And, really, that's what March Madness is all about.
Just ask anyone with a bracket.
@The Trentonian 2007
St. John 77, Providence 64
March 4, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) -Qa'rraan Calhoun had 21 points to help St. John's snap a 10-game losing streak to Providence with a 77-64 win Sunday in the Red Storm's regular-season finale at Madison Square Garden.
Anthony Mason added 17 points for the Red Storm (16-14, 7-9 Big East), who had lost their last three games.
Herbert Hill scored 27 points on 12-of-16 shooting for the Friars (18-11, 8-8). Dwain Williams added 12 points and Sharaud Curry had 10.
St. John's, which has not played in the conference tournament since 2003, will face Marquette in the opening round Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. Providence faces West Virginia.
Red Storm center Lamont Hamilton hyper-extended his left knee in a collision with Mason at 6:07 of the first half and did not return. An MRI is scheduled Monday for the team's leading scorer (13.7) and rebounder (6.7), but he is expected to play in the tournament.
A three-point play by Hill gave the Friars their last lead of the game, 18-17, at 9:22 of the first half.
St. John's went on a 21-14 run the rest of the half behind Mason's eight points, which included a pair of 3-pointers, for a 38-32 lead at the break.
Calhoun closed a 15-5 run to start the second half with a 3-pointer, increasing the Red Storms' lead to 53-37 at 14:05. Eugene Lawrence and Mason added 3-pointers in the run.
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Byars big performance lifts Commodores past Wildca
Feb. 25, 2007
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Derrick Byars has been building his case for Southeastern Conference player of the year throughout league play. His performance against Kentucky may boost him above the pack.
Byars hit the first of two free throws, got the rebound and hit an 8-foot jumper that gave No. 17 Vanderbilt its first lead, and the Commodores held off Kentucky for a 67-65 victory Sunday.
"It was the biggest play of the game," Byars said. "I missed a free throw, and (teammate) Dan Cage tapped it out to me. I saw (Kentucky's) Randolph (Morris) down there, and he beat me earlier, so I just wanted to get it up quick."
That sequence capped a 21-point second-half performance for Byars, who responded to a halftime talk from coach Kevin Stallings.
"We kind of challenged Derrick at halftime," Stallings said of his senior who had hit just 2 of 8 shots in the first half. "We didn't think he had one of his better first halves. I want to try and remember exactly what I said, because he was pretty spectacular in the second half."
With the victory, the Commodores moved into sole possession of second place and hold the tiebreaker over the Wildcats for the Eastern Division's No. 2 seed for the SEC tournament by virtue of a season sweep.
Byars finished with 26 points, and Shan Foster added 21 as the Commodores (19-9, 9-5) erased a 10-point second-half deficit. They didn't lead until Byars went to the free-throw line with 29 seconds left
On the next possession, the Wildcats' Sheray Thomas lost control of the ball, and the Commodores came up with it. Kentucky (19-9, 8-6) fouled Foster, who missed the first free throw and made the second.
The Wildcats called timeout and got the ball to point guard Ramel Bradley, closely guarded by Byars.
Bradley drove the lane, was triple-teamed and threw up a shot that missed. Time expired in the scramble for the ball.
"We were just trying to get the ball inside, get a good shot, maybe get fouled taking the ball to the basket," Kentucky coach Tubby Smith said.
Bobby Perry led Kentucky with 18 points, and Jodie Meeks added 15 as the Wildcats outshot Vanderbilt 58 percent to 41 percent. But the Commodores scored 20 points off Kentucky's 22 turnovers.
"It's just very disappointing when you can't make the plays down the stretch, don't get stops like you should, and you don't value the basketball," Smith said. "The turnovers really hurt us."
Perry scored 11 first-half points in leading the Wildcats to a 32-23 lead at the break.
This was a rare fourth consecutive win by Vanderbilt over Kentucky and matched the Commodores' four-game winning streak of the 1972-73 and 1973-74 seasons.
Stallings believes his team is building momentum as tournament time approaches.
"A lot of teams are fighting to get into the tournament, and playing their best basketball. To know you can get it done at the end does wonders for your confidence," Stallings said.
"I looked at the clock with four minutes left, and even with the game being as close as it was, there was no doubt on our team that we were going to win."
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