The Kansas men's basketball team will have its open practice from 5:10-5:50 p.m. Thursday at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., in preparation for Friday's 8:50 p.m. NCAA opener against 16th-seeded Western Kentucky.
The practice is open to the public.
Here is the full schedule:
Practices (open to the media and general public)
Noon-12:40 p.m. — Ole Miss
12:45-1:25 p.m. — Villanova
1:30-2:10 p.m. — Wisconsin
2:15-2:55 p.m. — Kansas State
4:25-5:05 p.m. — North Carolina
5:10-5:50 p.m. — Kansas
5:55-6:35 p.m. — Boise State / LaSalle winner
6:40-7:20 p.m. — Western Kentucky
LJW
It's official - @KUAthletics #Jayhawks pep rally set for 5:15 pm on Fri. March 22nd @KCPLDistrict #FanFest13 is BACK!
https://twitter.com/kcpldistrict
Kansas senior C Jeff Withey and redshirt freshman G Ben McLemore have been named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) All-America Second Team, the USBWA announced Monday.
This marks the fifth-straight season Kansas has been represented on the USBWA All-America teams. Additionally, this is the fifth time two Jayhawks have appeared on the squad.
Kansas and Indiana are the only schools to have two players on the USBWA All-America team(s). For a complete list of the USBWA All-America team(s) go to http://www.sportswriters.net/usbwa/news/2013/allamerica130318.html.
KUAD
http://www.kuathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/031813aac.html
As publisher of The Topeka Capital-Journal, I wear many hats, just as the CEO of any company would. One difference is I am the face of The Capital-Journal in the community, state and, now, social media.
The Capital-Journal stands for integrity and journalism at its highest form. One person doesn’t make The Capital-Journal. It takes a number of people doing their jobs on a daily basis. We have more than 35 trained journalists to bring you the news of the day.
Personal opinion is reserved for the editorial page, letters to the editor and in opinion columns written about a specific topic. We ask our reporters to separate their personal lives from their professional lives when they come to work each day. News coverage needs to be about the facts — allowing readers to form their own opinion.
Some of my tweets during Saturday’s University of Kansas and Kansas State University game calling into question the officiating were insensitive and probably out of line. And some of you let me know it.
I have many friends who are KU fans, and we banter back and forth during games. It was never my intent to upset anyone with my tweets. During the heat of battle, sometimes things are said that we wish weren’t said and that was the case here. I don’t “hate” KU. I wish them and the other Kansas teams, Wichita State and Kansas State, much success in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Having one of them bring home the title should make all Kansans proud.
As the face of The Capital-Journal, it can be a difficult task to separate my personal life from my professional life. Part of the reason is because of my visibility within the community 24/7. This can cause internal conflicts when it comes to politics, religion, social issues and even the sports teams I cheer for.
I don’t feel alone in this dilemma. We all sometimes have to temper our thoughts and feelings about various topics when we are in the workplace. Everything I say or do in public places can be construed as the position of The Capital Journal.
I hope this helps explain a little of what I think about daily as the publisher of The Capital-Journal. I don’t take this responsibility lightly. Will I stumble in the future? Probably, because I am human. I will try and keep my emotions in check when addressing the public in any format. And I will be sure to own up to it if I do stumble.
GO HAWKS! GO WILDCATS! GO SHOCKERS!
Topeka Cap Journal
Thanks to DCJHAWK at JayhawkSlant.com for the ongoing tally!
CampusInsiders Video: Coach Bill Self Sees March Matchup Mismatches
Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self had his players’ full attention as he delivered his first scouting report on Western Kentucky on Sunday in Allen Fieldhouse.
“I said, ‘Hey, this is Western Kentucky. This is their record (20-15). This is the league they play in (Sun Belt) and everybody knows their all-time greatest player to ever play there,” Self said Monday.
“They said, ‘Who is it?’ I said, ‘Coach Townsend,’ and everybody started laughing because I don’t think Kurt was by any stretch,” Self added of ninth-year KU assistant Kurtis Townsend, a former Hilltopper point guard who graduated from WKU in 1982.
Townsend is in charge of the scouting report for Friday’s 8:50 p.m. second-round NCAA Tournament game between KU and WKU in Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.
“He did love his time there and he does love his alma mater, but he won’t have as much love for them this week I don’t think,” Self added.
Indeed, Townsend made it clear where his allegiance rests when asked Monday if he has mixed emotions entering the match-up.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, nope, nope,” Townsend said, laughing. “I’ve been here nine years. I love that place and got my degree from there. There are a lot of great memories, but no, no,” he added. “I think it’ll be fun,” he added of the game. “I know how much they care about basketball. It’ll be really fun.”
Townsend played for Gene Keady at Western Kentucky, which is located in Bowling Green. Keady is best known for his years many years coaching at Purdue.
“It’s like most places in Kentucky where basketball is really big. I played for Gene Keady there and Clem Haskins,” Townsend said of the former WKU assistant coach and head coach who played nine years in the NBA.
“For me, I was a juco kid (out of Menlo, Calif., Junior College). It was two really great years. I met my wife there. It’s kind of a special place for me.”
Townsend helped WKU to the 1980 Ohio Valley Conference title and an NCAA Tournament bid where WKU lost to Virginia Tech in double overtime in the first round.
LJW
Like many kids growing up in Kansas, Lawrence Brenneman had basketball on his mind.
He played the sport at Hillsboro High School and Geneva College in Pennsylvania. But he was always trying to dig deeper to learn what made the game work.
“When I played, I was a student of the game,” he said. “I liked the X’s and O’s part of it.”
Kids like that grow up to be coaches, which is exactly what Brenneman did.
Friday night, his job as a Western Kentucky assistant coach and his Sunflower State roots cross paths in Kansas City’s Sprint Center, when the 16th-seeded Hilltoppers meet top-seed Kansas. Tipoff is 8:50 p.m.
“I always followed the Jayhawks,” said Brenneman, who moved to Hillsboro from Pennsylvania when he was in the sixth grade. “In this business, you always love the challenge of playing the top teams.”
He’s pretty much hit all levels of coaching.
There was a year as an assistant at Tabor College in Hillsboro, followed by high school coaching in the Wichita area at West and Andover. He was 5-15 in his one year as head coach at West and 81-52 at Andover from 1990-96.
He hit the junior college ranks as an assistant at Seward County Community College. During his four years with the Saints, they finished third in the national tournament in 1998.
From there, Brenneman spent eight years as an assistant at Binghamton in New York before coming to Western Kentucky as assistant in 2008.
“I’ve worked my way up,” said Brenneman, 50. “I understand what goes into it. I’ve learned something at each step.”
At Seward County, he learned about Bill Self, who was recruiting the Saints’ Tony Heard to come to Tulsa. Heard would go on to help Self and the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight.
Self took that watershed year and moved on to Illinois and eventually to KU.
“I’ve known Bill forever,” Brenneman said. “For him to win nine straight league titles, that’s amazing.”
He already knows first what a Jayhawk wallop feels like.
Wichita Eagle
Nine Hilltoppers returned this year from a team that beat Mississippi Valley State, 59-58, in a first-round 2012 NCAA Tourney game in Dayton, Ohio, then lost to eventual-champion Kentucky, 81-66, in the second round. This year, the Hilltoppers played four games against tournament teams, including Louisville and VCU and two match-ups with Sun Belt champion Middle Tennessee. WKU lost all four games.
“I heard one of the so-called experts last night said we wouldn’t be scared but we should be scared, and I can assure you we won’t be scared,” Harper told Rome.
Harper, who won two NAIA national championships at Oklahoma City University and two NCAA Div. II crowns at Kentucky Wesleyan, now is coach of a program that has made some noise in the NCAAs.
The Hilltoppers own four NCAA Tournament victories since 2008, boast 22 NCAA Tournament berths all-time, have won 42 conference championships (tied for third most in NCAA history) and are 17th in NCAA history in all-time wins. The program has advanced to the Sweet 16 seven times and qualified for the Final Four in 1971 in Houston, where it topped KU in the consolation finals.
Harper brought in a player off the 1993 NCAA Sweet 16 team — Mark Bell — to speak to his troops about the postseason.
What was Bell’s message?
“No one is talking about you right now. Nobody will be talking about you when you leave Bowling Green (for KC). When you get back home, let’s have everybody talking about you,” Harper related to Rome.
LJW
WKU, for the fourth time in six years and for the second time in as many years, stamped a spot in the Big Dance.
But a 20-15 record and a No. 150 RPI ensured that spot would be opposite a big, bad bully in the Second (formerly First) Round. And college basketball bullies don’t get much bigger or badder than the Kansas Jayhawks.
That’s exactly the draw WKU was given.
The South No. 16 seed Toppers and No. 1 seed Jayhawks will meet at 9 p.m. Friday at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
Like the challenge of facing Kansas wasn’t enough, WKU must do so in KU’s backyard, in a building that was Rocking and Chalking just last weekend when the Jayhawks won the Big 12 Tournament there.
The Toppers must defend (and keep from getting defended by) this year’s likely No. 1 NBA Draft pick, super-frosh Ben McLemore.
They must put the ball in the basket while avoiding the long reach of shot blocker Jeff Withey, a 7-footer capable of turning the paint into a Dikembe Mutombo Geico commercial.
And then they must contain role players like Travis Releford and Perry Ellis, who’d star for 90 percent of the nation’s teams.
“It’s an extremely talented group,” Harper said, “and a group capable of winning the national championship.”
Does any of this (OK, all of this) sound familiar? It should.
Go back one year to this same week, after WKU beat Mississippi Valley State in a First Round “play-in” game.
The Toppers, who struggled the entire regular season but clicked in time to pull off an upset-filled Sun Belt Tourney title run, earned the prize of playing No. 1 seed Kentucky.
They had to do so at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville in the middle of a building that was really loud and overwhelmingly blue.
The Toppers were basically playing with house money at that point. They’d impressed everyone just by getting there.
Pulling the improbable win? That just would’ve been a bonus. WKU embraced the road underdog role, played as well as it really could have, and still lost by double-digits to the eventual national champion Wildcats.
The 2012-13 Jayhawks aren’t the juggernaut that was 2011-12 Kentucky, but the circumstances will be the same.
Harper, Jamal Crook, T.J. Price and the rest of the Toppers will get the challenge of a lifetime from a team and fan base hungry for a second title under coach Bill Self. No one is expecting WKU to win, and there’s probably a remote chance it actually will.
But isn't that what makes March fun?
Expect the Toppers to go through the rest of this week in Bowling Green and later into Kansas City focused, but loose.
They aren’t the team dealing with Final Four-or-bust pressure — that’s Kansas. If Kansas loses, it’s a catastrophic meltdown that’ll haunt the fan base for years.
As for WKU?
“It’s one of those deals where you’re extremely excited that you’re still playing and we’ll go play,” Harper said. “We’ll see what happens.”
The Toppers have nothing to lose at this point.
WKU College Heights Herald
There’s a curious statistic that Bill Self has grown fond of bringing up during the last few weeks. It’s one that does a pretty good job of summing up his four-man senior class.
Self’s Kansas team is entering the NCAA Tournament this week as a No. 1 seed with four senior starters — four players that played an integral part in the Jayhawks’ Final Four appearance last season. For a title contender in a one-and-done era, it’s certainly a rare case of seniority.
And here’s where Self stops the conversation.
“None of them,” Self says, “are 1,000-point scorers.”
Self, of course, is talking about the fact that not one of his seniors has surpassed more than 1,000 career points at Kansas, generally a decent sign-post for a successful career. As of Monday, Elijah Johnson (919 points), Travis Releford (916), Jeff Withey (893) and Kevin Young (382) were all healthy distances away from the mark.
“That tells you that they didn’t play when they were young,” Self says. “You’ve got four kids from different scenarios, that waited their time, and made the most of it. And when opportunity knocked, they just beat the door down. It’s been pretty cool to watch from the inside.”
The question, of course, is if this senior class can help the Jayhawks knock down the biggest door of all. The Jayhawks will open the NCAA Tournament at 8:50 p.m. on Friday night against Western Kentucky. And based on NCAA Tournament conventions and history, the eventual national champion will have a roster littered with future pros. But what, exactly, is experience worth in March?
“Talent is the most important thing,” Self says, “and experienced talent would be the next most important thing. And we’ve got some guys that have been there.”
KC Star
Lest bracket pickers dismiss KU as a team with no depth, though, Ellis and Tharpe have provided a reason to re-evaluate over the past week. Even if the Jayhawks won’t use a bunch of players in the NCAA Tournament, the ones who play have been playing better.
Ellis averaged 14.3 points in three games at the Big 12 Tournament — nine more than his season average — while Tharpe dished 13 assists with four turnovers. That has Self feeling better about his bench, even if he views it as more of a safety net than a necessity.
“In the NCAA Tournament, I don’t think as many coaches play their bench as much,” Self said. “Timeouts are longer. If you sub a guy out at 13 (minutes), he may rest six minutes before he has to come back in. There’s plenty of time to get your legs back under you.
“Even though you may have more confidence in your bench, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll play them more.”
The numbers confirm that a deep bench isn’t a prerequisite for an NCAA Tournament run. Since 2007, in fact, only four of 24 Final Four teams — Ohio State in 2007, Memphis in 2008 and Michigan State in 2009 and 2010 — played their benches a higher percentage of minutes than the college basketball average in that year.
In other words, Final Four teams tend to rely on their starters, as the Jayhawks have this season. But it’s important to have Tharpe and Ellis playing well, Self said, especially in the win-or-go-home setting.
“What Perry and Naadir did in Kansas City was exceptional,” Self said. “Really, the bench is so important for foul problems, matchups, injuries, that kind of stuff.”
TCJ
But as talented as the Jayhawks are, have they been too soft? Self hinted as much on Monday when he called them “ridiculously nice.”
“Sometimes you’d like for them to have a little different mind-set,” Self said. “I don’t think you change personalities overnight but I will say this: If we hadn’t changed a little bit and become a more competitive team and a tougher team, then there’s no chance after that to win the league, the tournament and be a No. 1 seed. There has been some improvement in that area.”
…While many are penciling in a Kansas-North Carolina matchup on Sunday — the Tar Heels open against Villanova — Self’s focus is first on Western Kentucky. He said the Hilltoppers aren’t your typical No. 16 seed, pointing out that the program has won four NCAA Tournament games in the past five seasons and reached the 2008 Sweet 16.
In case Self forgets, he has a WKU alumnus on his staff to remind him. Assistant Kurtis Townsend played for the Hilltoppers in 1978-80.
“KT is fired up,” Self said. “He did love his time there. He does love his alma mater but he won’t have much love for them this week.”
Louisville CJ
So it’s that time again — time for every supporter of every NCAA tournament team to grouse about their team having the toughest road to the Final Four.
Now, thanks to the NCAA tournament Selection Committee’s efforts to become more transparent, there is a way to measure such claims, and by that measurement only 16 schools from one of the four regions can say the numbers back them up.
That region is the South, whose top seed is Kansas University.
The committee seeded the field from 1 through 68 and released those seedings. The best means of determining which region is toughest is to add up the overall seeds of the top four seeds in each region.
In the South, Kansas is seeded second overall, Georgetown seventh, Florida 10th and Michigan 13th, for a total of 32.
Next toughest is the Midwest with a total overall seed number of 33, followed by the West (35) and East (36).
Of course, the objective measurement presupposes the committee’s seedings are on point when in fact they are the subjective consensus of 10 members.
Even in the world of opinion it’s difficult to see KU’s hurdles as anything but the tallest among the four No. 1 seeds.
Michigan a No. 4 seed? Michigan? The Wolverines are tied for 10th in the latest Associated Press poll, which would make them a No. 3 seed if that’s how they were assigned.
Michigan point guard Trey Burke is the leading candidate for national player of the year honors, and Big Ten coaches also voted Tim Hardaway Jr. to the five-man first team in the nation’s best conference.
In order to reach a potential Sweet 16 matchup with Michigan, Kansas must first defeat Western Kentucky — not a problem — and then the winner of Villanova vs. North Carolina.
The Tar Heels head into the tournament on an 8-2 roll with the only losses coming to a pair of No. 2 seeds, Miami and Duke.
…And despite what you might have heard on your television, here’s how else it doesn’t work: When bracketing, the committee no longer follows what is known as an “S” curve, wherein the top seed on a line faces the worst seed on the next line and the worst seed on a line faces the best on the next line. It used to work that way.
Now, one-by-one, the committee places a team on the bracket, starting with No. 1 and working backward, and the school that is, so to speak, the batter up is sent to its most geographically friendly position.
LJW Keegan
Tyshawn Taylor had glanced quickly at the NCAA Tournament bracket on Sunday evening, but hadn’t looked too closely as he and the Nets prepared to host the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday evening. When he was told his alma mater, Kansas, was a No. 1 seed in the South Region with a third-round game against either No. 8 seed North Carolina or No. 9 seed Villanova on tap this weekend, that got his attention.
Taylor’s Jayhawks defeated the Tar Heels, 80-67, in last season’s Midwest Regional final and it went down as arguably the former St. Anthony High School star’s best collegiate game after he went for a game-high 22 points on 10-for-19 shooting to go along with six rebounds, five assists and five steals.
A year removed from that effort, which was part of a run to the national championship game, Taylor admits that despite living out his dream of playing in the NBA, there is still nothing like March Madness.
“If you have the chance to go through March Madness and through the tournament, you realize it’s an experience that you’ll never have again,” Taylor told SNY.tv. “It’s dope. The atmosphere, how important every game is and just the importance of the whole situation is big. It’s big time basketball and once you leave there, you feel like you’ll never get it back.”
…“I think they can make a run, I think they’re deep enough to do it, I think they have the right pieces, I think they’re a veteran team and definitely well-coached,” Taylor said. “Sometimes, they have some trouble scoring the ball, but I think they’re great defensively and to win in March, you gotta play defense and that’s what got us to the championship game last year. We weren’t the highest scoring team, sometimes we had trouble scoring, but we got stops and that’s what this team does.”
Zags Blog
This year’s NCAA brackets had only been set for 30 minutes or so Sunday night when the phone inside the sales office at Kansas City’s The Hilton President started ringing.
Same with some other downtown hotels.
College basketball fans from states near and far had their sights on Kansas City and the second and third rounds of the NCAA tournament. Now, to get a hotel room.
As Carol Pecoraro, general manager at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown put it: “If you want to stay anywhere near the Sprint Center, you should have already made those accommodations, I think.”
Seems like just last week, hotels downtown and in other pockets of the city were saying the same thing. Oh, wait, they were.
Later this week and through the weekend, as eight teams vie to advance in the NCAA tournament, Kansas City will see its second wave of packed hotels and restaurants. Not to mention the downtown entertainment district flooded with revelers and dedicated sports fans.
…“It’s going to be packed,” Philip Strnad, general manager of The Hilton President, said Monday afternoon. “We’re sold out from Wednesday night on.”
And that kind of traffic is just fine with the hotels.
“Were ready for ’em,” said Tom Holden, executive director of the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City.
Rick Hughes, president and CEO of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association, said businesses have it all down pat by now.
“I think most of hotels and restaurant understand the magnitude of the business,” Hughes said. “They know they have to be staffed up and stocked up. … They really are prepared.”
So is the Sprint Center, the focal point of all this hoopla.
Just a couple of days after serving as host for 120,000 people over the four-day run of the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament, the Sprint Center had a brief half-day off before preparing for the next onslaught, the NCAA tournament.
“It’s all hands on deck,” said Shani Tate-Ross, spokeswoman at the arena.
One of the big jobs is replacing the basketball court with one specifically designed for NCAA play, she said. In addition, the arena was getting a thorough cleaning while concessionaires restocked. All 500 part-time and 68 full-time employees will be working throughout the event.
KC Star
The Kansas Jayhawks will be making a second consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament on Saturday. The Jayhawks will match up with their former Big 12 rivals Colorado in Boulder, Colo.
Kansas women’s basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson said after her team was eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament last week, that she thought her team had earned a spot on the NCAA tournament bracket after a season of 18-13 and 8-11 against the Big 12.
The NCAA selection committee agreed as they released the selection of 64 teams on Monday. The at-large bid is the 13th overall for the Kansas women’s program.
The Big 12 placed seven of the conference’s 10 teams in the NCAA tournament. Kansas was one of the last four teams into the tournament, along with West Virginia.
Senior forward Carolyn Davis will be making her first career appearance in the tournament. An injury to her right knee kept her from playing in the post-season a year ago.
Last year as an 11 seed Kansas played its way into the sweet 16, led by senior guard Angel Goodrich
Colorado finished the regular season fourth in the Pac-12 at 13-5, and 25-6 overall. The game will be televised on ESPN2 at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
UDK
VOTE for Kansas players, team, and moment in NCAA 75th Anniversary of March Madness (Vote for Wilt, Clyde, Danny, 51-52 Kansas, Mario's Miracle)
Big 12/College News
The coaches at Wichita State University, Kansas State University and the University of Kansas stand to clean up as they lead their teams through their postseason tournaments this month. All of them have earned handsome bonuses already just for getting this far.
Starting at the top of the pay scale among the state’s coaches, KU’s Bill Self earned a $50,000 bonus for winning the regular-season Big 12 Conference co-championship. He will get another $25,000 if KU wins the conference tournament.
Not that Self needs the extra pocket cash after signing a contract extension in September that guarantees him $52.2 million over the next 10 years, making him the fourth-highest paid college coach in America.
The NCAA Tournament could bring more riches for Self, who is in his 10th year at KU. He would earn a $150,000 bonus if the 27-5 Jayhawks reach the Final Four, and another $200,000 if they win the national championship.
Kansas State coach Bruce Weber earned a $25,000 bonus for being named Big 12 coach of the year.
That honor allows him to renegotiate the contract he signed when he arrived at K-State just last year, a five-year deal worth $8.5 million. It provided a base salary of $1.5 million this year, with $100,000 annual increases through end of the contract.
Weber would get $50,000 if he is chosen national coach of the year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and/or the Associated Press.
Some of Weber’s other bonuses are based on percentages of his base salary. He will receive the highest percentage attained for goals that include 4 percent for an National Invitation Tournament (NIT) bid or a 10-8 record in the conference, 8 percent for an NCAA Tournament bid, 12 percent for gaining one of the top three seeds in the conference tournament, 16 percent for a Sweet 16 spot or a conference regular-season or tournament championship, 20 percent to make the Elite Eight, 24 percent to reach the Final Four, 32 percent if the Wildcats win the national championship, and 28 percent of his base salary if Kansas State can finish in the Top 10 in the final AP or USA Today polls.
Weber’s contract also provides bonuses of $25,000 to $50,000 if his players achieve certain academic and graduation rates.
Wichita Eagle
And, once again, Louisville is college basketball’s most valuable team, now worth $38.5 million, up from $36.1 million last year.
…There was very little turnover in the top ranks of college basketball’s most valuable teams. Just like last year, Kansas (now worth $32.9 million), North Carolina ($32.8 million) and Kentucky ($32.1 million) sit just behind Louisville. Kansas jumped North Carolina for the No. 2 spot and Kentucky is up from No. 5 last year, but the three teams are in an incredibly tight race and blowing away the rest of the field. In fact, the three basketball teams each had a profit of $19.9 million last season; only five other schools generated as much in basketball revenue.
Duke took a slide this year, now ranked 11th with a value of $17.1 million, thanks partly to changes in the athletic department’s accounting practices. The Blue Devils also fell because they simply spend more than any other team. In fact, Duke is one of just six teams to break $25 million in basketball revenue, but it ranks 12th in terms of team profit.
Forbes
WSJ Blind Bracket Picker: Take out your bias and pick a winning bracket?
Fivethirtyeight breaks down the brackets
SI: Tourney Teams ranked by coolest person who went there (Banner time for Mizzou?)
ESPN’s extensive coverage of the 2012-13 men’s college basketball regular-season was the network’s most-viewed ever. For the season, ESPN averaged 1,370,000 viewers over 135 games, surpassing the previous high of 1,353,000 viewers over 130 telecasts in 2011-12. ESPN averaged a 1.1 coverage rating for each season.
Season’s Top Three Telecasts
ESPN scored this season’s three largest audiences for a college basketball game on the network within a month.
Then-No. 3 Indiana defeating No. 1 Michigan on February 2 is the most-viewed and highest-rated with an average of 4,035,000 viewers, a 2.9 coverage rating and 2,867,000 households.
Then-No. 1 Indiana beating No. 4 Michigan State on February 19 is the second-largest audience of the season with an average of 3,733,000 viewers, a 2.7 coverage rating and 2,677,000 households.
Then-No. 3 Duke defeating No. 5 Miami 79-76 on March 2 averaged 3,416,000 viewers, a 2.5 coverage rating and 2,459,000 households, making it the network’s third most-viewed and third highest-rated men’s college basketball game this season.
ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPNU’s 602 Games Average More Than 500,000 Viewers
ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU’s 602 games for the 2012-13 season – the most extensive coverage on television and more than every network combined – averaged 508,000 total viewers.
Louisville Takes Top Spot… Again
For the 11th consecutive year, Louisville was the highest-rated metered market for ESPN’s regular-season telecasts, averaging a 4.5 rating. Greensboro finished in second place for the second straight year with a 3.1 rating. In addition:
All 10 of last season’s top 10 metered markets finished the 2012-13 season among the top 10 again.
Louisville, Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte remain the only markets to be among the top 10 every year since 2002-03. Additional markets in this season’s top 10 also finished among the top 10 in multiple years:
Knoxville, ninth this season, has finished in the top 10 every year since 2003-04.
Kansas City, the fifth highest rated market in 2012-13, was a top 10 market every season except 2008-09 and 2004-05.
Indianapolis, fourth this season, was a top market in eight of the past 11 years (except 2010-11, 2004-05 and 2003-04)
Three markets were in the top 10 for basketball and college football in the most recent seasons: Columbus, tied at sixth in basketball was tied for fifth in football; Knoxville, tied for 10th in basketball was third in football; and Nashville, tied for 10th in basketball was ninth in football.
Eleven markets have been in the top five at least once from 2002-03 to 2012-13: Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Greensboro, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Knoxville, Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma City and Raleigh-Durham.
Louisville is the only market to go 11 for 11.
Greensboro finished as a top-five market every season but when it was sixth in 2004-05.
Indianapolis jumped from seventh in 2011-12 to fourth, finishing with a 2.9 rating for a 61 percent increase over last year’s 1.8 rating.
Kansas City, which finished in the top three the past three years after not finishing in the top five the previous seven seasons, dropped to fifth.
Columbus was in the top five the last four seasons straight but finished sixth in 2012-13.
ESPN
USA Today: NCAA Investigators Speak Out
Best printable bracket w/times & locations
ESPN Bracket Guide
ESPN Breaking the Bracket Down by BPI
RPI and SOS Team Comparison Calculator
NCAA March Madness on Demand will provide live streaming video of every game of the new 68-team tournament as they are broadcast by CBS Sports and Turner Sports.
Complete TV Schedule here (All times ET.)
Recruiting
Four of ESPN's Top 12 Recruiting Classes from 2012 did not advance to NCAAs: Kentucky (2), Texas (4), Baylor (5), Providence (6)
https://twitter.com/DaveTelep
Julius Randle college announcement on espnu at Noon Central/1pm Eastern
https://twitter.com/JayJayUSATODAY/status/314035760565202945
4 of 6 "experts" pick Kansas for Randle as of Tuesday morning
ESPN Insider ($)
D-Day for Randle.
On Wednesday, Prestonwood Christian (Plano, Texas) forward Julius Randle, who is ranked No. 2 in the Rivals150, will announce where he’ll attend college.
Randle is allowing USA Today HSS to tag along for the process starting today.
Expect fan bases and experts to reveal via message boards and social media that they’ve got “sources” who absolutely know that Randle’s headed to each of the four schools – Texas, Kentucky, Kansas and Florida – on his list.
Truth is no one knows because Randle has maintained that he doesn’t know.
USA Today (So we can disregard your prediction too then, right Jay Jay?)
Went hat shopping tonight with Julius Randle. All four - #Kansas #Kentucky #Florida #Texas - snapbacks purchased. https://twitter.com/JayJayUSATODAY
Where is Julius Randle piecing together his outfit for Wednesday's announcement? Burberry. https://twitter.com/JayJayUSATODAY
I'll go on record now and say that I think Julius Randle will ultimately decide to be a Kansas Jayhawk Wednesday… Just think the Harrison twins being at UK is more of a factor than people know
https://twitter.com/ianapowers (National Recruiting Analyst for nbadraft.net)
@J30_RANDLE: I'm bored .. Entertain me with some of you guys sources lol
https://twitter.com/J30_RANDLE
Off the court, Julius Randle is very classy, polite kid. On the court, he has always reminded me of a cross between Chris Webber/Elton Brand
https://twitter.com/EricPrisbell
VOTE for Kansas and Julius Randle
Tyus Jones is Pioneer Press boys bball POY
SI Eric Bossi: Jahlil Okafor is still the player to watch in the new 2014 Rivals150
NCAA.com: Board suspends two recruiting proposals
My 2012 KU Alumni games, 2011-12 Border War, Legends of the Phog, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos, Late Night in the Phog, and more now on YouTube
RSS Feed