Bracket is donepic.twitter.com/Au7hXQbPBr
— Carlton Bragg (@carltonbragg31) March 16, 2015
The NCAA is investigating potential improper benefits received by Alexander’s family from a third party. Self also addressed the situation Monday in a TV interview on ESPNU.
“I’d say the same as it was last week and the week before that and the week before that — not very good,” Self told Andy Katz. “We’re certainly moving on with the likelihood that he will not be available to us. And if he is, of course, that would be a big bonus. But at this time, I don’t think so.”
Moments later, multiple reports, citing Self’s interview with Katz, surfaced saying that Self had ruled out Alexander for the tournament. In a text message to The Star, Self said nothing had changed in the case and he had not officially ruled out Alexander.
KC Star
New Mexico State coach Marvin Menzies started to wander down the road into coachspeak. He started to talk generically about what a potential win over Kansas on Friday would do for his program.
Then, he stopped himself.
“It might be a program-changer, now that I think about it,” Menzies said Monday during a press conference in Las Cruces, N.M. “If a 15 beats a 2? Wow, that’d be great now that I’m processing that a little bit. That would be huge for the program. It’d be great for recruiting.”
…“I’m not going to outcoach Bill,” Menzies said. “We’re not going to draw up any special play or do anything out of the box that’s going to have people ranting and raving about our coaching abilities. We feel like we’re pretty solid and we do a good job.
“But it’s going to be about our seniors if we’re able to play a close game and make it really competitive.”
Menzies said his coaching staff had been “grinding pretty hard” since finding out its opponent Sunday evening. That involved watching lots of tape to prepare for KU.
“There’s a lot of things that jumped out: Their ability to pressure the ball. They really guard you,” Manzies said. “Great man-to-man defense has always been one of Bill’s signatures. There’s some things that I already knew about them. I just reinforced them, unfortunately, when I was watching them.”
…Like Self, Menzies was surprised that his program fell to a No. 15 seed after being projected by most sites as a 13 or 14 seed.
Dropping that far, though, also could add to the value of a potential upset. Menzies said there was still lots of talk around Las Cruces about 12-seeded NMSU’s 70-67 loss to Michigan State in the first round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament in a game that was tied in the final five minutes.
Michigan State ended up advancing to the Final Four that season.
“We’re happy to have the opportunity to play a storied program and represent ourselves nationally,” Menzies said. “We’ve got a lot of things to be excited about.”
TCJ
"The fans are behind us 100%. Playing in Allen Fieldhouse is one of the best decisions I've made." Kelly Oubre Jr. http://t.co/tsPuRZ9hqu
— KU Williams Fund (@WilliamsFund) March 17, 2015
After showing enough this season to lock down an NBA lottery position, Oubre can’t fairly be classified as an enigma, but his freshman inconsistency has still been frustrating. Alongside sophomore guard Wayne Selden Jr., Oubre went through countless stretches in which he looked clueless despite his obvious talent.
Oubre is long, gifted, and possesses a hyper-quick second jump that physically separates him from average Division I athletes. When he puts it together — as he did recently, scoring 25 points on only 10 attempts against TCU in the Big 12 tournament — he looks like a player whose stardom is only a matter of time, even though it won’t happen while he’s a Jayhawk.
“If this team gets a chance to play in the Elite Eight game, then it’s been a hell of a year,” Bill Self said yesterday, which should give you a sense of this group’s deflated expectations. But for the team to get that far — and to take this season’s rating from “blech” to something more positive — Oubre’s flickers of promise will probably have to become a more consistent shine.
Grantland
The Kansas men's basketball team reached the championship game of Inside Higher Ed's 2015 "NCAA Academic Tournament" before bowing to Belmont in "double overtime."
Inside Higher Ed annually uses the NCAA's most recent Academic Progress Rate (APR) to determine the winner of each matchup from the real NCAA tournament bracket. The APR rewards teams whose players stay in good academic standing and remain enrolled from semester to semester. Inside Higher Ed broke ties by using the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate (GSR), a variation of the graduation rate that considers transfers and does not punish teams whose athletes leave college before graduation if they leave in good academic standing. If a further tiebreaker is needed, the publication uses the Federal Graduation Rate, which deducts points when student-athletes, for any reason, do not graduate from the school at which he originally enrolled.
The Jayhawks defeated New Mexico State. Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and Arizona en route to the championship game. Kansas and Belmont had identical APRs and GSR, but Belmont's federal rate was better.
KU won this competition in 2014, 2012 and 2010, reached the championship game in 2013, and reached the "Final Four" in 2011. Click here for the full Inside Higher Ed story.
KUAD
The Louisville Cardinals are, for the fourth consecutive year, college basketball’s most valuable team. But the team’s financial success appears to have ebbed for the first time since 2009. This year Louisville is worth $38.3 million, down a hair from last year’s $39.5 million valuation. And while the Cardinals have stalled, much of the field is charging hard. The Kansas Jayhawks, the sport’s second-most valuable team, are up 7% to $35.4 million. It’s the first time that Louisville’s lead on the field has fallen beneath $5 million since the team took the top spot in 2012.
…Meanwhile Kansas saw ticket sales climb to $14.5 million, up from $12.9 million the year before, which accounted for almost the entirety of its year-over-year revenue growth. Profits were further boosted by reduced spending. Last year the team spent $8.5 million, down from $10.7 million the prior year. Once again the vast majority of that change came from a single area. In this case coach Bill Self and his staff saw their total pay fall from $6 million in 2012-13 to $4.2 million last year.
Forbes
from @richarddeitsch column - ESPN’s highest-rated TV markets for men’s hoops: 1. Louisville 2. Greensboro; 3. Raleigh-Durham; 4. KC
— joshklingler (@joshklingler) March 16, 2015
3/16/15, 9:12 PM
Wichita does not match up well with KU. If they get there, I don’t see it if Selden is into it mentally. Who guards Oubre? Perry will eat
@GottliebShow
“We had 12 different brackets at 1 p.m.,” Rasmussen said Monday afternoon, after he had returned from Indianapolis. “They were all based on who won Wisconsin-Michigan State, SMU-UConn and Georgia State-Georgia Southern.
“Going in, we knew Wisconsin and Kansas were going to be in Omaha. Oregon and Wichita State ended up there because Wisconsin, SMU and Georgia State won. There were some brackets done where Wichita State and Oregon weren’t in Omaha.”
Conspiracy theorists won’t believe it, but that’s how it works. It’s a game of roulette. Based on our three NCAA regional fields, we should head to a casino.
» Kansas coach Bill Self expressed surprise that Wichita State, the Missouri Valley champ, was relegated to a No. 7 seed. So was Rasmussen.
“If there was a formula for doing this, you wouldn’t need a committee,” Rasmussen said. “But there are 10 people on the committee and you have 10 different ways of looking at an animal.
“This is probably a bad analogy but I’ll use it. It’s like the Kentucky Derby. There might be 20 horses. The handicappers all agree on the top two or three horses. Then, the rest of them have different opinions on the others.
“We have 68 horses and we have to rank them 1 through 68. There are going to be different opinions on them.
“I’ve watched Wichita the last three or four years and I thought Wichita was underrated. I thought they would be between a four seed and a seven seed. I’m surprised they were a seven, but that’s just my opinion. Someone from the Big Ten who hasn’t seen them might have a different opinion.”
Omaha.com
Even in the early years, though, the series was a sporadic endeavor. The first game was played Dec. 18, 1908, in Wichita, and Kansas rolled 65-15. The two schools wouldn’t square off for another 33 seasons.
Kansas scored double-digit victories in Wichita in 1941 and 1942, and in 1955, the Jayhawks came to town for the dedication game of WU Field House. The matchup pitted Wichita State coach Ralph Miller, a Kansas grad, against his mentor, Phog Allen, and the Jayhawks left town with a 56-55 victory.
Cue another 26 years of waiting.
Ted Owens, who coached Kansas from 1964 to 1983, told The Star last year that he had a difficult time remembering why Kansas and Wichita State never played in those years. Owens, now retired and living in Oklahoma, said he had some talks with then-Wichita State coach Harry Miller, who coached the Shockers from 1971 to 1978, but a game never materialized.
“I can’t really answer that,” Owens said last March. “I don’t think anybody ever told me not to play them, and I don’t think anybody ever told Harry not to play us.
Finally, Kansas and Wichita State met up in the 1981 NCAA Tournament, a Midwest Regional semifinal at the Superdome in New Orleans. The Shockers emerged victorious in the final minutes. Thousands of T-shirts flooded the state, commemorating the “Battle of New Orleans,” and two years later, Wichita State athletic director Lew Perkins and KU athletic director Monte Johnson agreed to a four-year series.
Kansas would win the first three contests, while Wichita State would score a 54-49 victory over Kansas at the Roundhouse on Jan. 6, 1987. One season earlier, then-Kansas coach Larry Brown had weighed in on the series, saying: “It’s stupid for us not to keep playing Wichita.”
That sentiment would change during the early years of Roy Williams, who racked up five straight blowout victories over Wichita State from 1990-93. The Shockers had fallen on hard times. Williams insisted on a two-for-one series, with at least two games at Allen Fieldhouse for every one in Wichita. The Shockers said no.
Two decades later, the Wichita State program is back in the top 25. Coach Gregg Marshall has led Wichita State to a Final Four in 2013 and an undefeated regular season last year. But back in Lawrence, the idea of rekindling the series is still a nonstarter.
Turgeon, who laid the groundwork for the Shockers’ revival in the early 2000s, remembers calling his old boss Williams, hoping to play host to Kansas when Wichita State christened a remodeled of Koch Arena. That went nowhere. He later had some informal talks with Self during his first years at Kansas, but those never progressed, either.
“I think it was great for Wichita State,” Turgeon said of the series. “I don’t think it was that good for Kansas. They played nine times; in Wichita, they just remember the one.”
KC Star
Only FIVE current players have accomplished the feat of winning an NBA championship AND an NCAA title. pic.twitter.com/6Tx9rBNgTw
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) March 17, 2015
The 76ers expect their future to include a towering frontcourt of Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid.
Thomas Robinson, however, could fit in as a nice backup.
"When you just talk about his skill package, he's got tenacity," Sixers coach Brett Brown said of Robinson. "If he does anything, he plays hard. . . . His gift is he is highly, highly competitive. And there is a bull mentality in him."
Those are the qualities the Sixers find endearing and want in their franchise moving forward. The only problem is that Robinson will become a free agent after this season.
philly.com
In another episode of their highly acclaimed “Origins” series, SB Nation chronicled Markieff and Marcus Morris’ inspirational story from their childhood in Philadelphia all the way to their time in the NBA.
The video features Markieff and Marcus looking back on their bond as brothers, Angel Morris on being so proud of her sons, Bill Self on coaching the twins, and much more.
…Markieff on Bill Self, their coach at Kansas:
“He never let up. That’s definitely what pushed us over the top, no question.” – Markieff
Bill Self on coaching the Morris twins:
“There are a lot of guys I’ve enjoyed coaching over the years. I would say I’ve probably enjoyed coaching them as much as anybody.” – Self
nba.com
In a season of disappointment for the Los Angeles Lakers, it’s hard to imagine many positives being taken away when it comes to young players. After all, the Lakers have been one of the teams least involved in the NBA Draft, and their prized rookie power forward broke his leg in his very first professional basketball game.
It’s interesting then, that a first-year big man would be one of the highlights of an otherwise lost season for the purple and gold.
However, Tarik Black surely has been impressive despite his fluctuating playing time. He’s proved himself to be a double-double threat in limited minutes for the Lakers, and while he’s not offensively gifted, he’s an energy player that can change the game with his rebounding ability.
hoopshabit.com
KANSAS
Wilt Chamberlain
Don Johnson
Clyde Lovelette
Paul Rudd
Bill James
6th man: Dean Smith/Adolph Rupp/Phog Allen
One of the greatest basketball players of all-time, Chamberlain was a 4-time NBA MVP and led the NBA in scoring for seven straight seasons (1960-66). Oh yeah, he also led the league in rebounding 11 times… Crockett on "Miami Vice", Johnson owned the late 80s. I was a toddler then, so I know him as Kenny Powers' dad in "Eastbound and Down"… Sometimes referred to as "the best Indiana player no one knows," perhaps because he went out of state to Kansas after a standout high school career in Terre Haute, Lovellette was the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, leading the Jayhawks to the 1952 title. A Naismith Hall of Famer, Lovellette was a three-time NBA champ and 4-time All-Star… Part of the Judd Apatow Machine, Rudd has starred in comedies such as "Anchorman", "The 40-Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up"… It takes a true nerd to include James on this list, and well, no arguments here. The father of baseball's obsessions with sabermetrics, James was one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" of 2006. Not bad for a former security guard at a pork and beans factory. He's now employed by the Boston Red Sox… Our final spot is an amalgamation of basketball icons Smith, Rupp and Allen. More than 2,500 wins between them and seven national titles, this Jayhawk-bred trio are all candidates for college coaching's Mount Rushmore.
NEW MEXICO STATE
Paul Wilbur Klipsch
Lou Henson
Alan Hale
Alvy Ray Smith
Rich Beem
6th man: Kenton Keith
Born in Elkhart, Ind., Klipsch's family relocated to Texas after his father, whose father taught mechanical engineering at Purdue, died when Klipsch was 12. Klipsch attended NMSU and played in the school band before going to work for GE. He made great advances in speakers and the company that bears his name is closely tied to this city, with the Klipsch Music Center (formerly Deer Creek, Verizon) as well as celebrity endorsement deals with Andrew Luck and Roy Hibbert… A guard for the Aggies, Henson began his coaching career at a New Mexico high school before a lengthy and successful college coaching career. He led his alma mater from 1966-75 and 1997-2005, but it's his time at Illinois for which Henson is most remembered for. Illinois won the 1984 Big Ten title and advanced to the 1989 Final Four under Henson's guidance. He finished with 779 career wins and in 2014, was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame… Hale, who received his Ph.D. in astronomy from New Mexico State, co-discovered Comet Hale-Bopp with a telescope on his driveway. According to NASA, the comet was likely the most seen of the 20th century… Smith is the co-founder of Pixar, the animation studio that gave us "Toy Story" and "Up"… Beem conquered Tiger Woods to win the 2002 PGA Championship, but he hasn't won on the PGA Tour since… You remember Kenton Keith. He came to the Colts from the CFL in 2007, backed up Joseph Addai and did something Trent Richardson never did with the Colts — have a 100-yard game.
Winner: Kansas. Crockett plays.
Indy Star: Coolest Alumni Bracket
“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Big 12 / College News
Smart people fill in their #NCAA #MarchMadness brackets. Smarter people get help from http://t.co/OVwWGkZXPz pic.twitter.com/44zXPFiq55
— Bing (@bing) March 16, 2015
3/17/15, 6:21 AM
Jay Williams just said the Midwest Region team with the best chance to beat Kentucky is Texas. Lol, cool story bro...
@LostLettermen
I wrote a little something last night about my Selection Sunday winners and losers. Spoiler: Kentucky is a winner. http://t.co/m6aEz0DMHr
— Mark Titus (@clubtrillion) March 16, 2015
The NCAA is going all in on high-def video reviews during March Madness.
For the men's and women's basketball tournaments that begin this week, the NCAA for the first time will use a replay system that captures live high-definition video from multiple angles for immediate review. That means officials will be able to see much more quickly some of the same replays everyone is seeing on TV — and just maybe some of those delays to get a call right won't be so excruciatingly long.
"The last thing you want at the end of the game is a four-minute delay that takes the energy out of the building and cools the players down and all that," said Kim Jackson, director of basketball operations for DVSport, the system's developer. "No. 1, you've got to get the call right, but No. 2, we need to be hopefully as efficient as possible. ... Delaying a game can change momentum and impact the game."
AP
A group of athletes trying to win a slice of the billions of dollars universities reap from football and basketball will face a full court press on Tuesday from the NCAA, which is determined to enforce amateurism in college sports.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association wants a U.S. appeals court to undo a ruling last year that allowed student athletes a limited share of revenue by allowing students to recover some revenue generated from use of their names, images and likenesses.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California added to mounting legal, political and public pressure for colleges to give student athletes better benefits. It came in response to an antitrust class action against the NCAA filed by more than 20 current and former athletes, saying players should share in profits of college athletics.
A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel will hear arguments from both sides on Tuesday, just a day before the NCAA's annual March Madness men's basketball tournament begins. The NCAA hired former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman to argue its case.
Link
The Raleigh News & Observer reported late Monday night that the University of North Carolina has agreed on a settlement package with a key figure in the academic scandal that's plagued the university for more than a decade.
Mary Willingham, the whistleblower on the fraud-grades/classes story -- and a former academic advisor at the school -- agreed to be paid $335,000, and with that payment she will drop her civil suit against North Carolina. Willingham brought a suit last July against the UNC-Chapel Hill system, claiming she was targeted and unfairly treated after her myriad claims of academic fraud that occured inside and outside of the UNC athletic department.
“We believe the settlement is in the best interest of the university and allows us to move forward and fully focus on other important issues,” UNC spokesman Rick White said in a statement.
Willingham said once legal fees are deducted from the $335,000, she will have the equivalent of three years' salary. She made roughly $60,000 a year.
“It gets me out far enough that I will be able to get a job,” Willingham said.
Link
There were 4.8 seconds left, UCLA trailed by a point, and the members of the Bruins' 1995 men's basketball team knew it was the kind of March moment when legacies are made.
They were desperate for a national championship. The program, once the gold standard in college basketball, had not won one in 20 years.
Now, in an NCAA tournament second-round game at Boise, Idaho, everything they did, Missouri countered.
"I remember thinking, could this actually be it?" forward Ed O'Bannon said. "Are we going out like this?"
UCLA coach Jim Harrick called a timeout, and immediately O'Bannon yelled, "Give me the damn ball! I want the ball!"
He was not even back to the bench yet, but O'Bannon, shy by nature, had become the team's vocal leader and emotional core in his senior season.
…"Sit down and shut up," Harrick told him. And O'Bannon did.
Ordinarily, Harrick didn't micromanage. This time, though, he had an idea, and he wanted the Bruins to stick to his plan.
"Tyus, you get the ball," Harrick said in the team huddle. "You take it the length of the floor, take it to the rim because they're not going to foul you, and you see what happens."
Tyus Edney, a senior like O'Bannon, wasn't big, but he was fast. "Like the roadrunner," Harrick said. "Zip-zip-zip!"
Edney had only seconds to cover the length of the floor, but Harrick once had seen Lakers great Jerry West go three-quarters of the court in three seconds to beat the Boston Celtics. After that, he ran every team he coached through a drill: full court in four seconds.
"We had practiced that," Harrick said. "I knew what he could do. I didn't have any hesitation."
…Edney's shot banked off the glass and dropped in.
Edney leaped. His teammates mobbed him. The Bruins had won, 75-74, and they would not lose again that season, finishing 31-2.
It would become a signature March moment, replayed over and over as a highlight entering every tournament since.
LA Times
NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament History: A Searchable Database of March Madness
Recruiting
The Wolverines are slated to host five-star Jaylen Brown, a 6-foot-7, 220-pound small forward from Alpharetta, Ga., from Wheeler High School.
Brown was planning to visit Michigan earlier for a game in January, but there was a conflict and he had to reschedule, leading some to speculate he wouldn't come because U-M began recruiting him late.
According to ESPN.com, he has taken visits to Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA and North Carolina.
Scout.com has him at No. 1, and ESPN.com and 247Sports rank him as the No. 2 overall player in the class.
Michigan does not have a commitment in the 2015 class and right now has only one available scholarship from Max Bielfeldt.
Detroit Free Press
The Callaway boys basketball team has turned down its invitation to the Dick's Sporting Goods High School Nationals.
The Chargers, who won their fourth straight state championship last Friday, met two of the three requirements set forth by Dick's to be eligible for the high school basketball national championship.
Callaway is ranked in USA Today's Super 25 as the No. 4 program in the country and won a state title this season.
What the Chargers don't have is the approval of the Mississippi High School Activities Association to participate in the event from April 2-4.
The MHSAA does not allow its member schools to participate in postseason play, which it defines as games or tournaments after a sport's season is over. This rule has been in place since 1938 and applies to each of the sports/activities the MHSAA sponsors.
Clarion Ledger (Malik Newman)
McDONALD’S ALL-AMERICAN GAME
April 1, United Center, Chicago
ESPN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL CHAMPIONSHIP
April 2-4, Christ the King, Queens, N.Y. & Madison Square Garden
NIKE HOOP SUMMIT
April 11, Moda Center, Portland
KENTUCKY DERBY FESTIVAL
April 11, Freedom Hall, Lexington, KY
JORDAN BRAND CLASSIC
Friday April 17, Barclays Center 7p.m,
International (2:30pm)
Regional Games (4:00 pm) All times Eastern
Recruiting Calendar
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