March Madness - Page 3

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Their star guard was outstanding. Their big men dominated inside. Still, it came down to some last-second strategy for Gonzaga to move on to the NCAA Tournament championship game for the first time.

The subject of police brutality has frequently found itself in the national discourse, whereas the subject of police Twitter brutality has not rated nearly as controversial. After this weekend though, that might need to change.

Skeptics abounded after the March 11 announcement that South Carolina’s Sindarius Thornwell passed Kansas’ Frank Mason and Villanova’s Josh Hart as the Most Valuable Player in college basketball according to the www.valueaddbasketball.com rankings. However, there may not be many doubters after his third three-pointer Sunday put South Carolina ahead of Duke 42-41, and was part of a 53-point weekend that denied Marquette and Duke a trip to the Sweet 16 in New York.

Four years ago ESPN increased its annual payment to the ACC to $240 million as part of an attempt to make it the greatest basketball conference in history, and prevent Fox Sports from getting off the ground with a basketball lineup of the Big East to its lineup of the Big 12 and Pac-12. This week ESPN’s “greatest conference ever” produced only one Sweet 16 team (UNC) while the three Fox Sports’ conferences produced eight.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Jevon Carter scored 24 points, and West Virginia is headed to the Sweet 16 for the third time since 2010 following a 83-71 win over Notre Dame.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Top-seeded Villanova was bounced from the NCAA Tournament by eighth-seeded Wisconsin, which overcame foul trouble for two of its stars in the second half Saturday to upset the defending champions 65-62 in the East region.

Exactly one week after turning 18 years old, Marquette freshman Markus Howard wrapped up his freshman season in which he hit 82 of 150 three-pointers to finish at 54.67% from long range, the second highest percentage in the history of college basketball.

Most brackets are in good shape after one day due to only two lower seeds winning. Of the 10 analytical systems used for the sample brackets explained in this Breitbart post, three systems went 15-1 on opening day and the other seven went 14-2.

Thursday during the NCAA Basketball Tournament’s opening round matchup between West Virginia and Bucknell, CBS analyst Jim Spanarkel said he has “learned not to argue with pretty women.” Sideline reporter Allie LaForce relayed Bucknell coach Nathan Davis’ plan to stop

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Defensive-minded Virginia showed it can play with a little offensive tempo, even using five guards to outpace UNC Wilmington.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The Fighting Irish avoided the dreaded upset from a 12th seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Barely.

The Latest on the NCAA Tournament

Villanova is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament to start its bid to become the first repeat national champion since Florida in 2006-07.

In our final press conference, Villanova coach Jay Wright wondered if he was biased in calling Josh Hart the best player in the country after the senior scored 29 points to win his second Big East Tournament MVP and almost assure that March Madness would start with him rated as the best player and Villanova rated as the best team when March Madness starts this week.

Villanova’s Josh Hart passed Kansas’ Frank Mason in what looked like a two-way race for the Value Add Basketball Most Valuable player, only to have Sindarius Thornwell pass them both for No. 1 after single-handedly putting South Carolina in the NCAA tournament. In filling out your brackets be aware Virginia Tech, Xavier and Creighton must overcome the toughest injuries.

All of the 129 teams that still have a chance at an NCAA bid should take a lesson from Providence Coach Ed Cooley’s final words in Madison Square Garden, in response to a Breitbart Sports question Thursday about how to deal with the loss that ended their six-game winning streak.

Breitbart Sports asked the last question to Billy Garrett Jr. as a player for DePaul University, as his hopes of making March Madness died, just like players from 175 other teams. The simplified conference-by-conference list of the 175 teams alive now shows the day of their next conference playoff game, and the chance they will make the tournament if they do not win the automatic bid.

Iona pulled out an 87-86 OT thriller to claim the MAAC, and South Dakota State outdid them with thrillers Monday and Tuesday to claim the Summit bid to March Madness, leaving 174 teams vying for the final 24 spots.

A total of 38 teams are now in the NCAA tournament, either as a Conference champion or as a unanimous choice of 113 brackets, leaving just 30 spots for the other 211 teams that are still alive. Wichita State removed

Jacksonville State became the 25th team to make the tournament, winning the Ohio Valley Conference title Saturday after stunning heavy favorite Belmont in the semifinals en route to their first March Madness appearance. For 23 other teams the chances of March Madness ended with conference tournament losses and a 0% chance of an at-large bid.

The Conference Basketball championships are in fact the opening rounds of March Madness for teams that do not have a chance for an at-large bid to the tournament – and the following is the conference breakdown of 284 teams that still have a chance after 67 teams were eliminated.

The NCAA’s release of the top 16 bids if March Madness started today left out Wisconsin, Wichita State, and SMU based on Value Add’s new adjustments for injured and returning players.

“Baracketology,” became an annual thing at ESPN over the last eight years. Featuring then Commander in Chief Barack Obama, a white board, a sharpie, and Andy Katz as Obama made his NCAA Championship picks during March Madness.

The NCAA may replace the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) with systems that reward blowouts in March Madness selection.

Two years after ESPN declared the Big East dead with a one-hour and 44-minute documentary, Kris Jenkins took just a second to resurrect it with a national title.

Just months after Breitbart Sports was criticized for “pretending” the Big East was almost an elite conference, Villanova improved the conference to 8-4 in the tournament — behind only the ACC (18-5) and doing it by beating a team from the only other conference with a winning record (Big 12) by a record margin 95-51.

Value Add indicates the Villanova “no stars” are the only team with four Top 200 players as they try to overcome Player of the Year Buddy Hield (Oklahoma) and then the best player in the tournament (UNC’s Brice Johnson) or the surprising Orangemen of Syracuse to give the Big East its first title in just its third year since realignment.

In February Thomas Walkup passed Buddy Hield as the most valuable player in the country according to Value Add Basketball. Friday he scored 33 points to lead Stephen F. Austin’s upset of West Virginia to make the Breitbart All-American bracket 26-6 and in the 99th percentile according to ESPN’s calculations.

We produced the bracket for all 63 picks based on looking at the analytics and then going with our gut. Here is a recap of those “gut” picks, and seven other options to let you go with our pure analytic choice, which team is hottest, most healthy, has the most NBA talent, best experienced point guard or the most All-Americans. Or you can just go with the lowest seed every time.

President Barack Obama revealed his 2016 NCAA basketball tournament brackets hours before revealing his choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Some great student-athletes will miss March Madness due to the Selection Committee or in other cases from unkind rims to sex and recruiting scandals to a questionable accusation of an assault.

Oregon destroyed Utah 88-57 in the Pac-12 Championship for their 8th straight win, while Cincinnati sweated a tournament bid after a 65-foot jump shot was banked in against them. But if the Bearcats can win a tough one against St. Joseph’s they could shock the Ducks.

The top NBA talent is packed into the East (Kentucky vs. UNC) and the South (potential Kansas vs. Maryland or Cal). Kansas has been better, is hotter now, has more experienced guards – but Maryland can erase it all with one huge upset.

As prep for our March Madness predictions, we lay out the basics for the 85 teams with even a faint hope of being one of the 68 selected Sunday. This sheet gives each team’s Sagarin rating, a plus or minus for whether they finished the season hot or cold, and the Value Add of any key players who are injured for returning from injury based on Don’s Best report.

The Breitbart Sports All-American 2013, 2014 and 2015 teams proved prophetic in March Madness brackets, and the 2016 edition announced below starts with the heated debate over whether Buddy Hield or Denzel Valentine rates as the National Player of the Year.

Another 19 teams were eliminated from March Madness by 10 p.m. Saturday (see updated status of all teams here). But Yale joined Austin Peay as the first two teams officially in the tournament with their first Ivy League title since 1962 despite both Yale and Austin Peay missing a key player.