College category, Page 49
Barry Alvarez, AD who reshaped Wisconsin sports, to retire
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez is retiring after a three-decade run in which he transformed the university’s football team and later guided the Badgers to their greatest all-around sports success in school history. The 74-year-old Alvarez said Tuesday he would retire on June 30. “It has been...
North Carolina assistant Hubert Davis tabbed as Roy Williams’ successorVideo
North Carolina has turned to former Tar Heels player and assistant coach Hubert Davis to lead the storied men’s basketball program as the successor to Hall of Famer Roy Williams. The 50-year-old Davis played for the Tar Heels under Dean Smith before a long NBA career, and he spent the...
Baylor routs Houston, now seeks 1st NCAA championshipVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Nearly two decades ago, Scott Drew decided to leave his comfort zone at tiny Valparaiso for the scandal-plagued basketball program at Baylor, explaining to his father there was nowhere for the Bears to go but up. Now, they’re one win away from the top. Led by Jared Butler...
ACC basketball faces peril as the latest great generation of coaches begins to move on
RALEIGH, N.C. — What odds could a gambler have gotten back in 2003, when Roy Williams finally heeded the call to come home to North Carolina, that Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski would both still be grinding on the recruiting trail while Williams was grinding to play an extra nine...
Texas-sized party as Baylor, Houston reunite in Final FourVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Somebody will be doing a joyful Texas two-step after Baylor and Houston meet Saturday night in the Final Four. It could be Bears coach Scott Drew, who built his now-mighty program from the ashes of one of the worst scandals in sports history. Led by guards Jared Butler,...
Underdog UCLA next up against undefeated GonzagaVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Next up on the long list of wannabes eager to stop, or even slow, the undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs is a team basketball fans might have heard of: UCLA. In a strange twist that typifies a strange year, the legacy program with more national championships than anyone is a...
Mark Few’s unusual approach puts Gonzaga on cusp on unbeaten seasonVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — The weight of the line, not the lure, unspools the reel. The timing, the rhythm whisk the fly back and forth before it lands in the desired spot. The physical act takes a mental approach, of knowing the type of hatch for the season, the riffles where the...
Injuries, opt-outs, upsets mark underdog UCLA’s ride to Final FourVideo
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — As he basked in the glow of a win over Michigan, UCLA coach Mick Cronin was asked whether he thought he had the kind of team in his second season in Westwood to make a Final Four run. Cronin thought for a moment about five-star prospect Daishen...
The last perfect team: Recalling Indiana’s 1976 title run
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Indiana Hoosiers sat quietly inside their locker room on March 22, 1975. They knew what the first and only loss that season signified — one perfect quest ended while another began. Minutes after losing 92-90 to archrival Kentucky in the Mideast Region championship, the underclassmen vowed...
Shaka Smart leaves Texas for Big East’s MarquetteVideo
MILWAUKEE — Shaka Smart is leaving Texas to coach Marquette. Marquette announced the hiring Friday. It comes a week after Marquette fired Steve Wojciechowski and Smart’s Texas team was upset 53-52 by Abilene Christian in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. “Throughout the search, one individual continued to rise...
Thanks to Syracuse and others, Midwest Regions puts madness in MarchVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — It is the region that has caused more busted NCAA Tournament brackets than any other, the quadrant where No. 1 seed Illinois was sent packing by Loyola Chicago, West Virginia was dumped by a team that barely made the field, and Tennessee and Oklahoma State failed to survive...
Florida State charts course for ACC as its ‘new blood’Video
INDIANAPOLIS — North Carolina is long gone. Duke never made it. To find the ACC’s biggest threat at March Madness this year, look past Tobacco Road and into the panhandle of Florida. That’s the home of Florida State, a school where hoops has moved out from the shadows of the...
An NCAA hockey tourney first: All 5 Minnesota teams are in
MINNEAPOLIS — For all Herb Brooks accomplished in the world of hockey, the Hall of Fame coach of the heralded “Miracle on Ice” team long held a localized goal of growing the college game in his home state. The NCAA Tournament bracket this year would’ve made Brooks proud. For the...
Experience still matters to teams in NCAA Sweet 16Video
Michigan’s second-round game against LSU was intense from the start. Up and down the court the teams went, trading runs and momentum swings with the season on the line. One player for the Wolverines seemed calm and steady: guard Eli Brooks. “I think just all the amount of reps we...
Syracuse stay defenders of the zone as other NCAA powers man upVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — It had been nearly a decade since West Virginia coach Bob Huggins had to draw up a game plan to beat the infuriating zone defense run by Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, going all the way back to their time together in the old Big East. The job hasn’t...
NCAA Tournament roundup: Oregon routs second-seeded IowaVideo
Chris Duarte scored 23 points, and Oregon showed no signs of rust after a long layoff, beating No. 2 seed Iowa, 95-80, on Monday to reach the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in the past five NCAA Tournaments. The seventh-seed Ducks (21-6) were put in an unprecedented spot, advancing...
NCAA Tournament roundup: Arkansas in Sweet 16 for 1st time in 25 yearsVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Justin Smith had 20 points and played a key role in a final-play defensive stop, helping Arkansas beat Texas Tech, 68-66, on Sunday in the NCAA Tournament, securing the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16 in a quarter-century. In the final seconds of a tense finish, Smith...
Belle Vernon’s Zach Hartman, Kiski Area’s Darren Miller represent Bucknell well at NCAA Tournament
Belle Vernon’s Zach Hartman and Kiski Area’s Darren Miller put together special high school careers during their time in the WPIAL, but this past weekend, the pair represented Bucknell at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships. Hartman (13-3), who was making his third NCAA appearance after last year’s tournament was...
Oregon advances in NCAA Tournament after VCU exits for covid protocolsVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — VCU has been pulled from the NCAA Tournament because of covid-19 protocols. The NCAA says the 10th-seeded Rams’ first-round game Saturday against Oregon was declared a no-contest. The seventh-seeded Ducks will advance to the second round without playing. The announcement came a little more than three hours before...
North Texas pulls stunner, knocks Purdue out of NCAA TournamentVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — To be, or not to be? For an underdog named Javion Hamlet and his group of scrapping North Texas teammates, that was an easy question. Hamlet scored 24 points and Thomas Bell had 16, along with some game-changing defense in overtime, to lift the 13th-seeded Mean Green to...
Oral Roberts puts madness in March, shocks Ohio StateVideo
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Oral Roberts welcomed the madness back to March. The 15th-seeded Golden Eagles pulled off the first major upset of the first NCAA Tournament in two years, holding off second-seeded Big Ten power Ohio State, 75-72, in overtime Friday. Oral Roberts got poised, impeccable performances from its...
NCAA Tournament roundup: Underdog Oregon State stays hot, upsets TennesseeVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Oregon State opened the season picked to finish 12th in its conference but instead won its first Pac-12 Tournament title. The Beavers faced another No. 12 hurdle in the NCAA Tournament and pulled off the upset. They’re certainly enjoying this underdog role. Roman Silva scored 16 points, and...
Short-handed Florida gets past Virginia Tech in OT to open NCAA TournamentVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Florida is heading to the second round for an eighth straight NCAA Tournament appearance — and with arguably its best player on the bench as a de facto assistant coach. Colin Castleton scored 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, Tre Mann hit a step-back 3-pointer with 23 seconds...
Weighty issue: Inequity raised in women’s, men’s tourneys
SAN ANTONIO — The teams had barely landed in Texas when complaints of inequity between the women’s and men’s tournaments roared over social media posts noting the women’s weight training facilities in San Antonio were severely lacking compared to what the men have in Indianapolis. The women’s field has 64...
Former Fox Chapel pitcher Pat Monteverde emerges as ace for No. 7 Texas Tech
Almost a month ago, former Fox Chapel southpaw Patrick Monteverde stood in right field of Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, a day before Texas Tech’s season opener against the Arkansas Razorbacks and just took everything in. Six months earlier, the Los Angeles Dodgers had beaten the Tampa Bay Rays...
