Ryan Restivo is an RTC correspondent and contributor.  He writes for SienaSaintsBlog as well as RotoSavants.com in his spare time.

Norm Roberts and Bobby Gonzalez joined the unemployment line this past week after both failed at Big East jobs.  Roberts, a former Kansas assistant coach and player at Queens College, could not hold onto the local talent in New York City to win at St. John’s. The Red Storm barely missed out on Lance Stephenson, losing him to Big East foe Cincinnati, which combined with an 81-101 record in six years brought him to the firing line.

Roberts Was Let Go on Friday (AP/N. Wass)

Meanwhile, across the Hudson in South Orange, it was Bobby Gonzalez’s fiery personality that did him in at Seton Hall. After four years and no NCAA Tournament appearances, Gonzalez was shown the door.  The firing came days after former Pirate Robert Mitchell was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary and possession of a weapon. The Pirates didn’t show much discipline on Tuesday night either: star Herb Pope was ejected in Tuesday night’s NIT game for punching a Texas Tech player in the groin and Gonzalez receive his seventh technical foul of the season.

The Dean of Seton Hall Law School, Patrick E. Hobbs, who also oversees the athletic department, said the school decided to fire Gonzalez before learning of Mitchell’s arrest.  Now both will be in the search to find candidates to bring more energy, and most of all wins, to the New York metro area schools.  Hobbs said that the contract extension given to Gonzalez was no additional financial risk for a school that cut four sports in February to save $1.5 million. Sources have said Seton Hall is expected to be looking to pay around $500,000 or slightly more as an annual salary to its next coach.

Meanwhile St. John’s was paying Roberts approximately $650,000 annually and could be expected to shell out more money for the candidate they desire. St. John’s Athletic Director Chris Monasch said the parameters of the coach they are looking for include NCAA Tournament appearances and good character. “We want to hire someone who has a record of success of getting into the NCAA tournament,” Monasch said to the AP. “In trying to find the right person, probably the safest choice is someone who has done it at this level, someone who believes in the mission of school and understands New York.”

Would Greenberg Entertain a Move to NYC?

No doubt the job that has better upside is St. John’s over Seton Hall. The Red Storm will return over 90% of its roster, nine scholarship rising seniors, and went 17-16 this year in Roberts’ highest win total. The Red Storm could be one big-time star New York City recruit away from being a Big East contender next year.  Here are some of the top names floating around as potential candidates for each of these two jobs.

• Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from the regionals of the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy.

NCAA Regionals

Dateline: 2001 NCAA Tournament Regional Semifinals – Duke vs. UCLA

Context: It was 2001, and Duke was well on its way to Mike Krzyzewski’s third national championship of his career.  In the regional semifinals, the Devils were matched up against a talented UCLA Bruin team led by Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, Matt Barnes and Dan Gadzuric.  With the #1 seed hanging onto a narrow three-point lead in the second half with about fourteen minutes to go, Jason Williams decided to put his team on his back and take care of things himself.  Nineteen straight points later, Duke had a comfortable eight-point lead and UCLA would get no closer the rest of the way.  J-Will, as he was known at the time, ended up with 26 points in the second half on his way to 34 points (including six treys) and four assists in a 76-63 victory for Duke.  It was one of the more magnificent stretches of individual basketball we’ve seen in the NCAA Tournament, and helped propel the Devils to their date with destiny the following weekend.

(note: the video says it was 17 straight points, but this is incorrect.  see here.)

How’s Your Bracket? Of the sixteen top seeds in this year’s NCAA Tournament, eight are now gone — one #1 seed, one #2 seed and three each of the #3s and #4s.   The last time that half of the top sixteen didn’t make the Sweets?  2005 (8).  Before that?  2000 (9).  So maybe this is a cyclical thing of around twice a decade, but we’ll take it.  It makes for a wild attention-getting opening weekend, and builds a buzz about the Dance that had been lacking in the last couple of years during the early rounds. In addition to that, we have a #9 (Northern Iowa), #10 (St. Mary’s), #11 (Washington) and #12 (Cornell) crashing the rarefied air of the regionals, the most teams from the lower half of the bracket to make it since 1999 when five double-digit seeds made it to the second weekend.  To the players on those four teams, they don’t care about any of that — the unlikelihood of its occurrence is lost on their youth; all they know is that they’re still playing and they believe they can continue to advance in this tournament.  And why shouldn’t they?  None of the four teams above fit the definition of an overmatched Cinderella that just happened to catch a favorite looking ahead or on a very off night.  No, these four teams have combined to win 113 games this year, and each has shown the ability to win convincingly over quality competition.  Cornell’s 13-point victory over Temple was one thing; but an 18-point pasting over Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin while scoring 87 points is quite another.  St. Mary’s knocking out a strong Richmond team was impressive; but holding Big Shot Scottie Reynolds to 2-11 from the field is a different story.  Same thing for Washington dominating a 30-win New Mexico team, and well, we’re still in astonishment over the UNI victory over Kansas on Saturday afternoon (more on this below).  It was a bracket-busting kind of weekend, and it provided more thrills and memorable moments than the last few NCAA Tournaments combined.  It’s the reason we all love this sport, and it provides additional evidence (although none is needed) that the Tourney is already in its sweet spot in terms of the right number of teams allowed to participate.  If #9 seed Northern Iowa had to play an additional game to get to #8 UNLV before a chance to take on #1 Kansas on Saturday, would they have had the legs to get past the overall top seed?  Would any of the above teams still be dancing?

Un-Farokhing-Believable.  We were among the biggest supporters of top overall seed Kansas as a dominant team that had a great shot at steamrolling to this year’s title, but Ali Farokhmanesh and Northern Iowa had other ideas.  It wasn’t enough that the Iowan with the Persian name that no major college wanted drilled a 25-foot game winner during Thursday’s first round game versus UNLV; no, he one-upped that shot with another three (“a dagger,” according to Bill Self) on a 1-on-2 fast break opportunity where the ‘smart’ play appeared to be pulling things out and running clock.  His platinum-balls three from the right wing was all net, giving UNI a four-point lead with around thirty seconds to go.  After KU’s Tyrel Reed charged on the ensuing possession, the upset was in the books, and it will go down as one of the greatest in NCAA Tournament history.  No matter what the revisionist historians will try to argue, Kansas was the prohibitive favorite to win the NCAA Tournament this season, and in the 64/65-team era, there has never been a bigger Second Round upset.  Bigger than Stanford and Kentucky in 2004, Stanford again in 2000, and yes, even Kansas’ loss to UTEP in 1993.  The difference between those teams and this one is that 2009-10 Kansas was considerably better than all of those other #1 seeds.  If you disagree that they weren’t the prohibitive favorite, send us a screen shot of where you had the Jayhawks losing.  42% of America in the ESPN Tournament Challenge had the ‘Hawks winning it all, and nearly 75% had them in the Final Four.  We would agree that it was the biggest overall upset since George Mason over #1 UConn back in 2006, but at least by that point in time we had a decent idea of what the Patriots were made of (with wins over UNC and Michigan State already).  Here, we had no idea that Ali and his Magic Panthers had in store.

Color Us Impressed…

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Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

East Region Notes (Ryan Restivo of SienaSaintsBlog)

• Kentucky performed as a top seed should, winning convincingly, building momentum and taking confidence to Syracuse. Ashley Judd isn’t the only star fan, Grammy-nominated rapper Drake was at Saturday’s game and gave hi-fives to the Kentucky coaches.
• Cornell is going to its first ever Sweet 16 after exposing Wisconsin in a 18-point victory. Meanwhile, the Big Red feel like they belong and will be playing their regional semifinal game just under 60 miles away from campus.
• Washington continued its improbable run into the Sweet 16 Saturday. The Huskies are coming together as the East Region bracket falls apart, playing their best basketball in a long time. The Seattle Times is asking… why can’t the Huskies continue this run?
• West Virginia handled the pressure and Joe Mazzulla and Darryl Bryant got redemption in their win over Missouri. Mazzulla showed heart in the Sunday win, the Charleston Gazette says.

West Region Notes (Andrew Murawa)

• Butler has advanced to their third Sweet 16 in eight years, and while they will be a big underdog to Syracuse on Thursday, they’ve shed the Cinderella label.
• Xavier, on the other hand, is one of just two programs in the country to achieve the Sweet 16 in each of the past three years (the other being Michigan State), and they’ve got a label they aren’t too big on either: “mid-major”.
• A day after the BYU season ended, head coach Dave Rose still thinks his Cougars had a “special season.” They will lose seniors Jonathan Tavernari and Chris Miles to graduation and freshman Tyler Haws will head off on his two-year Mormon mission, but they also have two kids returning from missions and expect to be a strong contender in the MWC again next season.
• Murray State also heads into their offseason feeling pretty good about their accomplishments, and with only two key contributors graduating and freshman forward Ed Daniel looking ready to be an Ohio Valley Conference star, head coach Billy Kennedy feels pretty good about the future of the program.
• And, finally, while it is never too early to get an Arinze Onuaku update (still somewhere between questionable and unlikely for Syracuse vs. Butler on Thursday), Wesley Johnson offered up a pretty good assessment of his hand injury with his play on Sunday.

Midwest Region Notes (Tom Hager)

• It may be surprising to hear from Ali Farokhmanesh, but the gutsy shooter claims that open looks are sometimes the harder shots to make, as a shooter has too much time to think.
• According to Tom Izzo, the odds of Kalin Lucas having a torn ACL are around 85%.  If that is the case, his season is likely over.
• When Tennessee and Ohio State will meet, it will be a rematch of their 2007 tournament game, in which the Volunteers led by 17 and OSU needed a Greg Oden block at the buzzer to save a one point lead.
• Kansas coach Bill Self asserts that Northern Iowa shouldn’t be surprising the country as much as they are, claiming that the Panthers are not Cinderella.
• According to Fox News, the NCAA needs Evan Turner, who can provide the closest substitute to the highly anticipated Kansas vs. Kentucky matchup.  If both Kentucky and Ohio State advance to the Final Four, they would not meet until the title game.

We realize that 99% of you are only interested in the NCAA Tournament, but we’d not be doing our job as the ubiquitous college basketblog (who the hell came  up with that slogan anyway?) unless we at least kept tabs on the other national tourneys that have been going on in the background of the Big Dance.

NIT

Imagine our surprise when during one of Sportscenter’s lead-ins yesterday showed the familiar light blue uniforms of North Carolina as part of their highlight package.  Despite what CBS’ “Rules of Engagement” promo would have us believe, UNC and UConn are not a part of the NCAA Tournament.  They are, however, part of the NIT, and they’re both still lacing them up in the other “national tournament.”   On Friday night, Ole Miss defeated Memphis 90-81, while on Saturday Texas Tech, UAB and the aforementioned Heels got a nice road win on a buzzer-beating layup by Larry Drew II at top seed Mississippi State.  All of those teams will now advance to the quarterfinal round, one step away from the semis in Madison Square Garden next week.  Here’s the remaining schedule:

Second Round Games – Monday 3/22

• Nevada @ Rhode Island – 6pm  (ESPNU)
  
• Connecticut @ Virginia Tech – 7pm  (ESPN)
• Kent State @ Illinois – 8pm  (ESPNU)
• Dayton @ Cincinnati – 9pm  (ESPN)

Quarterfinal Games – Tuesday 3/23

• Texas Tech @ Ole Miss – 7pm  (ESPN)
• North Carolina @ UAB – 9pm  (ESPN)

CBI

In the CBI, the quarterfinals are set for Monday night, as follows:

• Charleston @ VCU – 7pm (HDNet)
• Morehead State @ Boston U. – 7pm
• Princeton @ IUPUI – 7pm
• Green Bay @ St. Louis – 9pm (HDNet)

CIT

Ditto for the CIT, who will play four quarterfinals on Monday evening at campus sites:

• Appalachian State @ Marshall – 7pm
  
• Fairfield @ Creighton – 8pm
• Louisiana Tech @ Missouri State – 8pm
• Pacific @ Northern Colorado – 9pm
  

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy.

NCAA First and Second Rounds

Dateline: 1993 NCAA Tournament Second Round – Duke vs. California

Context: Seventeen years ago this weekend, one of the greatest dynasties of the modern era of college basketball came to an end.  In March 1993, the Duke Blue Devils had been to five consecutive Final Fours, winning the previous two with the core group of Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Thomas Hill, Grant Hill, Brian Davis and Antonio Lang.  When #3 seed Duke met #6 seed California in the second round in Chicago, the Devils were riding a 13-game NCAA winning streak and although they had not had the season that their forebears had enjoyed, the sentiment at the time was that Duke would find a way to scratch back into the Final Four behind the senior Hurley’s talents for winning big games.  Hurley had 32/9 assts in the game, but Cal’s Jason Kidd had 11/14 in a display that presciently displayed the talents that he would later bring to the NBA and the Olympics.  It was a startling win, the kind of which made fans think that they were seeing a changing of the guard of sorts.  And while California was never the same after Kidd’s run to the Sweet Sixteen that year (Todd Bozeman soon after melted down the program), Duke rode a healthy Grant Hill back to the NCAA Championship game the following season.  Still, Duke didn’t win another title until 2001, and they’ve only attended one Final Four since.  Will today’s game derail another shot at glory for Duke and Coach K just like it did nearly two decades ago, or will this be a mere blip on their road to Indy?

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 16 of the second round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are the Sunday games.

12:10 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #8 Gonzaga  (Buffalo pod)

In the CBS national game to start the day, everyone will get this very enticing game between Syracuse and Gonzaga.  Given the way this year is winding up, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Orange without their big man Arinze Onuaku found itself on the short end of the score around 2:30 pm today.  But we still have faith in Syracuse even without the talented center and we think that Jim Boeheim’s team is too good to fall short of the Final Four this early.  The primary problem that the Zags are going to have is one they didn’t have to worry as much about with Florida State, and that is in stopping the powerful SU offense.  With offensive scoring threats at all five positions, Syracuse is in a far more advantageous position than FSU was (with their limited offense) when Gonzaga caught fire on Friday — if the Zags want to get into a shootout with Syracuse, that’s not likely to end well for them. Still, with the way the Big East has had so many early round troubles, and the WCC looking great with St. Mary’s already in the Sweet Sixteen, we’re not ready to dismiss the Zags based on that alone.  The Syracuse zone is likely to be something that Mark Few’s team has not seen with such athletes all season, so even with their ability to put the ball in the hole, we hesitate to think the Zags can consistently score on it.

The Skinny: Gonzaga will push the Orange, but we still like this team to advance and make a serious push for the national title in coming weeks.

2:20 pm – #2 Ohio State vs. #10 Georgia Tech  (Milwaukee pod)

You might not see it on their faces, but the Buckeyes are smiling.  Northern Iowa’s removal of Kansas puts Ohio State in the driver’s seat in the Midwest region.  That said, there’s still no way Thad Matta and Evan Turner are going to let the rest of that team look past their opponents and assume an open road to Indianapolis.  Good thing, because Georgia Tech showed us that they’re not just made up of Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal and a bunch of suckers.  The Yellow Jackets shot 2-10 from the three point line but balanced that by holding Big 12 player of the year James Anderson to a 3-12 shooting night, 0-6 from beyond the three-point arc, and an overall 11 points.  But the most impressive aspect of Georgia Tech’s performance on Friday night — by FAR — was the fact that they went to the free throw line 25 times — and hit 24 of them!  It wasn’t just Lawal and Favors.  Tech played nine players, and eight of them shot at least one free throw.  Evan Turner isn’t just the player of the year in his conference, though — he’s likely the national POY, so the Tech task is that much tougher.  Turner wasn’t himself in their first round game against UCSB, going 2-13 and posting only nine points (though he did contribute 10 boards and five assists).  He’s looking to break out, and knows he’ll have to be at his best.  Lawal and Favors, though, will be looking to get Dallas Lauderdale, Jon Diebler, and Turner in foul trouble early and open poke some holes in that OSU front line.

The Skinny:  You probably don’t want to go with our Midwest picks, since yesterday we took Kansas and Ohio.  It’s not exactly going out on a limb to say that this will be a great second round game, but that stat line of Turner’s shows you that he can play such an important role on the team even when he’s not scoring.  For Tech to win, they’d have to turn in a similar performance at the free throw line, keep Turner under wraps and coax him into a supporting role again, and cool down Jon Diebler.  That’s a tough trifecta to pull off.  We don’t see it happening.  But we didn’t see Northern Iowa dismissing Kansas, either.

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Each day this week during the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

West Region Notes (Andrew Murawa)

• The West Region is the only region in the tournament without a double-digit seed still alive, but that doesn’t mean it is without some dreamers, as the recent blueprint for the mid-major Cinderella, Gonzaga, takes on Syracuse tomorrow. And Mark Few knows that his Zags won’t be intimidated by the importance of this game.  But in order for them to get the job done, they’ll need to figure out the Orange zone.
• For their part, Syracuse will again be without senior center Arinze Onuaku and head coach Jim Boeheim isn’t particularly pleased about having to play the early game today after having played late on Friday night.
• With rumors swirling about Few possibly leaving Gonzaga for the Oregon opening, will he run for the potentially greener grass, or take his cue from Jim Boeheim, who has spent his entire career building one program?
• In the Milwaukee pod, Xavier takes on Pitt in what should be a heavyweight fight between two east coast grinders. These two teams met last year in the Regional Semifinal round, but a lot has changed in both programs since then. For Xavier, there is a new coach and a new star player, while Pitt is missing most of its leading men from last year, but has had a new batch, including sophomore guard Ashton Gibbs, step up.
• Speaking of Xavier’s new head coach, there was this little exchange between Xavier coach Chris Mack and Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Jim Souhan before the Xavier/Minnesota first round game. So, make that Xavier 2, Minnesota 0.

Midwest Region Notes (Tom Hager)

• In a Washington Post poll of nearly 500 people, 66% of voters believe that Saturday’s Northern Iowa vs. Kansas game was a bigger upset than George Mason vs. Connecticut in 2006.
• UNI’s Adam Koch might have had the quote of the night with his reaction to what Pat Forde called one of the ultimate no-no-YES shots in tournament history: “”Honestly? It was ‘Oh God,’ ” Koch admitted. “I wasn’t sure. But if anybody’s going to shoot it, Ali’s going to do it. And Ali’s probably going to make it.”
• Maryland’s Landon Milbourne said that he expects the Terps to play a different style against Michigan State.  In addition to pushing the tempo, Maryland may also look to apply full court pressure.
• Michigan State is anything but healthy going into tomorrow’s game.  Not only are Kalin Lucas and Chris Allen suffering from foot injuries, but Delvon Roe is still suffering from pain in his knee.
• According to Cleveland.com’s Doug Lesmerises, Georgia Tech is much more talented than your average 10 seed or 12-loss team, led by potential first round pick Derrick Favors.

How’s your bracket?  Probably looking pretty sweet if you went to undergrad at St. Mary’s and then took a master’s at Northern Iowa.  Have they stopped partying at UNI yet?  Or campaniling?  Or whatever they do there?  And if not, who could blame them?

That was yesterday, though.  The Panthers and Gaels will be receiving their Official Cinderella starter handbooks in the mail in a couple of days, so the matter now turns to the Sunday games, and any possible candidates that could join them.  Your lineup:

• #1 Syracuse vs #8 Gonzaga
• #2 Ohio State vs #10 Georgia Tech
• #4 Maryland vs #5 Michigan State
• #2 West Virginia vs #10 Missouri
• #4 Wisconsin vs #12 Cornell
• #3 Pittsburgh vs #6 Xavier
• #4 Purdue vs #5 Texas A&M
• #1 Duke vs #8 California

Will Northern Iowa’s dismissal of Kansas inspire other underdogs to greater heights?  Or will it cause the higher seeds to sharpen their focus and be even warier of the upstarts?  Keep in mind, things always start and end a tad earlier on Second Round Sunday, and there’s that glut of four games that all start within 30 minutes of each other in the early afternoon.  But no worry, if you can’t see them all — we’ll be here all day, talking about them, updating this post every few minutes, and looking for your comments.  Hard to believe we’ll have whittled the field of 64 down to 16 by Sunday night, and the events of Saturday should drive the point home that we need to enjoy this while it’s here.  We’re here to help.  We’ll start updating the post a few minutes before the first tipoff, and we hope to see you here.

12:00: Here we go, folks!  Day 2, second round.  The day starts with ‘Cuse/’Zags and you see the rest of the lineup above.  Syracuse, Duke, Ohio State…you’ve been put on notice by Northern Iowa.  Let’s see what happens.

12:10: One thing that’s got to make you happy if you’re a Syracuse fan is that Wesley Johnson is being VERY aggressive with the basketball.  Hit his first two.

12:18: See, I don’t think Matt Boldin needs to fire from three for the Zags to put their best foot forward, today.  I think they’ll be better off if he does more creating and dishing, and we know he picks up points that way.

12:27: Goodness, right now it’s Wesley Johnson versus Elias Harris.  Johnson has Syracuse’s first ten and Harris has just made the baseline his second home.

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Wake Forest’s Al-Farouq Aminu had an interesting take on his team’s loss to Kentucky in the second round on Saturday.  Barely an hour after the Wildcats eliminated the Demon Decons, Aminu tweeted the following:

Come on, AFA.  Listen, we LOVE your game around here.  Trust us — you have supporters around these parts.  And we know you picked up some early fouls and had to sit a while in the first half.  We respect that, even with all that time on the pine, you still came back to lead your team in scoring.  We wish you luck and good health for the rest of your career, whether it’s in the pros or back in Winston-Salem.  But we’re going to have to disagree with you as far as the refs being a reason your team lost.  We think this guy named Eric Bledsoe might have had something to do with it (not the best video, we know):