2009 ncaa tournament – Rush The Court

PSA: CBS College Sports Replaying 2009 NCAA Tournament

rtmsf — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:21:53 +0000

Here’s a friendly public service announcement from your friends at RTC…

If you’re jonesing for some college hoops during the long, hot, humid days of summer, CBS College Sports channel (CSTV on your channel guide) has your prescription. Games started yesterday, but the channel has plans to show the entirety of the 2009 NCAA Tournament over the next two weeks. A complete schedule of games is here, but here are the date/times for the best few. Set your Tivos now…

UCLA v. VCU – Wednesday, July 22 @ 4pm (encore showings: Thurs. July 23 @ 10am and Fri. [...]

One Shining Moment: 2009 Edition

rtmsf — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:15:23 +0000

We wouldn’t blame you if you went to bed somewhere around the 15:54 mark of the first half tonight, so in case you missed it…

Tipoff of 2009-10 is roughly about 216 days from now… set your alarms.

Ty Lawson Would Like to Put $25 on the Five, Mr. Croupier…

rtmsf — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:00:11 +0000

Somebody call MJ. We may have found him a gambling buddy.

Tar Heel point guard Ty Lawson’s Big Toe may have arrived in Detroit Wednesday, but within hours of arrival, he’d already made his way down to the Greektown Casino and won himself $250 at the craps tables. From the AP report:

“We got in last night, and Coach (Roy Williams) gave us a curfew of 1:30,” Lawson said when asked if he had visited any casinos. “I went over to Greektown and won about $250. So I already had my time [...]

Predicting Half of the Finals: Villanova vs. UNC

rtmsf — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:11:24 +0000

Ben from Dear Old UVa is once again back to statistically analyze the NCAA Tournament for us.

Let first begin by saying: I am a nerd. I am a complete and total nerd.

Now that my admission is out of the way, I can share with you a model I once built. In 2007, when I was in graduate school, I took a computational economics course. While learning about all the interesting mathematical techniques used to study economic systems, I decided that I would build an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the point spread in [...]

Villanova and Pittsburgh put the madness back in March Madness

nvr1983 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:44:17 +0000

After nearly 10 days of college basketball critics bemoaning the lack of excitement in this year’s edition of March Madness, two of the Big East’s best teams answered all of those critics by submitting an all-time classic. After one of the strangest 10 seconds you will ever see, Scottie Reynolds made an end-to-end run that might replace the Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney versions on NCAA Tournament highlight reels from now on as this was on a much bigger stage with a trip to the Final 4 on the line. Even with Reynolds miracle, Pittsburgh still had its [...]

Stay Classy, Nolan Smith…

rtmsf — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:34:54 +0000

The most interesting play of the Duke-Villanova game tonight occurred with mere seconds remaining. Duke’s Nolan Smith must have thought the second-half o/u wasn’t covered yet, because a Duke player would never do something so classless without a reason, right?

Oh, right, play hard to the buzzer. Even when the other team is dribbling out the clock. Got it.

NCAA Sweet Sixteen: South Region Preview

nvr1983 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:52:27 +0000

RTC interns Matt P. and Mike L. are our NCAA Tournament East Region correspondents.

Isn’t it amazing how perfectly paired the Sweet 16 games look in the South Region? It’s almost as if the best four teams advanced, or something like that. Currently, Ken Pomeroy has both match-ups at nearly 50-50 odds: UNC with a 55% likelihood of beating Gonzaga and Syracuse with an even slimmer 52% of moving on over Oklahoma. Here’s hoping both games come down to the last shot so all the chalk haters out there can’t complain [...]

RTC Mascot Death Match: Sweet Sixteen Matches

rtmsf — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:58:07 +0000

Ok, we’re ready for the Sweet Sixteen of Mascot Death Match. Things are starting to heat up. Who is your favorite? Voting will be open the next couple of days.

Take Our Poll

Sweet Sixteen: Midwest Region Preview

rtmsf — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:45:46 +0000

Looking back at the Midwest Region 1st/2d Rounds…

Best Game: undoubtedly the game of the Tourney thus far, the Ohio St.-Siena game had not one, but two, game-changing threes by the underdog Saints to keep their hopes alive.

Shocker: Wake Forest’s complete and utter failure to show up for its game against Cleveland St. last Friday night. With three first-rounders on the team, there is no excuse for a team to be this mentally out of it (which they were much of the last six weeks of the season).

Cinderella That’s Not Really One: Arizona [...]

Rating the Sweet Sixteen Announcers

jstevrtc — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:31:33 +0000

John Stevens is a featured writer for Rush The Court.

It looks like CBS has made its selections and placements for the Sweet 16 announcing crews. I think this is important for a couple of reasons; first, because we got us some heavyweights going at it this weekend and these matchups deserve top-drawer announcers; and second, because when you consider some of the tournament’s great moments, the announcing calls are just as much a part of the history as the actual visual images. It’s good to have the big boys behind the mics in case a legendary [...]

Sweet 16 Chat

nvr1983 — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:09:21 +0000

If you’re looking for a chat about planning your Super Sweet 16th birthday party, you have come to the wrong place. If you want to discuss this weekend’s college basketball action at the #1 source* for college basketball news and insight, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll be taking all of your questions and offering our unique brand of insights so come with all questions and bring along some friends. I’m planning on going from 1 PM to 3 PM ET so come back then.

Sweet 16 Chat

*The NCAA might not agree with this claim.

Notes from the East Region Open Practice

nvr1983 — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:37:46 +0000

Because of the NCAA’s refusal to give us a media credential (or discuss the issue and our side of the case), we were forced to go to today’s open practice to get an up-close look at the teams. As an aside, if anybody has extra tickets for the games in Boston for the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8 (in case your team gets cheated by the refs), send me an e-mail at rushthecourt@gmail.com and I might be able to take them off your hands.

The guys who don't want me covering the game

We’re back with the second annual review of how the major conferences are doing after one weekend of the NCAA Tournament. As we all are aware, the Dance eliminates the pretenders – that means you, Wake and Washington – so that the teams with legitimate chops remain standing. Chalk has predominantly ruled this tournament so far, but that doesn’t keep us from evaluating which conferences are performing better or worse than expectations. We review the conferences with multiple bids below…

Big East (7 bids, 5 remaining, 11-2 record)

The Big East was the most [...]

NCAA Sweet Sixteen: West Region Preview

rtmsf — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:32:06 +0000

Ryan ZumMallen of LBPostSports is our NCAA Tournament West Region correspondent.

Welcome to the Mild, Mild West, which saw a grand total of three upsets in the opening twelve games, and whose Cinderella (if that term can even be used) is a five-seed that boasts the Big Ten Tournament championship.

The upside to having a predictable regional field is, of course, that four obviously superior teams emerge from the first weekend and are sure to provide high quality competition. Three of the four teams won their conference tournaments, and the one that didn’t is a #1 [...]

NCAA Sweet Sixteen: East Region Preview

rtmsf — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:55:04 +0000

The East Region: A Look Back, A Look Ahead (By Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)

A look back: Here are some of the bests and worsts of the first two rounds of the East Region – as well as some other haphazard notes …

Most impressive team remaining: Villanova. The Wildcats’ dismantling of UCLA was a sight to behold.

Shakiest team remaining: Pittsburgh. I sat next to a diehard Pitt fan at a sports bar Friday. I knew it was a bad sign when he turned to me disgusted midway through the second half and said, “Just root for [...]