With March coming to an end, March Madness has now successfully taken 65 teams and given us the best four teams in the college basketball world. With the smoke cleared, North Carolina, Connecticut, Michigan State and Villanova are left standing. Here is a look at the best players in the Final Four:
North Carolina
Tyler Hansbrough has had a wildly successful four years for the Tar Heels. He’s a bigman with a great touch around the basket and a tireless worker. However, he’s not the only very good player on North Carolina. Ty Lawson is a lightening quick point guard, while Wayne …read more

Two Big East teams are still kicking. Gus Johnson would still be yelling if he had been the play-by-play guy for the Nova-Pitt game. My National Champion pick (UNC) is still alive and well despite my utter lack of competence everywhere else on the bracket.
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Forget about Villanova’s impressive run to The Motor City—featuring a ‘why the heck did people pick this team to go to Detroit’ (when they were trailing American by double digits) and ‘this Scottie Reynolds is stinking up the joint’ comments from yours truly—Michigan State takes the cake here. Me hailing from Michigan, what a surprise, huh? Well, …read more

Please do not think for one moment that Villanova upset Duke just because Duke was a #2.  This year especially,  NCAA seeds are as meaningful as the Pro Bowl.
It was fantastic to watch Villanova beat Duke into a bloody pulp Thursday evening. I, and millions of other sane people, hope that the constant coddling of Duke will finally begin to wane. But it won’t. ESPN works for Duke, nothing will change.  I need a tissue.
In my estimation the Duke Blue Devils are the Yankees of college hoops. The media talks them up every year but the product is less than impressive, always failing due …read more

No really, there’s about 600 games today give or take a couple hundred.
But of course there are dozens of non DI teams playing the role of automatic victims tonight.
For example,
Middle Tennessee State will be hosting Trevecca Nazarene.
I wonder if Trevecca’s fans travel well.
Anyways,
here are some vital preview tidbits of a few Friday evening games.
St. Johns (H) vs. Long Island (LIU) preview from East Coast Bias
“This Friday, all of the offseason training, speculation, and worrying takes a back seat to the opening game of the 2008-2009 season, in the refurbished on-campus Carnesecca Arena.  For a St. John’s team that …read more

The season is just around the corner and two of the premiere college basketball classics have announced their lineups.
The 15th annual John Wooden Classic at the Honda Center (formally the Pond, a much cooler name) in Anaheim, CA, Dec. 13, will feature UCLA facing off against DePaul, and in a sleeper, San Diego State will play St. Mary’s in the doubleheader.
I could never figure out why the organizers just make this a two-day tournament, or even an 8-team tournament. The Wooden Classic has attracted top teams in the past and turning it into a tournament would give it bigger …read more

The Friday night games are winding down, and here are my thoughts on today’s action:
- Even though the game is far from over, I want to extend my congratulations to the Michigan State Spartans for laying the biggest egg of the tournament thus far. Extremely disappointing effort by the Spartans.
- Very convincing win by Texas over a pretty good Stanford team. DJ Augustin is as good as advertised.
- Note to the rest of the teams in the tournament – Don’t let Stephen Curry touch the ball. Period. End of story. Deny him the ball constantly or he will destroy you.
- …read more

First off, I hope everybody has a great Easter today.
Now, on to the early thoughts from Day 4 of the NCAA tournament.
- Anybody who doesn’t think that Texas is vulnerable should think again. Yes, they are a #2 seed, but they are definitely beatable. Same goes for #2 seed Tennessee, and their game with Butler isn’t even over yet. Both “UT” schools have some deficiencies that you can’t overlook.
- While I’m hammering the #2 seeds, I might as well hammer Georgetown as well. Davidson is giving the Hoyas all they want right now. When the Hoyas are on, they are …read more

College basketball returns from its holiday hiatus with some great games this week. Here are a few games to keep an eye on…
Thursday January 3rd: #5 UCLA at #20 Stanford – the Pac-10 conference wars start up as Stanford’s Twin Towers (Brook and Robin Lopez) host freshman phenom Kevin Love and the UCLA Bruins. This matchup will give the winner an early leg up in the battle for the Pac-10 crown.
Saturday January 5th: Oregon at #21 Arizona – Oregon is slumping a bit after two consecutive road losses (at Nebraska, at Oakland) and a narrow home victory over Mount St. …read more

Ladies and gentlemen – the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived.
The first ESPN/USA Today Top 25 rankings have been released.
And the winner is…