Under Further Review: The Good and Bad of the NCAA Tournament Opening Weekend

The first four days of the NCAA tournament are basically the sports equivalent to four straight days of Christmas. And I mean Thursday through Sunday; the "first four" doesn't count. Each day featured 12 or so straight hours of nonstop madness, and luckily thanks to Ohio State's first round flop, we could all enjoy the rest of the day without worrying about our bracket being perfect. Those 48 hours were put on the national television stage by CBS and Turner (TNT, TBS, and TruTV), and, as expected, there were One Shining Moments and there were Chris Webber Timeouts.

Guard the Post: Why this College Basketball season will be the best ever

 

The 2013-2014 College Basketball season promises to be one of the best ever. National Letters of Intent combo-commitments, upsets,  growth of the mid-major, the best season-opening tournament in the history of season-opening tournaments, and the most highly anticipated Final Four ever. Sure, we have no idea what teams will make it there, but we do know, based on what we have seen through week 1, that it will be a crazy ride.

The Closer: What is the NCAA Thinking? Chapter 45

Last week, ESPN's Jay Bilas unearthed a pixelated NCAA gold mine. Better yet, he revealed this finding on his Twitter. You would think that four years after Ed O'Bannon first filed a lawsuit against the NCAA about player-likeness being used for monetary profit, the college sport governing body would have cut all ties with anything having to do with college athletes and making money. Apparently, that wasn't the case.

The Closer: Rutgers: Head Coach and AD hires gone wrong

The past week, sorry, the past 3 months have been a whirlwind at Rutgers University. Everyone swore that with the removal of Mike Rice as head men's basketball coach and Tim Pernetti as Athletics Director, Rutgers was finally back on the right track. Sadly, though, that has not been the case.

The Closer: Rutgers Makes Questionable Hire in Replacing Rice

In last week's "Sports Biz Report" (found here), I mentioned why Rutgers found itself in the news yet again. Eddie Jordan, the new head basketball coach for the Big 10 bound Scarlett Knights, does not have a college degree. Yes, it is not unprecedented for a D-I coach to not have a college degree, but why shouldn't he?

The Closer: Is the ACC the next major conference to have it's own TV channel?

Yesterday, it was announced that the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) had financially locked in all of its current and future schools. The conference did this through a vote to approve the grant of media rights for the entire conference. This effectively stops any schools from leaving the conference during the entirety of the contract, which runs through the 2026-27 year.

The Closer: Student-Athlete welfare continually put on the back burner

As I watched coverage of the Rutger's Coaching scandal last week, I couldn't help but think about former Athletic Director Tim Pernetti's thought process. He watched 30 minutes of practice video showing constant physical, verbal, and emotional abuse by former head coach Mike Rice and decided that a three-game suspension and a measly $50,000 fine was sufficient?

ESPN National Championship Headline Loaded With Irony

It is not often that my mid-day scan of the internet ends up with me almost rolling on the floor laughing, but today was just one of those days.  I innocently flipped to ESPN.com and, behold, one of the most fantastic headlines that could ever be produced in college sports: "FRUITS OF THEIR LABOR."

The Man Advantage: Our First Look at March Madness

Lately I’ve been hearing a sound. It’s been quiet, but there’s no question what it is. It’s about that time of year again. Have you heard it too?

What am I talking about, you ask?

One Shining Moment.

The Man Advantage: College Basketball, The Curse of First

When this college basketball season started, I made a few assumptions: Louisville and Indiana were the best teams in the nation, but Michigan would threaten; the A-10 would be absolutely ridiculous and Butler and VCU would show themselves as the cream of the crop in their first year; and it would be Drexel’s year in the CAA.