Sports Then and Now

Tre'Von Willis and the Runnin' Rebels could not pull out a victory in their NCAA Tournament opener against Northern Iowa.

Junior forward and UNLV’s team leader Tre’Von Willis put it best. “Losing in the first round is a little disappointing,” Willis said. “But overall, we had a good season. We’re definitely going to have our good days ahead of us.”

That is exactly what this Rebels fan and reporter will focus on within the scope of this report.

Yes,surely the 69-66 loss to a very good Northern Iowa team was disappointing and yes there were enough flaws in the Rebels performance that the outcome was anticipated early enough in the game when the Runnin’ Rebels jumped out to an eight point lead, despite some very erratic shooting, and couldn’t continue the onslaught.

Let’s give the Northern Iowa Panthers credit. They played a very smart defensive game which is their signature and when it came down to the last 11 seconds left in a tie game with no time outs remaining, they were able to find an open man 26 feet from the basket and Ali Farokhmanesh, try saying that name five times fast, simply fired away to put the Panthers up by three. Read the rest of this entry →

Christian Laettner's game-winning shot ended one of the great games in NCAA Tournament history.

Welcome to the third and final part of the Ultimate March Madness List.
This installment features the top 20 moments in the history of the NCAA Tournament.

20. 1998 Valparaiso-Ole Miss
With 2.5 seconds left and trailing 69-67, Valpo’s Jaime Skyes throws a 60-foot pass down the length of the court that is caught by Bill Jenkins, who then passes it over to Bryce Drew (the head coach’s son), who then proceeds to drill a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give #13 seed Valparaiso an improbable 70-69 victory over the #4 seed Ole Miss Rebels in their first round game.

19. 1990 Connecticut-Clemson
With exactly one second left, Uconn guard Tate George catches a full-court pass from Scott Burrell, lands, then squares up to shoots a jumper that goes in the basket at the buzzer to give the Huskies a miraculous 71-70 win over the Clemson Tigers and send Connecticut to their first ever Elite Eight.

18. 1991 Duke-UNLV
One year after losing to UNLV 103-73 in the championship game, Duke avenges that humiliating by knocking off the undefeated and defending national champion Runnin’ Rebels 79-77 as Christian Lattener hits two free throws with 12.7 seconds left.

Duke would win the national championship two nights later as they defeated Kansas 72-65 to give coach Mike Krzyzewski his first national title after five trips to the Final Four. Read the rest of this entry →

Is the NCAA still punishing UNLV for the antics of Jerry Tarkanian?

Of course there is but more on that in a little bit.

First off I am not what you call a “Conspiracy Theorist”. Well maybe a little bit. Like, sure there wasn’t another shooter on the grassy knoll. Like, Amelia Earhart really lost her way. Like all the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle can be explained. Like Elvis is really dead. Now that one I know is not true. Here in Vegas I see Elvis at least three to four times a day, sometimes even in two places at once.

You tell me what dead person could do that. Oh and by the way here’s two more I’ll let you in on but don’t spread the word or I might be found just outside of town in an area called The Valley of Fire. Tupac’s alive for sure plus sports players never bet on games and know that Jeb Bush had nothing to do with the results of the 2000 election results in Florida. Duh, the guy with most votes lost.

With the 2010 NCAA Tournament on the verge of sending sports fans everywhere into March Madness my 20 year old nagging conspiracy that the powers that be in the NCAA land continues it’s life long vengeance against the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

This body of old, decrepit individuals really can hold a grudge. Geez!

Lets go back a little more than a generation ago. If you think of the City of Las Vegas to be “Sin City” now try to imagine when the town was run by the Mob, known in some circles as the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, the Godfathers, that thing of ours, and my favorite, the Little Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Hell our current Mayor, Oscar (“I was not a mob lawyer”) Goodman was THE mob lawyer for Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigal. No he wasn’t but it sounds good, doesn’t it? Read the rest of this entry →

Danny Ainge made a magical shot to defeat Notre Dame in the 1981 NCAA Tournament.

Welcome to Part 2 of the Ultimate March Madness List. Today, we explore moments 40-21.

40. 2003 Syracuse-Kansas
Syracuse’s Hakim Warrick blocks a potential tying 3-point shot by Kansas’s Michael Lee with 0.7 seconds left to preserve the 81-78 win and securing the first national championship for Syracuse and coach Jim Boeheim.

39. 1998 Washington-Connecticut
On the third shot attempt in the final eight seconds of the game, UConn’s Richard Hamilton hits a short fade away jumper at the buzzer that wins the game for the Huskies 75-74 in their Sweet Sixteen game with Washington and sends UConn to the Elite Eight.

38. 2008 Davidson
Stephen Curry, son of former NBA player Del Curry, becomes the star of the 2008 Tournament as he leads his Davidson Wildcats on a memorable run to the elite eight.

Curry scores 40 points in Davidson’s first round matchup with Gonzaga, followed by a 30-point performance in the second round against Georgetown as he outscored the Hoyas 25-22 in the final 14:24 of the second half to lead the Wildcats back from a 17-point deficit, then scored 33 in a rout of Wisconsin in the Sweet Sixteen, and then 25 in a two-point loss to Kansas in the Midwest Regional Final. Read the rest of this entry →

The NCAA Basketball Tournament gives small schools the chance to wear Cinderella's glass slipper.

So how does your NCAA bracket look? If yours is anything like mine, the toughest choices have not been in picking Final Four teams, but instead in trying to predict which school will come out of nowhere to crash the party.

Almost every year at least one school that is familiar only to people within its home area code suddenly becomes a national darling thanks to an upset, or near upset, of a team with significantly more national recognition. These schools are often referred to as “Cinderella” and just to avoid the kind of confusion that occurred at my house the other night when my five-year old daughter heard a promo for the NCAA Tournament and thought it meant one of her favorite princesses was going to be playing basketball, in this case Cinderella does not have flowing blonde hair, a glass slipper or a Fairy Godmother.

Rather, the typical Cinderella of the NCAA Tournament is a school that has been playing good basketball throughout the year, but has stayed under the radar while schools from the power conferences hog the national television spotlight and spots in the national polls. One of the endearing elements of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament is that the opening rounds of the tournament are the one time each year when those power conference schools must share that spotlight with schools that aren’t so familiar to a national audience. Read the rest of this entry →

Big Red players and fans react as the Cornell name is revealed during the NCAA Tournament selection show. Cornell is seeded 12th in the East Region and will play 5th-seeded Temple in the first round.

For three years running, making history or ending droughts has been as common for the Cornell men’s basketball team as gorges are to the university’s location in Ithaca, NY. The 2007-2008 team finished 22-6 to establish a school single-season record for wins en route to capturing the Big Red’s first Ivy League Championship in 20 years. That team also became the first in school history and only the 13^th in league history to go undefeated in league play at 14-0.

Last season’s club went 21-10 overall and 11-3 in the league while becoming the first Ivy League team other than Penn or Princeton to win back-to-back league titles. Cornell’s 2009-10 team has set an abundance of individual and team records lead by 6-foot-7 senior sharpshooting forward Ryan Wittman who became the Big Red’s all-time leading scorer (1,974 points) and was named the Ivy League Player-of-the-Year. However the biggest news for Cornell (27-4) this past regular season came on Feb. 1 when the Big Red was ranked 25^th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, its’ first national ranking in 59 years.

Cornell remained ranked in the same poll the following week on Feb. 8 when it climbed to No. 22. After suffering their only league loss of the season, a 79-64 setback at Penn on Feb. 12, the Big Red fell out of the poll. However, Cornell has not lost since and has appeared in the others receiving votes category in each poll since then while ending the regular season on a seven-game winning streak. Read the rest of this entry →