Tag: NCAA Men’s Basketball

Charles Barkley wore a big, goofy cowboy hat during UConn-SDSU pregame coverage

Charles Barkley wore a big, goofy cowboy hat ahead of the men’s NCAA tournament championship.

Charles Barkley sported quite the hat while discussing Monday night’s 2023 men’s NCAA tournament championship.

With the anticipated clash between Connecticut and San Diego State taking place in Houston, Texas, Barkley wore a big, red cowboy hat while co-hosting the CBS pregame show.

“You’ve got a 10-gallon hat with a 20-gallon head,” Barkley’s longtime co-host Kenny Smith joked during the segment.

Barkley has never shied away from his sillier side, and this national championship headwear certainly honored the grand spirit of the Lone Star State. Plus, it was just downright hilarious.

You know, we all win with big, goofy cowboy hats!

Big hats are always funny, and they’ve recently been popularized with professional athletes.

Barkley has taken the big hat trend and added the Texas spin to it, and you can bet that big, goofy cowboy hat sales will soar now with this kind of national exposure!

Well, maybe not, but if you’ve got the confidence to pull one of those off, you certainly deserve a tip of the cap.

The NCAA’s start time for the men’s national title game is way too late

It’s absurd an important game starts so late.

Not that this isn’t the norm, but if you’re on Eastern Standard Time, you might want to drink some coffee before the men’s national title game tonight.

Connecticut and San Diego State will not officially start until around 9:30 Eastern. That’s right, 30 minutes before 10 o’clock (on the East Coast) on a Monday evening, with work the next day, meaningful basketball will be played. That is just patently absurd.

I’m aware that fans in other time zones are a bit luckier, and this has a heavy hint of East coast bias. But come on now. This is a championship game. It’s a little ridiculous that even one time zone has to deal with this tip-off time.

Never mind that, hello — one invested fanbase, Connecticut — is in the Eastern time zone!

College basketball fans, especially those in the east, aren’t happy.

[pickup_prop id=”32943″]

Miami’s Nijel Pack broke a sneaker and sparked a Final Four catastrophe on the bench

Shoegate became a reality for Miami’s Nijel Pack during the Final Four.

Miami sophomore guard Nijel Pack ran into quite a conundrum during Saturday night’s 2023 men’s NCAA tournament Final Four bout with Connecticut.

During the game’s second half, Pack’s shoe fell apart, and the team wasn’t able to locate him a replacement pair fast enough to quickly get him back out on the court.

The first pair the team found him didn’t fit, so Pack had to chill on the bench until someone on Miami’s staff could locate him the proper pair.

As you can probably guess, having one of your star players lose their shoes in the middle of a Final Four game is not ideal!

Thankfully for Pack and Miami, someone on the team’s staff hustled to make sure he eventually got the right fit.

Pack wound up getting a new pair of shoes and returned to the game. While it seems absolutely bizarre for a college basketball player in such a major moment to not have a backup pair of shoes to wear, we guess stranger things have happened.

[pickup_prop id=”32726″]

At the very least, any sort of comeback would’ve had quite the narrative segue if Pack played a major role.

San Diego State’s Lamont Butler hit an absolutely stunning Final Four buzzer-beater

LAMONT BUTLER. SAN DIEGO STATE. ONIONS.

San Diego State junior guard Lamont Butler willed his team to the 2023 men’s NCAA tournament championship game with one of the best buzzer-beaters you’re likely to see this year.

As the seconds ticked down to zero, Butler got off the hero shot with his team down by a point to Florida Atlantic in the first Final Four game of the day.

The ball went right through the hoop as the buzzer sounded, helping cement the comeback victory for San Diego State.

SDSU players, coaches and fans immediately went wild as their team notched the game-winning basket in Houston, giving college basketball fans similar shades of the Kris Jenkins buzzer-beater that gave Villanova a national title in 2016.

That is exactly what March Madness is all about. Butler’s terrific bucket will be talked about by San Diego State fans for decades to come.

The team will move on to Monday’s championship game between the winner of Miami and Connecticut.

[pickup_prop id=”32899″]

ESPN’s Rece Davis had a hilariously awkward interview with Carrot Top about Florida Atlantic in the Final Four

Did you know Carrot Top went to Florida Atlantic? Well, you will now!

If you’re wondering exactly how prop comedian Scott “Carrot Top” Thompson found his way onto ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday, you’re not alone.

Ahead of a show in Las Vegas, Carrot Top joined College GameDay host Rece Davis to discuss the comedian’s status as a proud Florida Atlantic alumnus.

Indeed, Carrot Top is cheering on his Owls as they prepare for Saturday’s 2023 men’s NCAA tournament Final Four battle with San Diego State for a spot in Monday’s national title game.

However, the interview went a bit off the rails without anyone really trying for it to, with some sort of transmission delay clashing with Carrot Top’s endearingly awkward energy and Davis’ laser-focused broadcaster persona.

Carrot Top does get one really good joke in, saying his alma mater was sarcastically called “Find Another University” while he was there.

Davis asked how Carrot Top was going to watch Saturday’s big FAU game since the comedian was set to perform in Vegas, and the latter’s solution was going to be to record the game, if you were curious.

If you’re going to have a perfectly pleasant interview with a celebrity that also ramp up the cringe levels past infinity, you could do a lot worse than Davis does here.

Kudos to Carrot Top for cheering on his old college, and kudos to them both for finding a way through this hilariously awkward encounter.

Feature image courtesy of ESPN.

[pickup_prop id=”32899″]

UConn mascot Jonathan the Husky finally made it to the Final Four despite flight drama

UConn’s very good boy has made it to Houston.

Fret not, UConn fans and animal lovers: Jonathan the Husky has made it to Houston for the Final Four.

The Huskies are the only team left that has not only made a Final Four, but also won a men’s NCAA title. Connecticut’s last men’s basketball national championship came under Kevin Ollie after an unprecedented run in 2014.

The live mascot of the University of Connecticut — officially named Jonathan the XIV — seemingly wasn’t going to be able to take the trip due to being just a very big boy with lots of fluffy fur. A tweet from the official account of the mascot shared a picture of a very sad Jonathan.

Immediately, the powers that be mobilized. Just three days after the initial tweet, the same account shared a smiling Jonathan aboard a flight to Houston, thanking UConn, the NCAA and Delta for making his pooch dreams come true.

Since arriving in Houston, Jonathan has become a tourist and has taken to the streets to see all the sights.

Congrats on the biggest win of the tournament, UConn. Here’s hoping Jonathan has the absolute most fun.

FAU coach Dusty May almost quit his job hours after he took the gig

May apparently experienced immediate regret after taking the job when he saw the state of the Owls’ facilities.

Dusty May is on top of the world right now.

This past weekend, the fifth-year FAU men’s basketball coach led his team to its first-ever appearance in the NCAA tournament’s Final Four with an incredible run as a No. 9 seed. No matter what happens next weekend in Houston, he will likely be returning to Boca Raton with a hefty pay raise (barring a surprising power conference opening, for which he would surely be a primary candidate).

The Owls are just two wins from reaching college basketball’s mountaintop, but when May took the job back in 2018, he had instant regret and nearly quit hours into the job while the ink on his contract still wasn’t dry, according to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander.

“I walk in the room and I started crying and said, ‘I just committed career suicide. I’m not good enough. I can’t do this,'” May told CBS Sports.

May — who was an assistant under then-Florida coach Mike White — apparently had such a good meeting with FAU athletic director Brian White (who had been hired less than a week prior) that he took the job hours after arriving in Boca.

He hadn’t even seen the facilities, including the arena, which seated just 2,500. After he did, he was so overcome with buyer’s remorse that he burst into tears in his hotel room.

Of course, a move that May thought would be disastrous for his career prospects ultimately proved to be the exact opposite. His team sits at 35-3 in what has been a storybook season for an FAU team that is now on the cusp of winning a national championship and will face San Diego State for the right to play for one Saturday.

With the Owls set to join the American Athletic Conference next season, which is in turn set to lose current powerhouse Houston, it may only be the beginning of what May can accomplish in Boca Raton.

[pickup_prop id=”32782″]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=462925]

[mm-video type=video id=01gwjcvwtz2w9hzf27qv playlist_id=01eqbz5s7cf4w69e0n player_id=01eqbvp13nn1gy6hd4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gwjcvwtz2w9hzf27qv/01gwjcvwtz2w9hzf27qv-95b0406b92c060b14952aab31be70b77.jpg]

Texas interim coach Rodney Terry was moved to tears talking about how much he loved his team

Texas interim coach Rodney Terry clearly loves his team.

Texas interim head coach Rodney Terry became overwhelmed with emotion when he talked about how much it meant to him to coach this group of Longhorns.

After No. 2 Texas lost to No. 5 Miami, 88-81, on Sunday in the 2023 men’s NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight, Terry poured out his heart while talking about his love for this year’s Texas squad.

After taking over the program in December following the suspension and eventual firing of Chris Beard, Terry guided the Longhorns to a Big 12 title and to the Elite Eight of this year’s tournament. It was the school’s first Elite Eight berth since 2008.

It is currently unknown if Terry will assume permanent duties over the program, and he made sure during the postgame press conference to talk about how much he loved his players.

“I’m gonna love them for the rest of their lives,” an emotional Terry said after the game. “I’ll be at their weddings. I’ll be, you know, talking to those guys when they have their first born.”

Per KHOU-TV reporter Daniel Gotera, Texas guard Sir’Jabari Rice expressed his support for Terry being named the Longhorns’ permanent coach.

San Antonio Express-News columnist Mike Finger reported Terry’s comments on his future with the school and if the coach expects this will be known soon.

San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher did a celebratory trust fall after punching ticket to Final Four

When you’re a coach and you make the Final Four, you do a trust fall into the arms of your players.

After his team punched a ticket to the 2023 men’s NCAA tournament Final Four, San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher decided to put ultimate faith in his guys yet again.

This time, it came on a trust fall after cutting down the nets for winning the South Region.

Indeed, Dutcher’s SDSU topped Creighton, 57-56, in Sunday’s Elite Eight game to grab one of the spots in this year’s Final Four.

It’s the school’s very first Final Four appearance, one that came with plenty of drama during its nail-biting finish.

Dutcher trusted his team to close things out when the game went down to the wire, and he trusted his players to catch him as he fell into their arms off the ladder he went up to cut down the net.

Dutcher threw his hands up and fell backwards into the arms of his players, who caught their coach and cheered their coach on during the postgame celebration.

[pickup_prop id=”32763″]

Brothers Adam Seiko and Arthur Kaluma shared a sweet hug after San Diego State topped Creighton in the Elite Eight

San Diego State’s Adam Seiko and Creighton’s Arthur Kaluma shared a sweet hug after the Elite Eight game.

San Diego State senior guard Adam Seiko and Creighton sophomore guard Arthur Kaluma shared a hug after a hard-fought Elite Eight game between their two teams.

The two siblings have now faced off in two March Madness games, but Seiko’s team defeating Kaluma’s team this year didn’t stop a really sweet moment of brotherly love after the contest.

Seiko’s San Diego State topped Kaluma’s Creighton, 57-56, on Sunday with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

It’s the first time in SDSU history that the school has made the prestigious final ranking of men’s NCAA tournament teams.

However, family always comes first, as Seiko and Kaluma didn’t miss out an opportunity to support each other after the final horn.

That’s a really cool moment between two siblings and excellent college basketball players who found themselves in quite a moment.

After Kaluma’s Creighton got to advance past Seiko’s SDSU last year in the tournament’s first round, it’s now Seiko’s turn to have Kaluma cheering him on in the stands.

[pickup_prop id=”32762″]