Tag: NCAAB

Montana State’s clarinet player is the early March Madness breakout star

CLARINET GUY!!!

During Wednesday night’s First Four matchup between Grambling State and Montana State for a 16 seed, a star emerged, and he plays the clarinet.

An incredibly animated clarinet player in the Montana State turned into one of the early social media favorites of this year’s March Madness.

Really, this college musician, sporting long hair and a beard, gave it 110-percent while he was playing the clarinet in the stands with his bandmates.

It was an inspired performance that the broadcast couldn’t cut away from, one that instantly went viral for how passionate this clarinet player was for his March Madness set.

We like to think Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants would be proud to see someone embrace playing the clarinet in such a glorious way.

Win or lose for Montana State, college basketball fans couldn’t get enough of clarinet guy, who will be one of the definitive highlights of this year’s NCAA tournament.

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Howard’s 3 failed chances to defeat Wagner for a 16 seed summed up the heartbreak of March Madness

March Madness holds some very real heartbreak for some teams.

If you want to know the thin margin for error in March Madness, look no further than the First Four game between Howard and Wagner on Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio.

The two programs duked it out for one of the 16 seeds in this year’s NCAA tournament on the men’s side, with Wagner eventually coming out victorious at the very last second with a 71-68 victory.

What made it such a devastating moment for Howard is that the team had three 3-point attempts right before the buzzer to get the walk-off victory.

Sadly for Howard, none of the three attempts connected with the basket, and the team had to end its March Madness appearance early.

This is exactly why losing in March can be such a tough thing for a college basketball team, and why it’s often so, so close between who advances and who gets sent home when it’s tournament time.

Wagner escaped to make it past the First Four, while Howard had to soak in one of the most difficult feelings of disappointment for any sports team this time of year: so close, yet just not quite enough.

The 1 women’s team from 2023’s Elite Eight that didn’t make this year’s tournament

Only one women’s team from last year’s Elite Eight missed this year’s tournament.

The 2024 women’s NCAA tournament field is set, and there are plenty of returning teams from last year’s Elite Eight.

Seven teams in total returned to contend for a national title this year, including Iowa, LSU, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Louisville and Maryland.

However, one team didn’t make the cut and opted not to participate in the WBIT this season, and that’s Miami.

Our Mitchell Northam named Miami as one of the three major snubs on the women’s side this year, a team that made it to the Elite Eight as a nine-seed last March.

The team lost to LSU in that tournament, who went on to win the national title.

An honest mistake kept Kent State from punching its ticket to the men’s NCAA tournament in heartbreaking fashion

Oh, this is painful to watch.

Kent State nearly made the 2024 men’s NCAA tournament as a shocking underdog as the unexpected MAC title winners, but the team lost out on that chance in the most heartbreaking fashion.

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With just a few seconds to go in Saturday’s MAC championship game, Kent State got a single-point lead over Akron with hopes high of closing out the game with a huge victory.

However, Kent State’s Julius Rollins mistakenly fouled Akron’s Greg Tribble after the latter’s team got the ball back and sent Tribble to the free-throw line.

Tribble hit the two baskets and sent Akron to the tournament with the last-second title win. For Kent State, it was absolutely devastating way to lose the game.

Kent State coach Rob Senderoff’s reaction to the foul was just as tough to watch as Rollins realizing his honest-yet-costly mistake in the moment.

While you never want to point to one moment in a game as the sole reason your team lost, Kent State will probably be winding this game back and finding the moments that kept it from stunning the league with an unexpected tournament berth.

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A North Carolina fan hilariously held up a ‘Where’s Dook?’ sign behind Jay Bilas during ESPN broadcast

North Carolina fans are not going to miss a chance to troll Duke.

The North Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry burns with an eternal flame of pettiness, as evident by this intrepid Tarheels fan during ESPN’s broadcast of the 2024 ACC men’s tournament.

The fan in question held up a sign on their phone that read “Where’s Dook?” and wore a sweatshirt showing the image of Duke’s Kyle Filipowski seemingly tripping North Carolina’s Harrison Ingram in a game last week.

IT’S BRACKET MADNESS: Enter USA TODAY’s NCAA tournament bracket contest for a chance at $1 million prize.

The “Where’s Dook” slogan goes back to a sign held up by former UNC basketball player Makhtar N’Diaye, who was in the stands for the 2009 national championship game between North Carolina and Michigan State, which the Tarheels won.

Of course, the sign asks where archrival Duke is if North Carolina advances in any basketball setting where Duke hasn’t.

The reason for the trolling? Duke was eliminated in the ACC tournament and UNC will play NC State for the conference title on Saturday night.

The fan did the UNC trolling behind Jay Bilas of all people, the former Duke basketball standout and assistant coach under Mike Krzyzewski.

As you can imagine, this North Carolina fan will have plenty of support from fellow Tarheels.

Feature image courtesy of ESPN.

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Twitter rips Tony Bennett in upset for not having Virginia use a foul before NC State’s game-tying 3

Why didn’t he have Virginia foul??

Virginia got taken down by NC State in an intense overtime game in the 2024 ACC tournament, and it’s head coach Tony Bennett who’s taking the heat.

With the Cavaliers up 58-55 and with just seconds to go, Isaac McKneely missed a free throw, and the Wolfpack’s Michael O’Connell launched a three at the buzzer that banked off the glass, rattled around and went in to force overtime. NC State went on to win and advance.

IT’S BRACKET MADNESS: Enter USA TODAY’s NCAA tournament bracket contest for a chance at $1 million prize.

So what did Bennett do? It’s what he didn’t do, actually — Virginia had fouls to give and could have perhaps fouled as the ball was coming up to stop the clock and reset everything.

Bennett’s explanation, as you’ll see below, was to NOT foul when O’Connell was getting close to pulling up for three, which made sense:

Fans were mad:

Drake recreated his infamous Kentucky locker room photo during tour stop at Rupp Arena

It’s really been 10 years since this happened

The year was 2014. Guardians of the Galaxy was dominating the box office, season three of Scandal was about to drop and Drake was pretending to be a college basketball player.

You know what I’m talking about. The rapper showed up to Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness event to kickoff the upcoming season and really tried to act like just one of the 18-22 year olds on the roster.

It was weird! He stuck out completely. Then he embarrassed himself further with an airball during warmups before the scrimmage. Well, a decade later, Drake was back in Lexington for a show at Rupp Arena on Sunday and he couldn’t help but poke a bit of fun at himself.

https://www.instagram.com/champagnepapi/p/C4XwGzEuGFV/?hl=en

It’s worth remembering how absolutely stacked that 2014-15 Kentucky team was. We joked at the time about head coach John Calipari platooning his players, but with names like Devin Booker, Tyler Ulis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles, Alex Poythress and the Harrison twins, Kentucky’s practices may have been more difficult than some of their opponents that year.

But the larger point here is this: the last time Drake took a photo sitting in the Wildcats’ clubhouse like that, Kentucky made a run to the Final Four where a then 38-0 team was upset by Wisconsin.

The 2023-24 Wildcats finished fourth in the SEC with a 23-8 record (13-5 SEC) and can use all the help they can get heading into the NCAA tournament.

Maybe, just this one time, the Drake Curse might actually be a good thing for Kentucky.

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Dawn Staley had the perfect advice for South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso before game-winning 3-pointer

Good advice, Coach!

South Carolina’s women’s basketball team stayed undefeated on the season on Saturday in a stunning finish against Tennessee.

Center Kamilla Cardoso hit a clutch 3-pointer as the clock expired to give South Carolina the 74-73 victory at home over the Lady Vols in one of the best endings to a basketball game this season.

After the game, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley told ESPN what advice she gave Cardoso before she saved the team’s undefeated season. It’s pretty perfect.

“The last thing that came out of my mouth was ‘Kamilla, shoot that blanky blank,'” Staley quipped in the postgame interview about her advice to Cardoso.

Cardoso took her coach’s suggestion and it worked out more than fine for South Carolina as the team earned the hard-fought victory over Tennessee.

The team will undoubtedly remain atop the rankings and should be a favorite once the 2024 NCAA women’s tournament gets going later this month.

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North Alabama’s KJ Johnson hit an improbable buzzer-beater while falling for ASUN tournament victory over old team

Who says March Madness has to wait for the NCAA tournament?

For an early taste in what March Madness is all about, the six-seeded North Alabama men’s basketball team won on a jaw-dropping buzzer-beater in its Atlantic Sun championship game at Lipscomb.

As the Lions got the ball back with just seconds on the clock, guard KJ Johnson took a prayer of a shot in the paint with tight defense on him to win it as the clock hit zero, 77-75.

What’s cool about the moment is that Johnson is from just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, where Lipscomb is located, and he played his first couple of seasons for the Bisons before transferring to North Alabama.

Johnson’s stunning heroics at the buzzer gave his team the upset road win to remember to advance in the ASUN tournament.

Watching the replay, we’re really not sure how Johnson got this shot off with such firm defense on him, but it just makes the basket all that more impressive.

It’s a tough loss for Lipscomb, who held the three seed, but a heck of a story for Johnson, the pride of Marshall County, as he returned home for the perfect victory.

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Western Michigan completed the most unbelievable cross-court bounce pass to top Ball State at the buzzer

You HAVE to see this buzzer-beater from Western Michigan.

The Western Michigan men’s basketball team put on an absolute clinic for how you win a road game with a bounce pass and a buzzer-beater on Saturday.

With just 1.6 seconds on the clock, the team was tied at 76 with Ball State with only an inbound pass and possible last-second shot in its back pocket.

Needing to get the ball from one side of the court to the other, Western Michigan’s Ja’Vaughn Hannah completed the most unreal cross-court bounce pass you’ve ever seen to teammate Anthony Crump, who floated the ball right into the hoop as the buzzer expired for the victory.

This is just one of those highlights you have to watch a couple of times to really soak in just how incredible it really is.

We’re really not sure how Western Michigan pulled this off, as it’s such an improbable way to win a basketball game. However, the team found a way, and the ensuing celebration was absolutely deserved for such heroics.

Feature image courtesy of ESPN.

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