Here is a rundown of all of today’s action, and a quick recap of yesterday…
NEWS AND NOTES
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE
-For the MattSarzSports.com viewing guide, which is the best on the internet – CLICK HERE
-For Warren Nolan’s men’s basketball page, which is the best of its kind on the internet – CLICK HERE
-Stony Brook led Vandy for most of regulation, but couldn’t hold on at the end. Vandy ended up forcing overtime, then winning in overtime.
-Boise State, who I still think is good despite the fact that they lost their opener, made Arizona Sweat for about 35 minutes, but Arizona ended up pulling away. They certainly didn’t win decisively, but they weren’t sweating in the final minutes.
-Temple pulled out a win against Minnesota in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, and George Mason picked up their first win of the year by beating Ole Miss in the Charleston Classic. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I was surprised by either result, but those certainly weren’t the teams I would have picked to win those two games.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-WISCONSIN VS GEORGETOWN (2k Classic). Georgetown opened with a rather surprising loss to Radford, but followed that up with a gutty performance against at Maryland in what was one of the better games of the young season so far. I like this Georgetown team, and even though they may start off in a little bit of a hole, I think they’re still going to have a good season. Wiscy also began the season with a surprising loss of their own, so the story line of this game is that it’s two good teams looking to climb out of a little bit of an early hole.
-DUKE VS VCU (2k Classic). Duke is coming off a loss to Kentucky on a neutral floor that will do absolutely nothing to hurt their chances of getting a #1 seed. This semifinal field has four really good teams in it and if Duke can win both games they’re right back to being in fantastic shape. VCU beat a pretty good Radford team rather decisively, so they may be capable of making Duke sweat a little bit.
-MIAMI FL VS UTAH (Puerto Rico Tip-Off). Both teams come into this game 3-0, and although not much attention has been paid to Miami FL, they have looked very impressive in all of their games so far. This is a neutral floor game between two teams that will likely be wearing white in the round of 64, so it’s a chance for us to learn about both of them.
-TEMPLE VS BUTLER (Puerto Rico Tip-Off). As mentioned earlier, Temple was not the team I was expecting to see in this game. Now that they’re here, I don’t think they’ll put up much of a fight against a Butler team who has rolled over everyone they’ve faced so far.
-GEORGE MASON VS OKLAHOMA STATE (Charleston Classic). Oklahoma State can improve to 4-0, and you can’t ask for a better start than that.
-LONG BEACH STATE VS VIRGINIA (Charleston Classic). Long Beach is in rebuilding mode, but they’ve looked pretty good so far with notable wins against BYU and Seton Hall. They are likely overmatched today, but they may be better than we expected. If they pull off a stunner and win today, then suddenly we’re talking about them being a team that can land inside the bubble.
-OHIO VS TULSA (Paradise Jam). Both teams are 2-0 and Tulsa is coming off a big home win against Wichita State. If they can follow that up by picking up some notable neutral floor wins in this tournament it will really look good on their profile come March.
-HOFSTRA VS FLORIDA STATE (Paradise Jam). Both teams come in unbeaten. Hofstra is one of several teams in their conference that returned several key players from last season and appears to be improved. For teams like them these tournaments are huge opportunities to build their NCAA resumes.
-DEPAUL VS SOUTH CAROLINA (Paradise Jam). South Carolina is 2-0 and can give their season a big springboard if they can do well in this tournament.
-FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL VS JAMES MADISON (Men Against Breast Cancer Classic). JMU is coming off a loss to West Virginia and needs to rebound.
-NORTHEASTERN VS FLORIDA ATLATNIC (Men Against Breast Cancer Classic). I like this Northeastern Team. This wouldn’t be a great win by any means, but it is a win away from home.
-SIENA VS RADFORD (2k Classic). See Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day Here
-DELAWARE AT IONA. Iona is our preseason favorite to win the MAAC, but they’ve looked pitiful in both games so far. They’ll have to play a lot better if they want to beat what is a pretty good Delaware team.
-MURRAY STATE AT GEORGIA. This is a buy game, but Murray State did win their first game despite being in rebuilding mode, and Georgia needs to rebound from their opening loss to Chattanooga, so we’ll put it with the highlighted games.
-PENN STATE AT DUQUESNE. We’re not expecting big things out of either team, but as of now both are unbeaten.
-COLUMBIA AT NORTHWESTERN. Northwestern can improve to 3-0 if they can knock off one of the favorites to win the Ivy League.
-XAVIER AT MICHIGAN. Both teams are unbeaten, but untested. Michigan has played just one div1 opponent, and Xavier didn’t exactly blow out a weak Miami OH or Missouri team. But, it’s a great early season test and a chance to pick up an early quality win for whoever comes out on top.
-EAST CAROLINA AT CALIFORNIA. This is likely a mismatch, but both come into this game 2-0.
BUY GAMES
-Arkansas Pine Bluff @ Michigan State
-East Tennessee State @ Villanova. Both teams unbeaten.
-UT Arlington @ Ohio State
-Stetson @ West Virginia
-Rider @ Maryland
-South Dakota @ Kansas State
-Wright State @ Kentucky
-McNeese State @ Oklahoma
-Jackson State @ Baylor
-Detroit @ Pittsburgh
-Portland @ Colorado
-Georgia Southern @ Auburn
-Savannah State @ Oregon. Both teams unbeaten
Throwback Thursday: 1979 NCAA Tournament
Click here for Chad’s daily UTR article
Click here for the season premiere of Chad and David’s Under the Radar video podcast
Also click here for Jon Teitel’s first-hand perspective of Monday night’s GW-UVa game
In today’s version of Throwback Thursday, we continue to look at how the NCAA Tournament began to evolve into the major event that it is today. Last week, we revisited the 1974 NCAA Tournament and its field of what was then 25 teams. Beginning in 1975, the NCAA allowed conferences to have up to 2 teams selected in the NCAA field. This made for a 32-team field for the next 4 seasons. For the 1978-79 season, the field would be expanded to 40 teams overall and, for the first time, teams would be seeded 1-10 in their respective regions. This meant that a team could have to win as many as 4 games just to reach the Final Four.
It makes for a perfect segue as we look at the East Regional for that year. Beginning with the 2 1st-round games played in Raleigh, 10th-seeded St. John’s defeated Temple and Ivy League champion Penn would defeat a Jim Valvano-led Iona team in the same round. This was merely a warm-up act; Penn would shock top-seeded North Carolina and St. John’s would defeat Duke (last season’s runner-up in the NCAA Tournament with a loss to Kentucky), much to the horror of UNC and Duke fans and much to the delight of NC State fans at their corner of the Triangle. The only higher-seeded team to not be upset in the 2nd round was Syracuse; they defeated Connecticut 89-81. (This was the season prior to the formation of the original Big East conference.) 3rd-seeded Georgetown would lose to Rutgers 64-58. As the East region moved to Greensboro, everything turned upside-down one more time as both 9th-seeded Penn and 10th-seeded St. John’s defeated Syracuse and Rutgers, respectively. In a tightly-fought game, Penn would edge St. John’s 64-62 to earn a trip to the Final Four; this was the 4th time the Ivy League advanced to the Final Four (Dartmouth made it in 1942 and 1944; Princeton in 1965).
In the Mideast Regional, there were 2 dominant teams in Notre Dame and Michigan State and a few other coaches (Iowa’s Lute Olson, Appalachian State’s Bobby Cremins and Lamar’s Billy Tubbs) who would go on to stardom at other schools. In this region, chalk held up for the most part in the early rounds; the only top seed to not advance was 4th-seeded Iowa. They would lose to Toledo in the 2nd round – their revenge would come a year later when Iowa advanced to the 1980 Final Four. As the region moved to Indianapolis, Michigan State would defeat a rising power in LSU and top-seeded Notre Dame would defeat Toledo in the Sweet 16. This would set up a classic matchup between top-seeded Notre Dame (which had 4 future NBA players in Kelly Tripucka, Bill Laimbeer, Orlando Woolridge and Bill Hanzlik) and Michigan State (featuring a tandem of Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Greg Kelser and another NBAer in Jay Vincent). On the day after St. Patrick’s Day, Irish luck ran out as Michigan State would advance to the Final Four with an 80-68 win over Notre Dame.
In the Midwest Regional, another Cinderella story was emerging with top-seeded Indiana State. The Sycamores began their season with a 63-53 win at Purdue and would win their next 26 games en route to the NCAA Tournament. This was shortly after Bill Hodges took over as head coach prior to the beginning of the season when Bob King was forced to resign as head coach for health reasons. Virginia Tech and Oklahoma offered little resistance for Indiana State in their first 2 games. Arkansas (under Eddie Sutton’s tutelage) featured a notable backcourt of Sidney Moncrief and U.S. Reed and would defeat Weber State and Louisville to advance to the Elite 8. (This wasn’t even as notable as the Arkansas-Louisville rematch in 1981; click here for U.S. Reed’s halfcourt winner in that game). As the teams fought to a 71-71 tie in Cincinnati, Bob Heaton would hit a game-winner to send the Sycamores to the Final Four. That was actually Heaton’s second buzzer-beater that season; he hit a half-court prayer against New Mexico State in the regular season to force overtime and keep the Sycamores’ perfect record intact.
Finally, in the West Regional, UCLA and DePaul were 2 dominant teams in a region that was, at the time, literally filled with mostly Western teams. UCLA and USC came out of the newly-expanded Pac-10 conference; other teams were Marquette as an at-large, San Francisco and Pepperdine came out of the West Coast Athletic Conference (now the WCC), Utah and BYU represented the original WAC, and Pacific and Utah State came out of what was then the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (now comprised of schools mostly in the Big West). For the most part, chalk held up as the top 4 seeds UCLA, DePaul, Marquette and San Francisco advanced to the Sweet 16. As the West Region moved to BYU’s campus in Provo, UCLA defeated San Francisco and DePaul defeated Marquette to set up a regional final between the top 2 seeds in the West. This would set up a rematch between the Bruins and the Blue Demons; UCLA defeated DePaul 108-85 in the season opener. DePaul would get their revenge as the Blue Demons would win 95-91 to give coach Ray Meyer his 2nd trip to the Final Four. His other trip came in his 1st season as DePaul’s head coach – back in 1943. That’s right, an astounding thirty-six seasons passed between his two Final Four appearances!
As the four teams converged together in Salt Lake City on Utah’s campus, NBC would have coverage of the Final Four for Saturday afternoon and Monday night. The ratings would reach record heights for the championship game and still have not been topped since that time. Michigan State finally made Penn look like a 9 seed as the Spartans humiliated the Quakers 101-67 in a game that was never competitive. The 2nd game was much more competitive and would also feature a who’s who of future NBA stars on the floor. The Blue Demons would be led by Mark Aguirre; the Sycamores would be led by Larry Bird. In a game that would feature several lead changes, Indiana State would win 76-74 to set up a much-anticipated Larry v. Magic final. To this day, no other team has ever advanced to the national championship game undefeated – not last year’s Kentucky team, not even UNLV’s team back in 1991. It was only 3 seasons prior that Indiana had finished their season undefeated with a national title. While the national championship was not quite the classic game that the record TV audience was hoping for, it did offer a glimpse of future stardom for both Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Michigan State would win 75-64 for the Spartans’ first title.
Meanwhile, in what could be considered the last real notable NIT, there were 24 teams selected that included Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State, Kentucky, Maryland, Dayton, Clemson, Alabama and Virginia. Indiana would win 53-52 in the title game. Thanks to one of our colleagues, we even have video footage of the Indiana-Purdue matchup; you can click here to watch that game. (Advance apologies for the quality of the footage)
You can also click here for the official 1979 NCAA Final Four video.