NCAA men's basketball tournament news stories on Newser

Big East Loses Big Time

Mark Russell — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 06:13:01 CDT

The Big East is the Big Least so far in this year's NCAA tournament, reports the New York Times . After a record-setting 11 Big East Conference teams qualified for the men's basketball tournament, now only two remain. “The results obviously aren’t what we were hoping for,” said the league commissioner....

Butler Stuns Top-Seed Pitt

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:01:43 CDT

With plenty of help from Pittsburgh, Butler found another way to pull off a stunning upset in the NCAA tournament. Matt Howard made one free throw with 0.8 seconds left to cap a wild final sequence, and No. 8 Butler shocked the top-seeded Panthers 71-70 tonight to advance to...

How Nate Silver Fills Out His NCAA Bracket

Kevin Spak — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:54:45 CDT

Nate Silver is a famed political number-cruncher, and was once a revered baseball statistician. So when he goes to fill out his March Madness bracket, he doesn’t just pick whichever names sound good. Instead, the New York Times writer has analyzed data from all the tournament games dating back to...

March Madness Expands to 68 Teams

Kevin Spak — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:41:41 CDT

March Madness will be just a wee bit madder next year, expanding from 65 teams to 68, the NCAA announced today. Essentially there will be three extra early “play-in” games, ESPN explains. There had been talk of expanding the tournament to as many as 96 teams and engulfing the NIT,...

Jennifer Hudson Tarnishes One Shining Moment

M. Morris — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:59:05 CDT

CBS dropped the ball on the most eagerly awaited part of its NCAA basketball tournament coverage, critics agree. Hiring Jennifer Hudson—who isn't even a CBS recording artist—to sing "One Shining Moment" was one thing, but turning the wildly popular annual highlight montage into a Jennifer Hudson video was...

Duke Reclaims National Crown

Will McCahill — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:33:00 CDT

Cinderella Butler took favored Duke to the wire tonight in the NCAA men's basketball championship game, but couldn't quite complete the voyage, with the Blue Devils holding on for a 61-59 victory after the Bulldogs' last chance clanged off the rim at the buzzer. It's the school's fourth title under...

President Schools Hoops Analyst in H-O-R-S-E

M. Morris — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:03:00 CDT

CBS basketball analyst Clark Kellogg knows pressure—he played for Ohio State and the Indiana Pacers before moving to the TV studio—but he appears to have let his guard down on the White House court. In a game of H-O-R-S-E—renamed P-O-T-U-S, a common abbreviation of "president of the...

Duke Returns to Title Game

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:34:16 CDT

Duke moved within 40 minutes of its first national title in 9 years tonight, getting 23 points from Jon Scheyer to pull away from West Virginia, 78-57. Kyle Singler had 21 and Nolan Smith 19 for the Blue Devils, who squashed West Virginia's feel-good story and will now try to...

No. 1 Seed Duke Advances

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:51:25 CDT

Nolan Smith scored a career-high 29 points and top-seeded Duke used a big run late in the game to beat Baylor, 78-71, today in Houston. Duke, the lone No. 1 seed remaining in the tournament, will play in the national semis for the first time since 2004, against East Regional...