The Cover Story: Selection Sunday

Here is a look  at how newspapers around the country covered Selection Sunday. 

It's tourney time

After months of waiting the NCAA Lacrosse tournament is set to start. Here are our picks for the opening round of the tournament:

• Lehigh (12-4) at No. 5 North Carolina (12-3): North Carolina 
• Yale (11-4) at No. 8 Penn State (12-4):  Yale 
• Detroit (5-9) at No. 2 Notre Dame (10-4): Notre Dame
• Albany (13-4) at No. 4 Denver (12-4): Albany  
• Towson (10-7) at No. 3 Ohio State (12-3): Ohio State 
• Loyola (Md.) (11-4) at No. 7 Duke (12-5): Loyola 
• Bryant (8-10) at No. 1 Syracuse (13-3): Cuse 
• Cornell (12-3) at No. 6 Maryland (10-3): Cornell  

It will never be the same

For all of the talk last week of Big East Tournament ending as we know it. The grand daddy of them all, The ACC Tournament, is set to go through changes that will change it forever. With all of the talk of the possibly moving the ACC tournament to NYC, Greensboro and ACC are at a crossroads. As a fan of the ACC, the last place that I want to see the tournament its home is in Greensboro. Yes Greensboro.

OTWT NCAA Selection Committee Thoughts

So we have our field of 68 for the NCAA Tournament and for the most part you can't argue with the teams selections. The biggest issue I have with this committee is the seeding of the teams that they selected.

Here are some quick thoughts about the field:

• How is Miami not a number 1 seed. They won the ACC regular season and tournament title and they are only a 2 seed. Would that have happened if this was UNC or Duke.
• The committee must hate Larry Scott the Pac 12. How does the Pac 12 tournament champion, Oregon, ended up with a 12 seed. A 12 seed from a power conference is usually saved for one of the last at-large bids from a power league, not a tournament champion that was ranked for most of the year. 
• A couple of upsets: Colorado over Illinois; Ole Miss over Wisconsin; and Oregon over Okie State.
• Players that America will get to know: Colorado guard Spencer Dinwiddie and Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson. 

Maybe Golf was not her deal

In honor of the US Women's Open final round today, lets remember the person that lost in a playoff to Se Ri Pak the last time the event was played at Blackwolf Run. In a sudden death playoff, Pak defeated then amateur Jenny Chuasiriporn. For Jenny, the playoff ended up being the highlight of her career, now she has a higher calling. Chuasiriporn, U.S. Women’s Open Playoff Loss Was a Turning Point.

OTWT MLB Mock Draft

For the second year in a row the OTWT Scouting Staff has been locked up going over the top prospect in the MLB Draft. Here is our mock draft for the opening round of the Rule 4 Draft. First round:


1. Houston Astros: Byron Buxton, OF, Georgia HS

2. Minnesota Twins: Mark Appel, RHP, Stanford
3. Seattle Mariners:Kyle Zimmerman, RHP, San Francisco
4. Baltimore Orioles: Kevin Gausman, RHP, LSU
5. Kansas City Royals: Mike Zunino, C, Florida




6. Chicago Cubs: Albert Almora, OF, Texas High School
7. San Diego Padres: Marcus Stroman, RHP, Duke
8. Pittsburgh Pirates: Carlos Correa, SS, Puerto Rico
9. Miami Marlins: David Dahl, OF, Oklahoma HS
10. Colorado Rockies: Micheal Wacha, RHP, Texas A&M
11. Oakland Athletics: Max Fried, LHP, California High School
12. New York Mets: Devin Marrero, SS, Arizona State
13. Chicago White Sox: Andrew Heaney, LHP, Oklahoma State
14. Cincinnati Reds: Chris Stratton, RHP, Mississippi State
15. Cleveland Indians: Richie Shaffer, 3B, Clemson
16. Washington Nationals: Lucas Giolito, RHP, California HS
17. Toronto Blue Jays: Courtney Hawkins, OF, Texas HS





18. Los Angeles Dodgers: Gavin Cecchini, SS, Lousianna HS
19. St. Louis Cardinals (A. Pujols – LAA): Lance McCullers Jr, RHP, Florida HS
20. San Francisco Giants: Nick Travieso, RHP, Florida HS
21. Atlanta Braves: DJ Davis, OF, Mississippi HS
22. Toronto Blue Jays (T. Beede – unsigned): Ty Hensley, RHP, Oklahoma HS
23. St. Louis Cardinals: Victor Roache, OF, Georgia Southern
24. Boston Red Sox: J.O. Berrios, RHP, Puerto Rico
25. Tampa Bay Rays: Matt Smoral, LHP, Ohio HS
26. Arizona Diamondbacks:Corey Seager, 3B, North Carolina HS
27. Milwaukee Brewers (P. Fielder – DET): Addison Russell, SS, Florida HS
28. Milwaukee Brewers: Stephen Piscotty, 3B, Stanford
29. Texas Rangers:Lucas Sims, RHP, Georgia HS
30. New York Yankees: Stryker Trahan, C, Lousianna HS





31. Boston Red Sox (J. Papelbon – PHI):Tyler Naquin, OF, Texas A&M

Is lacrosse on the down slide

Over the weekend the NCAA held their lacrosse championship in Foxboro, Mass. The event was lowest draw since 2002. Does this main lacrosse's popularity is falling. Inside Lacrosse takes a look at the attendance and what changes could be coming. Was some the lack of attendance because of lack of area schools or is it at trend. I think that is the question that needs to be answered.

Its move in day in Bracketville

In honor of the field of 68 being announced, here is my favorite ad campaign developed for the NCAA Tournament. In 2000, Nike developed the concept of Bracketville and I loved it.It's a whole town dedicated to March Madness

 


The Bracketville Fruit Stand.
 

The Bracketville Hardware Stand

A Day at the Big East Tournament With Jay Bilas, what could be better

Over the last couple of years ESPN's Jay Bilas has grown into one of the best color guys in college basketball. Some people hate him, other love him and many other find him annoying. The Big Lead, a sports blog, spent a day at the Big East Tournament with Bilas and boy is it interesting.

Live Blogging: Duke vs. North Carolina Round 1

College Basketball: The Cover Story

The college basketball season is here and here are the Sporting News covers for their college basketball preview issues.

This Shirt Says it All

Nothing beats winning a regular season championship, especially when you beat Duke to do it.

The Cover Story: Sporting News College Basketball Preview

The season is only 10 days away and I could not be happier. Here are all of the covers of the Sporting News College Basketball previews from around the country.

Really Nike

So Duke is the national champion and as a Carolina fan this is not good.
But now Nike is getting into the act. In this week's SI, Nike took out a full page ad saying that "order has been restored". I wish I was making this up but I'm not. Where was Nike when Carolina won two titles in the last five years. I guess they were never gone, so they had nothing to restore.

Cover Story: The Final Four

The games have been played and finally we have our Final Four teams. Butler, West Virginia, Duke, and Michigan State. Here is how the newspapers in those towns covered the events.

The Herald Dispatch (West Virgina)

A new way to recruit

For the last couple of year the world of recruiting has started to change. Instead of players keeping their views on their recruitment underwraps, players are taking all of the their thoughts to the public, while others are coming up with tech savy ways of announcing which programs they will play for.

St. Patrick's Guard Kyrie Irving has been at the front of using social media during the process. Irving, who has signed on to play at Duke, has been keeping people up to date with his views with his twitter account. In October, Irving let the world know that he was hanging out with fellow top recruit Tobias Harris at Kentucky. In addition to the twitter, Irving also has a ustream channel that he takes questions from different fans. The twitter aspects of recruiting appears to be growing with 2010 basketball class: Will Barton (Memphis), CJ Fair (undecided), Josh Shelby (undecided), and Kendall Marshall (North Carolina) all have accounts, some of them are open to the public while others are protected. These few just show how much social media is growing when it comes to recruiting.

On Friday, Harrison Barnes took announcing his college pick to a different level. After giving a speech about the final six six schools that were involved in the recruiting process, Barnes said he would Skype the college coach that he was committing to after a couple of seconds Roy Williams face popped up on the screen. I guess the days of just picking a hat up and putting it on are almost over.

Social media is continuing to grow and over the next couple of years many other top high school players wilil be turning to social media.

Same ole story

Maybe North Carolina should start playing their home games at Cameron Indoor. Last night the Heels did what they do best win at Cameron Indoor, for the four straight year the Heels went into the so called toughest place to win and beat Duke again.

Oh it makes me feel so good to know that Duke fans are all questioning what is going on and with the classes that the Heels have coming in during the next couple of years this could go on for sometime.

Number 1 with a bullet

With the college basketball season some four months away, the national champion may have already been crowd. Yesterday the trio of Lawson, Green and Ellington gave Roy Williams the best summer gift that he could ever have, they all decided to spent another year in Carolina Blue.

The starting five at Carolina is second to none in America: Psycho-T, Lawson, Green, Ellington, Deon Thompson. There is no team that is even close, not even Kansas or Memphis or even Duke.

So it might be too early to print the 2008-2009 National Championship shirts, but come the Final Four at Ford Field, the Heels should be holding the trophy and painting Detroit a shade of Carolina Blue.

One Shining Moment through the decade

One of the things that makes the NCAA Tournament so much fund is the end, when CBS decides to run One Shining Moment. The song has been the unofficial ending of the college basketball season for almost 30 years. Lets hope this years is as good as all of the prior years.

2000

2001



2002

2003



2004

2005

2005: 25th anniversary of One Shining Moment was show right before the national semifinals

2006


2007



2008: ???????

Dancing our way to the ACC Regular Season Title

ACC Regular Season Champs

Psycho T always destroys senior nights, right JJ, right DeMarcus, right Landlord.