Who’ll get Invite to March Madness 09?
Selection Sunday is on March 15, in case you didn’t know.
That means, you should now be getting ready for the March Madness bracket tournament with Selection Sunday just around the corner. The opening round of the tournament begins on March 17 as the rest of the field gets narrowed down to four for the 2009 NCAA Final Four on April 4 and 6 at Ford Field in Detroit Michigan.
The predictions for which college teams will be picked for the 2009 March Madness bracket tournament have been coming out since the last tournament finished. The phrase ‘’March Madness’’ was coined by Henry V. Porter in 1939, to describe an Illinois high school basketball tourney. Brent Musburger first used it during his NCAA coverage in 1982 causing a legal battle almost as insane as the playoffs. But everyone finally worked things out and the madness was official. There isn’t a good record of who first called the playoffs ‘The Big Dance,’ but it does describe the action.
The five schools who have the winningnest history in NCAA Division I Men’s basketball include UCLA with 11 championships; Kentucky who won the March Madness tourney seven times; Indiana with 5 Big Dance victories; the North Carolina Tar Heels having outlasted all the other teams 4 times, including their championship win in 2005, and Duke with 3 titles.
There are 8 teams that won twice and others who are trying to reach that goal this year.
Leading the division in the America East are the Vermont Catamounts and Binghamton Bearcats. The Catamounts have a 23-7 record with a 13-3 card in conference play while the Bearcats have a 20-8 mark.Mike Trimboli, a candidate for America East Player of the Year honors, was doubtful with an undisclosed illness that forced him to miss the regular-season finale at Maine. That ended a streak of 123 straight starts for the senior. How valuable is he? He finished second in the conference in assists, steals and assist/turnover ratio, third in free-throw percentage, fifth in scoring and 3-point percentage, tied for seventh in minutes played and ninth in field-goal percentage.
Binghamton won its last eight games of the regular season and 10 of its last 11 to steam into the America East tournament as the winners of the conference even though the Bearcats finished tied with Vermont at 13-3.Going to the West Division, the 23-7 Washington Huskies clinched no worse than a tie for the Pac-10 title by sweeping Arizona State and Arizona at home. Jon Brockman had 21 points and 11 rebounds against Arizona State, then 19 points and 11 rebounds vs. Arizona. The senior forward has 15 double-doubles this season and is college basketball’s active career leader with 57.
The 22-7 UCLA Bruins, on the other hand, turned momentum late in the first half of their win at Cal by pulling off a rare seven-point play. Nikola Dragovic completed a layup and two free throws after an intentional foul call, before Michael Roll hit a 3-pointer after the ensuing inbounds play.The Bruins can grab a share of the Pac-10 title with Washington if they sweep the Oregon schools at home and the Huskies lost to rival Washington State, winner of its past three games. Short of that, the Bruins are focusing on the big picture, and they should get the chance to tinker and hone their game against the overmatched Beavers and Ducks. UCLA beat these two by a combined margin of 32 points in Oregon on the opening weekend of the Pac-10 schedule.
With two conference games remaining, the Bowling Green Falcons remains in a first-place tie in the Mid-American Conference East with Buffalo at 10-4. With two wins over the Bulls this season, BG holds the tie-breaker over Buffalo.
Bowling Green knocked Akron out of the tie for first in the East with a 50-46 victory on March 1. The Falcons’ record of 17-11 overall and 10-4 in the MAC, as of March 2, is the best for the program since the 2004-05 team went 18-11 and 10-8. The Bulls improved to 18-9 overall and 10-4 in MAC play, tied with Bowling Green for the top spot with two games left in the regular season. It marked a season sweep for the Bulls over Ohio, as the Bulls also overcame a late deficit to beat the Bobcats in Buffalo earlier this year.
With 18 wins on the season, Buffalo has now won 18 or more games in four of the last six seasons. That is quite a departure from when Buffalo first joined the MAC in 1998. In the first six seasons as a member of the MAC, the Bulls had a double-digit win total only once.
The top two teams in Conference USA are the Memphis Tigers and the UAB Blazers. The Tigers accomplished their first goal of the season, winning the Conference USA regular-season title. But there’s still more work to be done. Memphis has put together its current 56-game win streak in Conference USA play despite a major turnover in personnel from last year. The Blazers were able to recover from the tough loss to Memphis with a bounce-back win on the road against East Carolina. The game featured a number of subs who were able to come in and play well, potentially earning more playing time in the future because of the confidence they’ve given Mike Davis. The Blazers can’t afford not to go deep on the bench in the coming weeks, as the games will be more and more important, and the starters can’t afford to be tired in the closing minutes of games either.
Which team will win the 2009 NCAA college basketball national championship? SportsBetting.com has the odds.
Memphis Tigers 50-1
Kansas Jayhawks 60-1
Want more odds? Visit SportsBetting.com for more basketball betting odds. Want to watch college basketball live? Get college basketball tickets online now.
Loading ...