Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery: The Best Bromance in Sports

          When March comes around you can count on the madness that comes with the NCAA tournament: A 15-seed upsetting a 2-seed, an 11-seed reaching the Final Four. What is more predictable than the games themselves is the greatness of two of the men that call some of those games, the broadcasting tandem made up of play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist and color commentator Bill Raftery.

The Bounty on Arizona Coach Sean Miller

T-ing Him Up

         There were 4 minutes and 37 seconds left in the Pac-12 tournament men’s basketball semifinals. The Arizona Wildcats were up two against the UCLA Bruins with a trip to the conference tournament finals on the line. Arizona point guard Mark Lyons was called for a controversial double dribble and their coach Sean Miller repeated to the ref “He touched the ball, he touched the ball,” referring to the Bruins’ defender who put his hand on the ball as Lyons picked up his dribble and then dropped the ball again, a play that calls for a play-on, not a double dribble. Miller was given a technical foul by referee Michael Irving for his comments, UCLA’s Jordan Adams made both technical free throws, and UCLA ended up winning the game by two, 66-64.

         In the press conference after the game, Miller stated that he used no curse words nor did he act in a condescending way towards the referees after the double dribble call, essentially, there was no

VCU: First Four to Final Four

Beating the Goliaths

The single greatest run to the Final Four in NCAA history. 11 seeded VCU, thanks to the introduction of the First Four games, became the first team ever to make it to the Final Four by winning five games. Of those five wins only one, their Sweet Sixteen matchup against 10th seeded Florida State, was the only close one. In beating USC (by 13), Georgetown (by 18), Purdue (by 18), Florida State (by 1 in OT), and Kansas (by 10) VCU of the Colonial Athletic Association defeated members of 5 of the 6 power conferences: Pac-10, Big East, Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12 respectively. It is too bad that the Rams could not play an SEC team in the Final Four, then maybe they would have won. But fellow mid major Butler gave the Rams all they could handle in a 70-62 win for the Bulldogs (a score that really does not represent how close the game truly was).

Arizona’s Derrick Williams in the NCAA Tournament

Pulling Away From the Field

Derrick Williams was a man amongst boys playing in this tournament. Straight up. The sophomore forward for the Arizona Wildcats was already a top prospect in the NBA draft but with Kyrie Irving recovering from a toe injury and with Jared Sullinger announcing his return to Ohio State, Williams proved to be, as of now, the consensus number one pick in the 2011 NBA draft. It seemed like he was playing so well in the regular season that all he could go was down in stock. He may have been playing for the Arizona Wildcats, the Pac-10 regular season champions, 

The Worst Story a Knicks Fan Can Hear

WHY????!!????

It’s been more than 2 years and almost all signs of the Isiah Thomas era in New York have been wiped away. Just as things are starting to look good for the Knicks and the expectations are as high as they’ve been in a decade, James Dolan brings back the one person guaranteed to ruin everything. The Knicks re-hired Isiah Thomas as a consultant.

There is absolutely NO reason for this to happen. The only way one can look at this optimistically is that he is consulting on draft picks for the Knicks. The one thing right that he did in his reign of terror was make good draft picks low in the draft. In the 2004 Draft he selected Trevor Ariza with the 43rd pick. In 2005 he drafted Channing Frye (8th overall), David Lee (30th), and traded 

NCAA Tournament Opening Round Game

         In honor of the start of the 2010 NCAA tournament, it’s time to discuss one of the most pointless games in one of the best sporting events of the year, the opening round game. The first game of the NCAA tournament is played on the Tuesday after Selection Sunday between the two lowest seeded, automatic bid teams. The winner has the honor of playing one of the number one seeds in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. If you ever wondered why 65 teams, as opposed to 64, make it into the tournament, it’s because of this extra game. This year, the opening round game is between Winthrop, winner of Big South Conference, and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, winner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The victor then plays Duke in the first round. Is it me or is this game 100% useless?

The Play-In Game

Originally named the “play-in game,” the NCAA now refers to it as the “opening round game” because technically the two teams playing in it are in