Bests
Blue Devils barely escape
Finish.
No. 2-seeded Duke escaped Belmont in a wild finish, 71-70. The Blue Devils stole an inbounds pass with four seconds left after scoring to take the lead with 11.9 seconds to go. That gave Greg Paulus, right, plenty to celebrate.
Freshman matchup.
O.J. Mayo vs. Michael Beasley was scintillating at times, but Beasley had a far bigger impact in leading Kansas State over Southern California with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Mayo had a quiet 20 points.
Ten and counting.
Purdue ran past Baylor 90-79 to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the 10th consecutive time since 1993.
Worsts
How low can you go?
Flash in the pan.
There are bad halves and then there were Kent State’s opening 20 minutes against UNLV. The Golden Flashes scored 10 points. North Carolina’s 20 points in 1941 set the all-time NCAA low.
*61.
Billy Crystal could have written a movie about the first three games of this year’s tournament. The three losing teams, Portland State, Temple and Georgia, all scored 61 points.
29 points?
Mississippi Valley State tied a futility mark dating 62 years as UCLA walloped the Delta Devils 70-29. Those were the fewest points scored in an NCAA Tournament since 1946 and fewest ever in a first-round game.
The Associated Press
Obama, McCain cast ballots for Tar Heels
Barack Obama picked North Carolina to win the NCAA championship, and he insists it has nothing to do with the May 6 primary worth 115 delegates. It has everything to do with 6-foot-9 Tyler Hansbrough.
“That’s a big boy, there,” he said.
The Democratic presidential candidate selected North Carolina, Kansas, Pittsburgh and UCLA in his Final Four bracket. He has North Carolina beating UCLA in the championship game.
Originally, Obama had chosen Stanford to beat Pittsburgh because of the Cardinal’s 7-foot twins. And in an interview Thursday with WRBZ-AM in Raleigh, N.C., Obama put Stanford in his Final Four. Obama’s staff said he could have been leaning toward the team at one point, but Pittsburgh is his Final Four choice.
The Illinois senator, an avid basketball player and brother-in-law of Brown basketball coach Craig Robinson, began working on his NCAA bracket during his short North Carolina flight Wednesday from Fayetteville to Charlotte. The campaign staff is competing in a $10-per-person pool.
Intent on being part of March Madness, Republican rival John McCain has an NCAA bracket competition on his campaign website.
“McCain brackets are back!” the site said. “Compare your basketball picks to John McCain and be eligible for great McCain 2008 prizes.”
McCain also picked North Carolina to win it all, beating Connecticut in the final. Kansas and Memphis rounded out his Final Four. McCain, who is opposed to gambling on college sports, is giving away a “McCain 2008 fleece” to the winner of his pool.
Sidestepping the NCAA Tournament as if it were a third-rail campaign issue, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her camp has decided to pass on making any predictions.
Either she or Obama still has to make it out of the Democratic side of the presidential bracket to face McCain in the final.
Wildcat blues
Record appearance
short-lived. Kentucky played
in a record 49th NCAA Tournament,
but it lasted only one
game. Despite 35 points by Joe
Crawford, the 11th-seeded Wildcats
lost 74-66 to No. 6 seed
Marquette in a South Regional
game at Anaheim, Calif.
No. 1 for a reason
Hasn’t happened yet. A
No. 16 seed has never beaten a
No. 1. But Kansas coach Bill
Self, whose Jayhawks made it
93 in a row for the No. 1s with
an 85-61 victory over Portland
State, says it will happen one
day. “I love being a 1 seed,” Self
said, “but I will tell you this: It
is going to happen sometime.
And when it does, it’s going to
be the forever highlight that
you’re always reminded of. So I
could see, even though you
don’t talk in negative terms,
you can say, ‘Hey, we really
need to come out and play well
early.'”
Dawg tired
Georgia falls late. After claiming
the Southeastern Conference
Tournament title Sunday
by winning three games in
about 30 hours, the Bulldogs
were rewarded by getting to
play the first game of the
NCAA Tournament. Georgia
jumped out to a 35-26 halftime
lead, but Xavier came back in
the second half to win 73-61.
The Associated Press
