Bests: Deaf player truly inspires
Inspiration.
With 11.2 seconds to play, Cal State Northridge put in sophomore Michael Lizarraga, who may be the first deaf player to play in the Division I tournament. Said coach Bobby Braswell, “He’s really been an inspiration to all of us.”
ACC’s top man.
North Carolina senior Tyler Hansbrough, right, set the ACC’s career scoring record. He had 2,767 points going in and needed three points to pass Duke’s J.J. Redick. Hansbrough finished with 22 points.
Beginning.
Texas A&M made its first 10 shots and built a 22-7 lead less than eight minutes in against BYU.
Worsts: Wolverines were rusty
Bad start.
Making its first tournament appearance since 1998, Michigan opened its game against Clemson with two airballs and a shot by DeShawn Sims that the Tigers’ Raymond Sykes swatted into Clemson’s bench. Michigan did recover to win.
Takedown.
Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin got tangled up with Morgan State’s Ameer Ali, who flipped Griffin over his shoulder. Ali was ejected, and Griffin finished with 28 points.
Road to Twin Cities.
West Virginia’s first plane had mechanical troubles, and the Mountaineers had to wait for a new plane and crew. To kill time, the team went bowling and to a movie and finally got to Minneapolis at 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
CALHOUN SIDELINED
On the mend.
Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun missed Thursday’s rout of Tennessee- Chattanooga after checking into a Philadelphia hospital because of an unidentified illness.
Calhoun, 66, said in a statement he had been “feeling lousy” for the past several days. He added the tests done Thursday “have all gone well” and expects to check out today.
The Associated Press
MILES AND MILES
Aggies expect following.
Utah State is the only team at the Boise site today that will have close to a crowd advantage. Logan, Utah, is only 290 miles from Boise, Idaho, and the Aggies play there every year in the WAC. The other distances are: Portland State 430 miles, Missouri 1,498, Wisconsin 1,655, Marquette 1,736, Xavier 1,930, Cornell 2,353 and Florida State 2,364. Portland State will have no advantage over Xavier. The Vikings, who went to the NCAA Tournament last year, average only 1,106 fans for home games.
John Henderson, The Denver Post
FAST AND FURIOUS
Bracket bonanza.
More than 5 million brackets were submitted to ‘s contest before it closed Thursday. That’s up 37 percent from the 3.65 million last year. At the peak period, nearly 3,900 entries per minute were submitted. The winner gets $10,000. The AP
