bierce

I played squash at the rec center on Yongsan when I was about 12. One player would enter the squash court. Another player would go into the stands and try to squash the guy on the court with a basketball. Great game.

For some context about how good Texas in the 2001-02 through 2007-08 seasons, Barnes secured the second most wins of any coach in the NCAA tournament in that stretch. He tied with Self for 15, while Roy Williams ran away with it with 24.

No titles in there, but it's pretty hard to argue that 2001-02 to 2007-08 with a Final Four, two more Elite Eights, and two more Sweet Sixteens in a 7 year period were not glory days for our men's basketball program.

DeVries didn't get a head coaching job until his was in his 40s, but he did very well at Drake. Drake hadn't been in the NCAA tournament or even a MVC contender since 2008 when he took over in 2018-19, and he became its fourth coach in 4 years at that point. Medved finally got Drake into a winning record in conference, but nearly the entire roster disappeared with him. So three NCAA tournament appearances in his last 4 years and 4 straight second place finishes in conference was really good job. And he had WVU playing at a very high level this year before Tucker was lost for the season. It's not exactly like the state of West Virginia is awash in money to purchase basketball players, but he did well in raiding Okie State for Small and Illinois for Sencire Harris and Amani Hansberry and getting that group to the brink of a NCAA tournament bid. They f'd up against Colorado, but Colorado had gotten its act together and was 4-4 over its previous 8 games. I'm just surprised WVU lost him this quickly. Probably indicative of the level of expected NIL support.

One school not in the post season and snubbed for an NCAA tournament bid gets the first year coach from another such school. Match made in heaven. But DeVries is a very good coach who might come with a very good player attached. I wasn't that big on Tucker, but that 26 point, 6 assist, 0 turnover game in the OT win over Arizona made me a believer that he can be a good P5 player.

Davis was guaranteed a few weeks ago that he would return. That could be a really good team next year. Very good incoming freshman class and lots of guys eligible to return.

Because the world feared another poorly seeded UNC juggernaut? 87-52 with under 4 left.

Or you don't want to lose the life you have. See Mark Few.

Baptist equivalent of the Pope?

Not that big. Under 5M. Iowa balked because of having to still pay McCaffery about 4.4M.

Sorry, I thought we were supposed to come up with Bruno, Handsome Dan, et al.

I know several schools' nicknames, but I don't know if they have special mascot names like Bevo. Why should I?

You're right. I'm wrong. I saw the game being played on Thursday and assumed it was a round one instead of a playoff game. Odd that they had second round games on Monay that year.

The top 4 guys in minutes played for Auburn this year are guys who started elsewhere and transferred to Auburn.

Different coach. Different sort of team.

I go with the most obvious 12-5 game. Colorado State is on a 10 game winning streak, including 7 wins over Pomeroy top 100 teams, and 4 wins over other tournament teams. Meanwhile, 5 seed Memphis hasn't even played a top 100 team since Jan 5, and it has 11 games that were losses or single digit wins since then.

Hate OU. Amused by A&M.

But back to the buyout issue, rising assistants and brilliant mid-major coaches don't have big buyouts.

Not me. First up is a BYU team that had a 9 game winning streak before losing to Houston in the Big 12 tournament. Those 9 wins included wins at Arizona, at ISU, and neutral against ISU as well as a 34 point beatdown of Kansas.

His contact with the networks includes bonuses for every time he's mentioned in a coaching search to reward him for the extra eyeballs those rumors bring.

Would be funny if the Big East then added Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Santa Clara, Portland, San Diego, and Loyola-Marymount, making Cronin make all those cross-country trips again.

Before the tournament expanded beyond 64 teams, so no play in game. That LSU team came to Austin and beat Weltlich's best team here by 9. Ever hear the story about Knight's last championship team trailing LSU late in the Midwest final in 1987? Search Bobby Knight Dale Brown quote if you want to read an all-time diss.

UCLA was an 11 seed but not in a play in game.

Last first four team to make Final Four was VCU.

VCU survived. Memphis up now