By Paul M. Banks Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net

MILWAUKEE- Orlando “Tubby” Smith is entering his second NCAA Tournament (and third year) as the leader of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Despite reaching the second round on 14 prior occasions during his career, he has to win a tourney game with the Gophs. Is [...]

By Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net,
This year’s NCAA tournament will see Arizona, North Carolina, UCLA and Indiana missing from the dance card. Those four tradition rich programs have produced 22 National Championships and 144 tournament appearances. So what are the benchmarks, the numbers, the standards of entry [...]

A couple of weeks ago I comprised a comprehensive list of the greatest college backcourts of the 21st century. In response, I experienced a number of healthy attacks as well as some reluctant support. But most so, the list sparked an ongoing and spectacularly fun debate. The issue of most contention: my overemphasized formula that [...]

For three weeks every year the NCAA Tournament dominates the sports world.  This year the final game had to share the spotlight with baseball’s opening day, but for the most part it was all we cared about.  Taking a look back at some of the games, here are some tournament thoughts.

The Big Ten did, well, [...]

The Cubs season got off to a great start with a lead-off homer from Soriano.  The Cubs went on to beat the Astros 4-2.  [MLB.com]
North Carolina pummeled Michigan State to win the NCAA Championship last night.  Sorry all you people without jobs in Michigan.  [ESPN]
Michael Jordan and Jerry Sloan were inducted into the Basketball Hall [...]

After months of games, the college basketball season will come to an end tonight at Ford Field in Detroit, and the script really does seem like something out of a movie.  At least that’s what CBS and ESPN are telling us.
Despite all the hyperbole and sappy package pieces, the Michigan State-North Carolina match-up does present [...]

Last week I said that the general dullness of the first two round of the NCAA Tournament wasn’t such a bad thing.  I thought that since so many good teams won, the second weekend would be that much better than most years.  I was absolutely wrong.
The last four days were no better than the first [...]

Once again, if the early games turn out to be disappointing there is still plenty of hope for a great game at night.  First, Michigan State and Kansas will meet in a great coaching match-up among other things, then North Carolina and Gonzaga will finish off the Sweet 16 games.
(3) Kansas vs. (2) Michigan State, [...]

It’s hard to believe Arizona has made it to this point when I thought for sure they’d be on their way to Madison Square Garden for the end of the NIT by now. All you people who want to say the committee got it right because Zona made it this far need to settle down though. Not too tough to beat Utah and a 13-seed to get to the Sweet 16. I know the Wildcats have three future NBA players, but they’ll need every bit of that talent to beat Louisville. The pressure will literally be on Wise to bring the ball up against the Cardinals’ defense.

I really didn’t think Mizzou would make it here. I saw something last week that said you’re better off not watching any games a team plays than you are watching one or two, because you acquire opinions of those teams that are skewed by those couple of games. This is definitely the case with me and Missouri. I watched them play once and they lost to Illinois by double digits.

Somehow the three days to start this week always seem to go faster than the days between the Selection Show and the first round games. That could be due to the two days it took me to recover from a trip to Nashville where I did little other than watching games and watching live bands in bars. Regardless, it’s time for the second weekends of the NCAA Tournament and it promises to be a great one.

After one weekend of the NCAA Tournament, things are pretty close in NQTC’s Tournament Challenge group.  We have spent plenty of time this year, between football and basketball, making fun of Indiana University, so fittingly the leader after four days is Disgruntled IU Fan.  He sits in the 99.79th percentile overall right now and had [...]

There were 48 basketball games this weekend and a quick count gives me 11 wins by the teams with the worse seeds.  A year after the first time that four 1-seeds went to the Final Four, we have experience the first opening weekend in which all 1 through 3-seeds advanced to the Sweet 16.  The [...]

We all heard Barack Obama make his picks on ESPN, but in case you missed it, here’s the video.  Well former President Clinton weighed in on his picks the other day as well, though not in the detail that Barack did. Here’s what Bill thinks:
Clinton, college basketball fan, and Carville, political strategist, went through the [...]

Yesterday was another great day in college basketball.  Two overtime games and a ton of upsets.  Once again here are my brief observations of every game:
Louisville 74 Morehead State 54: I never thought this game was in doubt, although Morehead State kept it interesting well into the second half.  The full-court press by the Cardinals [...]