Around College Basketball: It's tournament time

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/03/2009 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The first college basketball tournament I covered was so long ago that many basketball fans wouldn't even remember the name of the conference.

I spent the first weekend of March, 1979 covering the Pacific Coast Athletic Association tournament in the shadow of Disneyland at the Anaheim Convention Center. I wasn't quite prepared for 12 hours of basketball, watching four quarterfinal-round matchups from 12 noon to 12 midnight, but over the years the concept has grown on me.

Eventually, the University of the Pacific, led by a 6-10 center named Ron Cornelius, held off Utah State to earn an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament - an event that had just expanded to 48 teams that year. UOP's tournament experience would last just one game, as the Tigers were waxed in the opening round.

Years later, the PCAA changed their name to the Big West Conference, so that ESPN could promote something called "Big Monday," with games from the Big East, the Big 10 and the Big West. The PCAA moniker slipped into the dark recesses of history.

Thirty years after my first tourney experience, the concept of the postseason basketball tournament - first started by the Southern Conference in 1922 - is still going strong.

The next two weeks of the college basketball season are among my favorites in the entire sports calendar. Like most college basketball fans, I love having the chance to see teams you seldom see on national television battle their way into the NCAA field.

If it were up to me, I'd make the conference tournaments a do-or-die proposition for every league, with only regular-season conference champions immune from the sudden death of the tournament format.

Three conference tournaments tip off on Tuesday night at campus sites with first round action - the Big South, the Horizon and the Ohio Valley, as March Madness commences.

The Big South will have seven teams trying to end Winthrop's four-year stranglehold on the league's automatic bid, though it might be asking too much for the Eagles to repeat in 2009.

Winthrop, which has offered up some memorable March moments in recent NCAA tournaments, has been rebuilding this year with an 11-18 record and will be on the road at UNC Asheville, and in every subsequent game, if it hopes to unleash some postseason magic.

A year ago, that matchup had an NCAA bid attached to it in the Big South championship game, with Winthrop winning 66-48 at UNCA. This year, the Eagles and the Bulldogs will just be trying to extend their seasons until Thursday.

Radford (18-11) comes in as the top seed in the Big South and will host beleaguered High Point (9-20) in the quarterfinals. The Highlanders could get pushed by two other stalwart teams from No. 2 seed VMI (22-7) and No. 3 Liberty (21-10). VMI entertains Coastal Carolina and Liberty meets Gardner- Webb in the first round.

Few people probably remember VMI making back-to-back trips to the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16 in 1976-77, with future-NBA performer Ron Carter leading the way. The Keydets haven't been back to the NCAA tournament since.

The Big South's semifinals and final will be televised on Thursday night and Saturday by ESPNU and ESPN2, respectively.

The Horizon League, another loop that has pulled off some inspiring NCAA upsets in recent years, also gets started on Tuesday night with its 10-team event. Former giant killer Cleveland State, the third seed at 21-10, is the highest-seeded team in action in the first round.

Many people probably still remember Cleveland State marching to the Sweet 16 in 1986 with wins over Indiana and St. Joseph's before David Robinson and Navy knocked them off, 71-70.

The top two seeds, Butler (25-4) and Wisconsin-Green Bay (22-9) will wait until Saturday to get started in the semifinals, which are on ESPNU. The championship game will be played at Butler's historic Hinkle Fieldhouse on March 10 and televised by ESPN.

The OVC gets into the swing of things on Tuesday with quarterfinal action at campus sites before moving to Nashville's Sommet Center for the semifinals and final. Top-seeded Tennessee-Martin has put together a sparkling 21-8 campaign, but the Skyhawks will need three more wins to get their first NCAA bid.

UTM opens play by hosting Tennessee Tech (12-17), but will likely receive bigger challenges from defending champion and No. 2 seed Austin Peay (17-12), or No. 3 Murray State (18-11) - a 13-time OVC tournament champion.

One of my earliest memories of watching the NCAA tournament was seeing a colorful player named Fly Williams leading Austin Peay in the early 1970s. And I nearly witnessed a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 in the 1990 Southeast Regional in Knoxville, TN, when Popeye Jones and Murray State pushed Michigan State to overtime before losing 75-71.

The OVC will have its semifinals and final televised on Friday and Saturday by ESPNU and ESPN2 as the first conference to conclude its tournament.

Tournament play will kick off on Wednesday in the Atlantic Sun and the Patriot League, on Thursday in the Northeast Conference and the Missouri Valley, on Friday in the American East, the Colonial Athletic Association, the Southern and the West Coast and on Saturday in the Big Sky.

For a college basketball fan, whether at the arena or watching on television, it's hoop nirvana.

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NCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25

NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.

No. 1 always seems to fit USC.

Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.

Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.

Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.

"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."

Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.

"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."

The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.

"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."

Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.

"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"

USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.

"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."

While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.

As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.

But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.

Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.

The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.

The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.

The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.

No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.

Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.

Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.

Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.

The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.

South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.

The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.

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