Official 2012 NCAA® Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Tickets and Hospitality Available from PrimeSport

The popularity of NCAA® March Madness® grows every year and fans and companies excitedly seek tickets to support their teams and follow all the great moments of the Championship. The NCAA Experience® program is managed by PrimeSport, the official ticket and hospitality package provider and official ticket exchange provider for the 2012 NCAA® Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. PrimeSport’s offerings include ticket packages and the official ticket exchange for the first round games to be played March 13 – 14 in Dayton, OH, the second and third round games to be played March 15 – 18 in eight different locations, as well as exclusive pre-game hospitality for the games in Pittsburgh, Louisville, Portland and Greensboro.

Fans across the country gathered around the TV last night for Selection Sunday™, anxiously awaiting the announcement of the teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament. As selections were made, teams watched as their seeds were determined. NCAA March Madness has officially begun and fans enthusiastically fill out their brackets.

“Our priority is always to ensure our fans have the best experience possible as they root for their teams on the Road to the Final Four®,” said Josh Logan, director of ticketing at the NCAA. “By partnering with PrimeSport, our fans have safe, dependable and fully authorized methods for securing tickets and hospitality packages throughout the tournament – from the very first round all the way through the Men’s Final Four® in New Orleans.”

PrimeSport is providing exclusive pre-game hospitality and ticket packages for the games in Pittsburgh, Louisville, Portland and Greensboro. Packages include a ticket to the Thursday and/or Saturday games in Pittsburgh, Louisville and Portland, or the Friday and/or Sunday games in Greensboro as well as access to the Official NCAA Pre-game Hospitality Event.

PrimeSport is also offering official NCAA ticket and amenity packages for second and third round games in Albuquerque, Columbus, Omaha and Nashville. Packages include tickets to the Thursday and/or Saturday games in Albuquerque or the Friday and/or Sunday games in Columbus, Omaha and Nashville, as well as a commemorative NCAA men’s basketball game amenity.

The Official NCAA Ticket Exchange is also available again this year and allows fans to buy and sell tickets online to every round of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship in a convenient, safe, and guaranteed environment. Ticket holders who are unable to attend their games or find their team eliminated prior to the final rounds of the tournament, have a place to safely sell their tickets, and the buyer, in turn, can be assured that the tickets are authentic and guaranteed.

“Through our partnership with the NCAA, we can offer fans and companies packages that they can’t get anywhere else,” said Sam Soni, President of PrimeSport. “By buying directly from the NCAA’s only approved ticket and hospitality package provider, they can enjoy the games and experience without having to worry about fraudulent tickets.”

For further information and to purchase tickets, please visit ncaa.com/hospitality.

About PrimeSport

PrimeSport is the leader in providing access to the biggest sporting events on the planet, offering tickets, corporate and fan travel packages, and hospitality events for corporations, professional sports teams and fans. Official partnerships with professional and college sports organizations include multiple NFL teams, the Rose Bowl Game®, 2013 Discover BCS National Championship, Allstate Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl. The company is the official ticket and hospitality package provider for selected NCAA Championships, including the 2012 NCAA® Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, 2012 NCAA Men’s Final Four® and 2012 NCAA Women’s Final Four®. In addition, PrimeSport manages the Official Ticket Exchange for select events and organizations, including the 2012 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four®, the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, University of Arizona, University of Nevada Las Vegas and Tulane University. PrimeSport is a privately-held company, headquartered in Atlanta, GA. For more information, visit http://www.primesport.com or call 1-800-591-9198.

NCAA, Men’s Final Four, Men’s Frozen Four, and Women’s Final Four are trademarks of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

About the NCAA

The NCAA is a membership-led nonprofit association of colleges and universities committed to supporting academic and athletic opportunities for more than 400,000 student-athletes at more than 1,000 member colleges and universities. Each year, more than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships in Divisions I, II and III sports. Visit www.ncaa.org and www.ncaa.com for more details about the Association, its goals and members and corporate partnerships that help support programs for student-athletes. The NCAA is proud to have the following elite companies as official Corporate Champions—AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola—and the following elite companies as official Corporate Partners—Allstate, Buick, Enterprise, Infiniti, LG, Lowe’s, Northwestern Mutual, Reese’s (Hershey’s), Unilever, UPS and Wheat Thins (Kraft).

NCAA, Final Four, March Madness, Road to the Final Four, The NCAA Experience, Selection Sunday, Women’s Final Four, College World Series and Frozen Four are licensed by or trademarks of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

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Obama, Cameron to attend NCAA tournament game

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Basketball fan-in-chief President Barack Obama is giving British Prime Minister David Cameron a front-row seat to March Madness, taking his European partner to an election swing state for an NCAA tournament basketball game.

Amid cheers, the two leaders entered the University of Dayton Arena on Tuesday for a “First Four” matchup between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, a gesture of goodwill during Cameron’s official visit to the United States and a way for an incumbent president to reach sports fans in an election year.

Adding to the heavy hoops flavor of the day, Obama announced his NCAA tournament bracket picks to ESPN, the sports network he watches on a daily basis. On Tuesday, the network teased Obama’s selections by revealing his Final Four picks: Kentucky, Ohio State, Missouri and North Carolina.

It was the fourth straight year that Obama filled out an NCAA tournament bracket for ESPN. On the women’s side, he selected Baylor, St. John’s, Connecticut and Notre Dame to advance.

ESPN will reveal the president’s full men’s bracket Wednesday.

Cameron’s sporting tastes run more toward tennis, cricket and soccer. Tuesday’s was the first college basketball game he’s seen.

The White House said the trip to the NCAA tournament game was intended to showcase the special relationship between the two key allies during Cameron’s three-day visit. Obama and Cameron will discuss the upcoming NATO and G-8 summits on Wednesday, followed by a state dinner at the White House.

Obama and Cameron were scheduled to appear in a live halftime interview on truTV, which was airing the game, with sportscaster Clark Kellogg. Kellogg interviewed Obama at halftime of a Duke-Georgetown game in 2010 and spoke with the president later that year during a White House game of “HORSE” aired on CBS during the NCAA tournament.

Joining Obama at the game was Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, who greeted Obama with a big handshake at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Kasich gave Obama two letters, which his office said were from the governor’s twin daughters, who wanted to welcome the Democratic president to the state.

Still, other Republicans panned the trip, saying many Americans would prefer Obama to focus on more pressing issues.

“While showing off our amazing college basketball teams is great, many Americans struggling to find jobs, dealing with soaring gas prices, or concerned with our rising deficit and debt would probably like the president spend at least as much time dealing with those issues,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee

Obama’s quick trip to Ohio gives him a chance to connect with basketball fans and generate attention in Ohio, which he carried in the 2008 election and is considered one of the top toss-up states in 2012. The trip comes one week after Republican front-runner Mitt Romney captured Ohio’s GOP primary.

It also lets Obama lavish praise and attention on Cameron at a time of weighty foreign policy challenges in Afghanistan, Iran and Syria. Britain has been an important U.S. ally in Afghanistan and the bombing campaign in Libya that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi.

Cameron is frequently spotted running near his official Downing Street residence, flanked by his security detail. But he’s not much of a basketball fan; British Ambassador Peter Westmacott told reporters in Washington on Monday that Cameron was “busy briefing himself on March Madness.”

Basketball has been a big part of Obama’s life. At his Hawaii high school, Obama frequently carried a basketball along with his school books and bonded with his teammates on the court. His brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, played college basketball at Princeton and is now head coach at Oregon State.

The president regularly plays pickup basketball and keeps close tabs on his favorite NBA team, the Chicago Bulls. In a recent interview, the president said he gets League Pass on his iPad, letting him watch out-of-market NBA games on his tablet computer.

Obama kicked off the basketball season with a Veterans Day game between Michigan State and North Carolina on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson in November, enjoying a game on the aircraft carrier that took Osama bin Laden’s body to a burial at sea after the U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.

The president said in an interview last month with journalist Bill Simmons that the “mythology of sports” is deeply embedded in the U.S., allowing viewers to discern who is winning and who is losing — a principle that could easily be transferred to politics.

“People — for all our differences politically, regionally, economically — most folks understand sports. Probably because it’s one of the few places where it’s a true meritocracy,” Obama said. “Ultimately, who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s performing, who’s not — it’s all laid out there.”

___

Associated Press writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

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Obama, Cameron to attend NCAA tournament game

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Basketball fan-in-chief President Barack Obama is giving British Prime Minister David Cameron a front-row seat to March Madness, taking his European partner to an election swing state for an NCAA tournament basketball game.

Amid cheers, the two leaders entered the University of Dayton Arena on Tuesday for a “First Four” matchup between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, a gesture of goodwill during Cameron’s official visit to the United States and a way for an incumbent president to reach sports fans in an election year.

Adding to the heavy hoops flavor of the day, Obama announced his NCAA tournament bracket picks to ESPN, the sports network he watches on a daily basis. On Tuesday, the network teased Obama’s selections by revealing his Final Four picks: Kentucky, Ohio State, Missouri and North Carolina.

It was the fourth straight year that Obama filled out an NCAA tournament bracket for ESPN. On the women’s side, he selected Baylor, St. John’s, Connecticut and Notre Dame to advance.

ESPN will reveal the president’s full men’s bracket Wednesday.

Cameron’s sporting tastes run more toward tennis, cricket and soccer. Tuesday’s was the first college basketball game he’s seen.

The White House said the trip to the NCAA tournament game was intended to showcase the special relationship between the two key allies during Cameron’s three-day visit. Obama and Cameron will discuss the upcoming NATO and G-8 summits on Wednesday, followed by a state dinner at the White House.

Obama and Cameron were scheduled to appear in a live halftime interview on truTV, which was airing the game, with sportscaster Clark Kellogg. Kellogg interviewed Obama at halftime of a Duke-Georgetown game in 2010 and spoke with the president later that year during a White House game of “HORSE” aired on CBS during the NCAA tournament.

Joining Obama at the game was Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, who greeted Obama with a big handshake at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Kasich gave Obama two letters, which his office said were from the governor’s twin daughters, who wanted to welcome the Democratic president to the state.

Still, other Republicans panned the trip, saying many Americans would prefer Obama to focus on more pressing issues.

“While showing off our amazing college basketball teams is great, many Americans struggling to find jobs, dealing with soaring gas prices, or concerned with our rising deficit and debt would probably like the president spend at least as much time dealing with those issues,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee

Obama’s quick trip to Ohio gives him a chance to connect with basketball fans and generate attention in Ohio, which he carried in the 2008 election and is considered one of the top toss-up states in 2012. The trip comes one week after Republican front-runner Mitt Romney captured Ohio’s GOP primary.

It also lets Obama lavish praise and attention on Cameron at a time of weighty foreign policy challenges in Afghanistan, Iran and Syria. Britain has been an important U.S. ally in Afghanistan and the bombing campaign in Libya that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi.

Cameron is frequently spotted running near his official Downing Street residence, flanked by his security detail. But he’s not much of a basketball fan; British Ambassador Peter Westmacott told reporters in Washington on Monday that Cameron was “busy briefing himself on March Madness.”

Basketball has been a big part of Obama’s life. At his Hawaii high school, Obama frequently carried a basketball along with his school books and bonded with his teammates on the court. His brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, played college basketball at Princeton and is now head coach at Oregon State.

The president regularly plays pickup basketball and keeps close tabs on his favorite NBA team, the Chicago Bulls. In a recent interview, the president said he gets League Pass on his iPad, letting him watch out-of-market NBA games on his tablet computer.

Obama kicked off the basketball season with a Veterans Day game between Michigan State and North Carolina on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson in November, enjoying a game on the aircraft carrier that took Osama bin Laden’s body to a burial at sea after the U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.

The president said in an interview last month with journalist Bill Simmons that the “mythology of sports” is deeply embedded in the U.S., allowing viewers to discern who is winning and who is losing — a principle that could easily be transferred to politics.

“People — for all our differences politically, regionally, economically — most folks understand sports. Probably because it’s one of the few places where it’s a true meritocracy,” Obama said. “Ultimately, who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s performing, who’s not — it’s all laid out there.”

___

Associated Press writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Component 1: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s DVD ($149 Value) – The ultimate compilation of speed and quickness training information ever put together on one disc. In the DVD, Kelly and I go over and hand you every last thing we know about speed and quickness training. You’ll also find the entire Truth About Quickness Video Library here, to have your own magic-bullet collection of speed and quickness exercises. And I’m not even close to being done.. Component 2: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Program Manual ($99 Value) – If the DVD is the key to your speed transformation, then this is the safe it opens up. The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Program Manual contains 48 WEEKS of speed and quickness programming, designed specifically for athletes to get faster, quicker and more agile. We’ve made this so fool-proof and simple that all you need to do is simply follow the programs word-for-word, and the results are yours forever.  Component 3: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Workbook ($49 Value) – It has been proven over and over keeping track and charting your training always leads to better results and better peformance. Everybody I know who has ever made some serious progress keeps track of their workouts, and we’ve made it incredibly simple with The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Workbook. Designed specifically for Truth About Quickness workouts, you simply mark a few numbers and notes down, and you’re tracking your training easier than ever before.  Component 4: The Truth About Quickness Ultimate Insider’s Warm-Up ($49 Value) – A proper warm-up is key to your health and longevity as an athlete…doing it The Truth About Quickness way is just a major, major bonus, as I take you through the exact same warm-up I take my most advanced athletes through before each and every one of their Truth About Quickness workouts. Make no mistake, the right warm-up is key, and can actually make or break the effectiveness of your workouts. Component 5: The Flexibility Formula ($69 Value) – After almost 2 years of getting requests from athletes worldwide for a simple, yet effective flexibility protocol to follow, I finally put it together, as “The Flexibility Formula”. Inside, you’ll find an Online DVD/eReport combination, as I take you through the entire 8-minute flexibility routine I use daily in the Online DVD, along with laying out the whole routine for you and explaining the science behind it in the eReport. Never again worry again about potentially injuring yourself or not recovering fast enough because of limited flexibility, with the “Flexibility Formula” on YOUR side. Component 6: Equipment-FREE Explosiveness($59 Value) – After surveying past Truth About Quickness customers, we found that many wanted strength-building workouts they could follow FROM HOME, without equipment. Hearing the call, Kelly Baggett went to work and designed 12 weeks of muscle-defining, explosiveness-getting bodyweight workouts that you can sue RIGHT ALONG with The Truth About Quickness FROM HOME. These athletic-based workouts are also great to do anywhere on the road, when you can’t get to the gym or don’t have access to equipment. Component 7: The Champion’s Mindset Online DVD ($39 Value) – If 90% of sports are mental, the question remains for you: How much time are YOU spending on your mental game? In “The Champion’s Mindset”, I take you through the 3 most-powerful, eye-opening mental exercises I’ve ever stumbled across. Upon completing these 3 exercises, you’ll find your mental toughness heightened, mental awareness raised and your motivational levels through the ROOF. This is one resource you absolutely cannot go on without in your library. Component 8: Fat-Loss Finishers For Athletes($39 Value) – From our good friend and author of “Bull Strength Conditioning” Joe Hashey, “Fat-Loss Finishers” combines 20 different 8-10 minute “finisher” workouts for you to use AFTER your workouts. Now, these workouts are WAY different than what me or Kelly had ever really seen before, and they are strategically designed to accomplish TWO things: 1. Strip unwanted, blubbery FAT away from all of your problem areas and 2. Jack up your sports conditioning levels, to prepare you for your most intense moments in every game or practice. This is a brand-new bonus you’re absolutely going to love having inside your arsenal. Component 9: Eating Explosively ($49 value) –It’s a commonly-held truth that diet can be worth up to 80% of your results as an athlete, and that’s why we created "Eating Explosively", the video/PDF combo containing 30 full days of meal plans where we clearly lay out for you exactly what to eat for an entire month in order to maximize every ounce of your training results. With "Eating Explosively" guiding your diet every step of the way, you’ll find yourself moving quicker, feeling stronger and looking leaner within DAYS of starting the meal-plan program. Guidelines on how to manipulate the meal plans for fat-loss or muscle gaining are included in the follow-along video that comes complementary with Eating Explosively as well. This is one component any serious athlete cannot afford to miss out on..  Component 10: The "3-Minute Glutes" Online DVD ($19 value) – Quick: Name the most overlooked muscle for speed? If you said the "glutes" you were right. Congrats! As a no-BS type athlete, you need access to the latest and best exercises from the training world, and that’s exactly what you’ll find in 3-Minute Glutes, or "Glute Speed". Featuring a sizzling 3-minute series of the very best glute activation exercises around, Glute Speed will help upgrade your "sprinting engine" (glutes, hamstrings and lumbar muscles) to Ferrari-type levels. Don’t go on training without this one-of-a-kind exercise in your arsenal…your results will thank you for it almost immediately. Component 11: The Supplement Code ($19 value) – From supplement expert Kelly Bagget comes the brand-new "Supplement Code". Inside, you’ll discover exactly which supplements youneed to take as an athlete, which ones they’ll try to tell you are "essential" (but really not), plus important questions answered.. Protein powders…good or bad? Vitamins…necessary or a waste of your money? Plus, Kelly’s got some new "supplement tricks" hidden up his sleeve that he’s revealing here for the first time ever. This one is sure to be a "fan favorite".. FREE Bonus #1: The Top 7 Classic Muscle-Building Exercises ($29 value) – Take a look around and you may just notice it’s the almost always the strongest athletes who are also the most powerful. That is no coincidence, muscle means strength, and strength means power. In this super high-quality, easy-to-follow online DVD, skinny guy savior Vince Delmonte takes you through the Top 7 Classic Muscle-Building Exercises to help you add some lean muscle mass and simplify your weight training workouts. This is truly a complementary bonus. FREE Bonus #2: Lifetime 15% OFF Coupon to JumpUSA (Priceless) – As a happy owner of The Truth About Quickness Insider’s System, you also get special Insider’s Access forvever to any of the powerful products sold at the web-based JumpUSA athletic superstore.

March Madness: Syracuse’s Melo out and other fast NCAA tournament facts

What began in 1939 with the University of Oregon’s “Tall Firs” winning the first men’s NCAA basketball championship before 5,500 spectators has grown into March Madness. The three-week tournament begins with a few undercard games Tuesday night (one attended by President Obama), but things start in earnest Thursday and Friday with 64 teams in the main draw getting into action in eight cities. Utlimately the road leads to New Orleans, the site of this season’s Final Four on March 31 and April 2.  Here’s a collection of random facts to help you enjoy the tournament:

1. Top-seeded teams:  Syracuse 31-2; Kentucky 32-2; Michigan State 27-7; and North Carolina, 29-5.

2. Syracuse had its best regular season ever, but the team could be in trouble after it was announced Tuesday that center Fab Melo will not play in the NCAA tournament due to what the school called an “eligibility issue,” the New York Times reported.

3. In an oddity, three of the four top seeds – Kentucky, Syracuse, and North Carolina – enter the tournament after being upset in their conference tournaments.

4. Connecticut, the defending national champion, enters the tournament with a 20-13 record. The Huskies will have to sit out next year’s “Big Dance” because of their poor academic performance.

5. Butler University in Indianapolis, the Cinderella that managed to reach the championship game the last two seasons, did not make the tournament this year. But Virginia Commonwealth, a big surprise in 2011, did.

6. Pat Knight, the son of Bob Knight, has coached Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, to its first NCAA berth since 2000. A few weeks ago he called his seniors “the worst group” he’d ever been associated with.

7. UCLA, which has the most NCAA titles, with 11, not only failed to reach the tournament, but its basketball program is rife with discipline problems, according to Sports Illustrated. 

8. The University of Kansas is making its 23rd consecutive tournament appearance, an NCAA record. Duke’s 17-year run is second best.

9. Sportscaster Brent Musburger is credited with popularizing the use of “March Madness” in referring to the tournament in the 1980s.

10. This year the tournament concludes in New Orleans at the Superdome, where four previous championship games have been decided by an average of 2.7 points.

11. Baylor could produce the best overall postseason showing of any school. The men are 27-7 and the Lady Bears 34-0.

12. The highest scoring player in this year’s tournament is Creighton’s Doug McDermott (23.1 points per game), who leads the nation’s most accurate shooting team (50.9 percent).

13. The stingiest defensive team in the nation: Wisconsin, which gives up only 51.8 points a game.

14. Florida State enters the tournament with a very impressive double: a pair of wins this season over perennial Atlantic Coast Conference powers North Carolina and Duke.

15. Cinderella candidates: Wichita State, South Dakota State, Long Island, Montana, St. Mary’s, Mississippi Valley State, et al.

16. North Carolina leads the nation with five teams in the field: North Carolina, Duke, UNC-Asheville, NC State, and Davidson.

17. The schools in this year’s tournament that that do the best job of graduating their players are Belmont, Creighton, Duke, Harvard, Western Kentucky, Davidson, Notre Dame, and Brigham Young.

18. Indiana University, which finished last in the Big Ten Conference four years ago, has returned from the dead with a 25-8 record. 

19. The minimum seating capacity to host the Final Four is 70,000. In 2013, Atlanta’s Georgia Dome hosts the finals, with Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to follow in 2014.

20. Harvard is making its first appearance in the tournament since 1946 and is doing so without Harvard grad and current NBA phenom Jeremy Lin.

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Fab 14: NCAA men’s basketball tournament becomes a place for the big boys

So much for the little guys.

Instead of parlaying an historic day of upsets into a second weekend filled with small schools, the NCAA tournament now looks like a who’s-who of major college programs.

All but two of the 16 teams in the regional semifinals will be from power conferences. The lone exceptions are Xavier, which is hardly a stranger to this kind of year, and Ohio University, a big school with a small, but no longer unknown, basketball program.

According to STATS, this will be the first time since 2003 that 14 teams from the six major conferences have made the Sweet 16.

Next week’s matchups:

—No. 1 Kentucky vs. No. 4 Indiana and No. 3 Baylor vs. No. 10 Xavier in the South; No. 1 Syracuse vs. No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 6 Cincinnati in the East; No. 1 North Carolina vs. No. 13 Ohio and No. 2 Kansas vs. No. 11 North Carolina State in the Midwest; and No. 1 Michigan State vs. No. 4 Louisville and No. 3 Marquette vs. No. 7 Florida out West.

Those 14 power-conference teams have a combined 93 Final Four appearances and 33 national titles.

While two No. 2 seeds, Duke and Missouri, fell to 15s Lehigh and Norfolk State in a history-making second round Friday, all four No. 1s got through the first week safely — the first time that’s happened since 2009. A year before that, all four top-seeded teams made it to the Final Four for the only time.

It’s possible again this year, though Carolina will have to overcome an injury to a key player to get there.

The Tar Heels defeated Creighton 87-73, but point guard Kendall Marshall broke his right (non-shooting) wrist.

“You can ask any question you want, but I just told you all we know,” Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said when announcing the injury. “We do not know anything else.”

Though there are few small programs — such as the Butlers and VCUs and George Masons that have crashed the Final Four over the last decade — there will be three teams who bring double-digit seeds to the final 16.

The list starts with No. 11 North Carolina State, the program that pretty much set the standard for March Madness upsets and gave us one of the most memorable moments in college sports: Coach Jim Valvano running around the floor at The Pit, looking for someone to hug after Lorenzo Charles grabbed Dereck Whittenburg’s air ball and put it in at the buzzer for an upset over powerhouse Houston.

That was in 1983.

In 2012, the Wolfpack snuck in as one of the last at-large teams to make the field. On Sunday, they upset No. 3 Georgetown 66-63 to make it to the Midwest Regional, where they’ll play Kansas.

“We always talk about we have such great history at NC State, but it’s also time to build some new history,” coach Mark Gottfried said.

No. 10 Xavier comes from the Atlantic-10, the closest thing to a power conference without actually being one. This is the fourth Sweet 16 appearance in the last five years for the Musketeers, who made their biggest news this season with an ugly brawl against crosstown rival Cincinnati that led to suspensions and knocked the team out of whack.

“The only guys that know what we went through were the guys who were in the locker room,” coach Chris Mack said. “Some would say it’s self-inflicted, but I know we have great kids. And I’m really proud of them today.”

Then, of course, there’s No. 13 Ohio — enrolment 17,000 but with a basketball program that has, well, basically nothing in common with the better-known behemoths from the state that will join them in the Sweet 16 — Ohio State, Xavier and Cincy.

“I do think our guys have a chip on their shoulder,” Ohio coach John Groce said. “I think our guys look forward to playing on the big stage against quality competition.”

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NCAA Tournament Sweet 16: 4 x 4, building to an exciting conclusion

When March comes around each year, almost every college basketball player starts thinking about the NCAA Final Four. But the number four will be the focus of the national tournament’s Sweet 16 round, starting Thursday night.

There are four teams from the Big Ten Conference – Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Wisconsin – still competing in the men’s basketball national championship tournament.

The Spartans and Buckeyes battled for league supremacy throughout the season, with Michigan State and Ohio State tying for the regular season conference title. Michigan State beat Ohio State for the conference tournament championship.

The Hoosiers, under coach Tom Crean, have returned to the ranks of the Midwest basketball elite after four years without reaching the NCAA tournament. Indiana is second in the nation in made three-point field goal percentage, helping to keep them alive in the tourney. And Wisconsin continues its steady, unheralded play with size and the nation’s best scoring defense.

Four teams in the Sweet 16 come from the state of Ohio – Ohio, Ohio State, Cincinnati, and Xavier. Cincinnati will play Ohio State in one NCAA East Region semifinal Thursday night in Boston. 50 years ago, in 1962, the Bearcats beat the Buckeyes for the national championship for the second consecutive year.

“The philosophy we had was to hold the basketball until you could get a high-percentage shot,” Tony Yates, a player on that 1962 title team who later coached UC, told the New York Times. “We were a disciplined group. We played defense and we rebounded. That’s the way we played all the time.”

This season, Xavier, also located in Cincinnati, played the Bearcats in a game that ended in an on-court brawl. The two schools could meet again in the national championship game if they each win three more games. Ohio, out of the Mid-American Conference, has reached the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams.

There are four teams from the Big East Conference – Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette, and Syracuse – that are still dancing. The Orangemen have spent time in the No. 1 spot in national polls this season, having ripped off 20 straight wins to start the year. The Cardinals have been hot and cold this season, but have come on at the right time, winning the Big East conference tournament. Marquette, much like their steady Dairy State basketball brethren at Wisconsin, won 14 games in the Big East regular season and are two wins away from the Final Four, where they haven’t been since 2003.

Thirteen of the 16 schools left in the NCAA tournament enjoy a championship pedigree, having won at least one NCAA basketball championship, including Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The NCAA Sweet 16 gets under way Thursday evening at 7 p.m. ET, with games televised on both CBS and TBS.

[Editor’s note: The original version of this story misstated the number of 2012 NCAA Sweet 16 schools that had previously won national championships.]

Component 1: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s DVD ($149 Value) – The ultimate compilation of speed and quickness training information ever put together on one disc. In the DVD, Kelly and I go over and hand you every last thing we know about speed and quickness training. You’ll also find the entire Truth About Quickness Video Library here, to have your own magic-bullet collection of speed and quickness exercises. And I’m not even close to being done.. Component 2: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Program Manual ($99 Value) – If the DVD is the key to your speed transformation, then this is the safe it opens up. The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Program Manual contains 48 WEEKS of speed and quickness programming, designed specifically for athletes to get faster, quicker and more agile. We’ve made this so fool-proof and simple that all you need to do is simply follow the programs word-for-word, and the results are yours forever.  Component 3: The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Workbook ($49 Value) – It has been proven over and over keeping track and charting your training always leads to better results and better peformance. Everybody I know who has ever made some serious progress keeps track of their workouts, and we’ve made it incredibly simple with The Truth About Quickness Insider’s Action Workbook. Designed specifically for Truth About Quickness workouts, you simply mark a few numbers and notes down, and you’re tracking your training easier than ever before.  Component 4: The Truth About Quickness Ultimate Insider’s Warm-Up ($49 Value) – A proper warm-up is key to your health and longevity as an athlete…doing it The Truth About Quickness way is just a major, major bonus, as I take you through the exact same warm-up I take my most advanced athletes through before each and every one of their Truth About Quickness workouts. Make no mistake, the right warm-up is key, and can actually make or break the effectiveness of your workouts. Component 5: The Flexibility Formula ($69 Value) – After almost 2 years of getting requests from athletes worldwide for a simple, yet effective flexibility protocol to follow, I finally put it together, as “The Flexibility Formula”. 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No-name North Dakota? At least for NCAA tournament

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — This is the time of the year when a Gopher will take on a Terrier, a Greyhound can get beat by an inanimate object like a Buckeye and there are more Lions, Tigers and Wildcats loose than any local zoo would know what to do with.

One source of the immense national interest in major college sports lies in the identity of the schools themselves, right down to the nickname.

But as the University of North Dakota starts the NCAA Division I men’s hockey tournament this weekend, the jerseys will look a little bare. The NCAA ban of the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo — deemed “hostile and abusive” by the NCAA — has officially taken effect despite years of defiance and lingering legal challenges from proud supporters.

That means North Dakota will take the ice in St. Paul, Minn., for its West Regional semifinal game against Western Michigan as, well, North Dakota. The team will don new jerseys without the nickname or the logo for the first time Saturday afternoon. Same for the uniforms of the cheerleaders and band members, too.

“It’s sad that we don’t get to wear it, but at the same we’re trying to win a hockey game against Western Michigan,” said captain Mario Lamoureux, the only North Dakota native on the roster. “If anyone’s focus is on the jersey or what we have to wear, they should change that right away.”

UND ordered 30 new sets of jerseys and socks in each of their three color schemes — white, green and black — at a cost of $21,000, said Patrick Swanson, the team’s director of operations.

The NCAA in 2005 told North Dakota and more than a dozen other schools with American Indian nicknames or logos that to avoid sanctions, they needed to change or obtain permission from local tribes to keep them. Most switched, though some like the Florida State Seminoles and the Central Michigan Chippewas received tribal permission.

North Dakota has put up quite a fight.

The state passed a law a year ago requiring the school’s sports teams to use the nickname and logo, which depicts the profile of an American Indian warrior. That was repealed eight months later and then revived in a referendum campaign that fetched more than 17,000 signatures. The referendum is scheduled for June, when voters will decide whether the law should be kept or repealed. The law is opposed by the university, the state’s board of higher education and local politicians, who are ready to put the Fighting Sioux conflict in the past.

Even with the law’s fate still up in the air, the NCAA ban means no use of the nickname or logo in postseason play, or else UND would forfeit those games.

The school also is barred from hosting postseason tournaments even though college hockey’s Taj Mahal, the $100 million Ralph Engelstad Arena, would be an ideal place for an NCAA regional. The arena has at least 3,000 Fighting Sioux logos in the building, including a 10-foot sketch of the logo embedded in the granite lobby floor.

University leaders have expressed concern that the Big Sky Conference, which has accepted North Dakota for its sports other than hockey, will un-invite UND if the nickname controversy lingers. On a smaller scale, Iowa decided not to invite North Dakota to a track meet next month because of the nickname. Minnesota has long held a policy against playing games against the Fighting Sioux, except in hockey where WCHA conference obligations have matched up the rivals on the ice for decades.

Marc Ryan, the associate athletic director in charge of football scheduling for Minnesota, said it’s difficult to speculate about whether the Gophers would have faced North Dakota in recent years had the Fighting Sioux nickname been previously dropped. Minnesota has played several nearby regional opponents from the Football Championship Subdivision including North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State in recent seasons. North Dakota State received $375,000 to come to TCF Bank Stadium.

So the teams themselves have tried to keep their focus on the ice or the court or the field.

“I just stressed to them the right thing is going to happen in the end. It shouldn’t affect us right now,” men’s basketball coach Brian Jones said earlier this month. “They are good young people and care about one another. What they care about is staying together and winning basketball games. As I told them, ‘A mascot or a logo never scored a point or got a rebound, got a steal or won a game.'”

It is a source of sentiment and pride, though, one of the reasons for all the fuss. North Dakota’s teams were known as the Flickertails until adopting the Fighting Sioux in 1930 after a student newspaper campaign. There are no plans yet to introduce a new one.

“You see the Washington Redskins. You see the Florida State Seminoles. I don’t understand. I think it’s people with nothing better to do than try to get some attention,” said New Jersey Devils standout Zach Parise, one of the 15 former North Dakota players who have appeared in the NHL this season.

Parise, though, echoed the growing sentiment of many supporters of the Fighting Sioux, that the nickname itself is not more important than the success of the teams.

“Make a decision, one way or another, and let’s move on,” Parise said.

Minnesota Twins president Dave St. Peter, who graduated from UND in 1989 before climbing the ranks of the baseball organization, recalled the controversy even when he was in school.

“As proud as I am of the Fighting Sioux legacy, I’m equally proud of the state of North Dakota’s legacy,” he said. “I don’t think they can take away the name North Dakota. They’re going to be playing representing the state of North Dakota. To me, that’s still a pretty special honor. I’m not as concerned about the jersey they’re going to wear.”

The northern prairie can be a cold, dark place in the winter, and without any professional teams the North Dakota hockey program has been the state’s favorite entertainment for decades. UND has won seven national championships, and this season’s roster has 15 players who’ve already been drafted by NHL teams. Parise, Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks and T.J. Oshie of the St. Louis Blues are some of the NHL’s best young stars.

Just five hours away from the UND campus, the Xcel Energy Center arena is sure to be filled with UND fans this weekend. On the last word of “Star Spangled Banner,” they’ll yell “Sioux!” instead of “brave,” a long-held tradition at UND games. They’ll be wearing those Fighting Sioux jerseys, too.

“I will be wearing mine,” said Larry Bellerud, from Fargo, the state’s largest city. “I don’t want to see it go, but I’m also realistic about it. In the long run, it’s just a name.”

___

AP Sports Writers Rick Gano from Rosemont, Ill., and Ira Podell in New York contributed to this report. Campbell reported from St. Paul, Minn.

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NCAA tournament 2012: How did those teams get in?

Sunday night’s NCAA basketball tournament selection show, at least with regard to the first few seed lines, carried relatively few surprises, and was generally well received by analysts across the broadcast spectrum.

But the waters were roiled a bit when earlier on Sunday, North Carolina fell to Florida State in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) tournament championship game – followed by Michigan State’s win in the Big Ten tournament title game over Ohio State. Kansas, favored by many to receive one of the four #1 seeds, lost last Friday to Baylor in the Big 12 tournament semifinals, and as a result, fell to a #2 seed as Michigan State took the final #1 seed in the West region.

It was a bit unsettling to hear Jeff A. Hathaway, the chairman of the NCAA selection committee, say at midday on Sunday – before the championship round of the Big 10 and ACC tournaments had even commenced – that the committee had basically finished its work, while allowing for various “contingencies,” which he did not elaborate on.

But a more immediate question involves the selection of very borderline Big East teams like ninth-seeded Connecticut, 10th-seeded West Virginia, and the University of South Florida – the latter of whom is playing in the “First Four” in Dayton, Ohio Wednesday to try and secure a 12th-seed in that elimination round. All told, nine teams from the Big East made the tournament – an inflated number at best.

West Virginia lost eight of nine games against ranked teams and was only 9-9 in the Big East. Not only that, it lost its first-round Big East tournament game to Connecticut. They were then, as some have reported, “rewarded” for their efforts with what amounts to a home game (in nearby Pittsburgh) against visiting Gonzaga who, despite their being seeded seventh, will have to travel the breadth of the country to play them.

The Huskies, for their part, finished at 19-12 for the regular season, 8-10 overall in the Big East (9th of 13 teams) and then lost to Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament. They also lost four of their last five regular season games, with the only win being against Pittsburgh, who isn’t in the tournament and finished 5-13 in the Big East. Connecticut’s record is more worthy of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), though they were never really seriously discussed as a “bubble” team.

Partisans may say UConn should be included because the team lost so many games while head coach Jim Calhoun was absent with health challenges (he’s since returned), and that the team’s strength of schedule (SOS) was ranked third in Division 1. But with a talent pool like UConn’s, these excuses are quite flimsy. And losing games against a tough SOS is still losing games. In fairness, no team with a losing record in conference should really be in this tournament (unless of course they win their conference title, which Connecticut has done in previous seasons – despite sporting similarly ordinary statistics). Pairing them in the South region with 8th seeded Iowa State, who went 12-6 in the highly competitive Big 12 – including a win over Kansas, is just odd. 

The University of South Florida’s selection was equally unusual – particularly when teams like Drexel who, before losing in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament final, hadn’t lost a game since January 2nd, and had 27 wins in all. And even though their SOS was only 248, Drexel was certainly more proficient than Iona – another squad whose selection was a head-scratcher. Iona’s conference SOS was 266, and they had two fewer wins than Drexel.

Those who favor “power” conferences over so-called “mid-major” teams bemoan the fact that there are more mid-majors getting bids to the tournament than ever before – and as they see it, diluting its quality. But seemingly forever, power conference schools have stacked the deck against those teams by dictating onerous terms, including making the smaller schools travel to them for non-conference games. Such teams often receive a fee for agreeing to those terms, but those who decline them usually won’t get put on the schedule.

Also refuting the power conference canard in recent years has been the superior play of teams like Butler University out of the Horizon League, who appeared in back-to-back championship games in 2010 and 2011. Gonzaga (seeded seventh in the East region) and its fellow West Coast Conference (WCC) regular season opponent, St. Mary’s (seeded seventh in the Midwest region), have been perennial upstarts – not to mention the past runs of well-coached mid-majors like George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth, who have both gone deep in the tournament in recent years. Mid-majors have more than earned their place in this tournament – and really should be given added consideration over mediocre big conference teams.

But all told, at the highest levels (first through the fourth seeds), this appears to be a very strong field. No. 1 seed Syracuse appears to have a fairly straight-forward road to the East regional final – an encounter with either No. 2 Ohio State or surging No. 3 Florida State being the only potential impediment to reaching the Final Four.

North Carolina, No. 1 in the Midwest region, has a slightly more difficult schedule, where they would likely face either Georgetown or Kansas in that region’s concluding contest. The West is top seed Michigan State’s to lose. They are playing their best basketball of the year now, and even with possible late-round games against perennially strong Louisville or Marquette, they should move comfortably through the field to what would be a thrilling game against No. 2 Missouri for another Final Four berth. Kentucky, the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed from the South region, should, if events go favorably for them, likewise travel to New Orleans, with no real major threats coming until the latter regional rounds: No. 2 Duke, third-seeded Baylor or perhaps even a dark-horse contender like highly athletic No. 5 Wichita State among those.

There are always potential pitfalls awaiting the regional giants along the Final Four odyssey, which begins tonight with two of the four play-in games broadcast on truTV at 6:30 p.m. ET. Regardless, this tournament promises to deliver three weeks of frenetic excitement culminating with a national champion in New Orleans on April 2nd.

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March Madness 101: An introduction to the NCAA basketball tournament

The month of March, beside its reputation as the gateway to spring, is also known for madness – “March” madness, that is. Beginning next Thursday, sixty-four men’s college basketball teams from the NCAA’s Division 1 will compete in this annual ritual that will have both devoted and novice college basketball fans scurrying to fill in their “brackets” to try and determine the winner of college basketball’s national title when the championship game is played in New Orleans on April 2. CBS will broadcast the tournament live throughout – both over the air and on CBSSports.com.

The bracket of teams is set with Sunday night’s selection show, and that promises to be infused with considerable emotion: from the height of elation for those borderline or “bubble” teams making the field, to the depths of disappointment of those having been “snubbed” or otherwise overlooked in the selection process. That process is handled by the NCAA Div. 1 men’s basketball committee, made up of university athletic directors and conference commissioners. These so-called “at large” bids, thirty-seven in all, are based primarily on a team’s Ratings Percentage Index; in other words, the strength of its schedule and overall performance against that schedule.

Websites like Rivals.com compute these statistics, which are integral to compiling the teams’ overall rankings.  Typically, the lower a team’s RPI, the stronger its chances of receiving an at-large bid. Though RPI has been the generally accepted means of selecting teams for three decades, it is not infallible. Controversies can erupt when partisans of overlooked teams argue that their school’s statistics outweigh those of teams that were accepted. And with so much money and prestige at stake in making the tournament, the perceived subjectivity of the selection committee’s decisions can produce bitter and acrimonious debates.

However, RPI rankings are not the only means by which a team can enter the field. Thirty of the thirty-one remaining slots will be filled with conference champions. These come from both “major” conferences such as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big East, Big Ten, etc., and “mid-major” conferences, or those that fall outside the traditional major or “power” conferences. Harvard University, in the tournament for the first time since 1946, is the only exception, as its conference, the Ivy League, does not have a championship tournament.

On the Tuesday and Wednesday immediately preceding the start of the round of 64, there will be a “First Four” playoff in Dayton, Ohio where eight teams (the lowest seeded at-large bids and the lowest seeded automatic bids) will play an elimination round. These games will be broadcast on truTV, beginning at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The four victorious teams then join the other sixty teams in the main tournament, which is divided into four geographic regions, East, West, Midwest and South – each consisting of sixteen seeded teams. The first seed always plays the sixteenth, the second the fifteenth, and so-on. Since the tournament went to sixty-four teams in 1984, a sixteen-seed has never beaten a first – though in 2001, fifteenth-seeded Hampton University defeated second-seed Iowa State. This is part of the appeal of the tournament – trying to correctly spot the “upsets” while simultaneously preserving your “Final Four” teams through to the championship round.

Additionally, it’s a great deal of fun to watch and check in on so many games in the first rounds – thirty-two games broadcast over the first Thursday and Friday that are frenetic, fast-paced and fraught with heartbreak and happiness. There are blowouts and “buzzer-beaters”, the drama of the occasional David-defeats-Goliath contest, tears of joy and sadness, the “pig piles” and court rushings – all concluding with one team’s jubilation in cutting down the nets following the championship game.

For nearly three weeks, this emotional roller coaster will keep college basketball fans riveted to the cathode-ray glow of our national campfire.

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On the Bubble: The Similarities Between the NCAA Basketball Tournament and Finding a Job

Josh Tolan, Founder and CEO of Spark Hire, draws some interesting comparisons between Selection Sunday for the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the process of finding a job.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) March 11, 2012

Today, ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, and ESPNU will host 13 hours of coverage on the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The overwhelming amount of air time is dedicated to Selection Sunday. For those of you who aren’t sports fans, Selection Sunday is an annual occurrence where the 68-team field for the NCAA Basketball Tournament is selected. Of the 68 available spots in the “Big Dance,” 31 are reserved as automatic bids for conference champions. The remaining 37 spots are awarded to teams that a 10-person selection committee sees as the best of the rest.

The committee bases their decision regarding “who’s in?” and “who’s out?” on several factors. When listening to the coverage, you may hear analysts discuss a team’s strength of schedule, the quality of their conference, good wins, and bad losses. This pool of factors makes up a college basketball team’s résumé. Some teams possess résumés which will easily secure them a spot in the tournament while others find themselves on the “bubble.”

Like every year, everyone can count on a team with a seemingly solid résumé to not make the tournament. Coaches, players, fans, and analysts will question the decision of the committee. While the argument may be a valid one, it comes down to this: when teams have similar résumés, the selection committee must use what the college basketball world refers to as the “eye test.” The principle behind the eye test is simple: When one watches two comparable teams play, who is the better team? (Check out this article about the Washington Huskies and the Eye Test) The goal of the selection committee is to put the best teams in the tournament—so what is more important: the résumé or the eye test?

All this talk of résumés may make one think about the process of finding a job. It can be said that Selection Sunday is to college basketball teams what applying for a job is to job seekers. Both the team and the job seeker have a résumé which will heavily influence the decision makers in the respective processes. However, often times, the résumé cannot convey the overall quality of the college basketball team and the job seeker.

The difference between the college basketball tournament selection process and the process of applying for a job is that college basketball teams have the opportunity to impress the selection committee with their season full of televised or taped games. When sifting through job seeker paper résumés, an employer is frequently faced with the dilemma of deciding between candidates with identical looking qualifications. Job seekers may list their best qualities such as communication skills and charisma in bullet points on their résumé, but how is an employer to judge such critical characteristics?

Job seekers need to find a way to stand out from the competition. They must start taking advantage of tools like video résumés to get in front of decision makers and demonstrate their skills that are not conveyed by their standalone résumés. Fortunately, there are platforms out there, SparkHire.com being one of them, that allow job seekers to record video résumés.

So if you’re an “on the bubble” job candidate, it’s time to start thinking about utilizing a video résumé to show employers why they should hire you. Hopefully like the “eye test” helps college basketball teams get into the tournament, a video résumé will help you secure an interview.

This article was written by Josh Tolan. Josh is the Founder and CEO of SparkHire.com, a new video-based job board which helps job seekers easily connect with companies looking to hire. The original blog post may be found here.

Adeel
Spark Hire, Inc.
(847) 780-7807
Email Information

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