Results tagged “collegesports”

Local teams may have been shut out of the NCAA tournament's Final Four, but New York is not without representation in Atlanta. Florida phenom Joakim Noah calls NYC home, as does Georgetown's Jesse Sapp. Neither played high school basketball in New York: Noah played for The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and Sapp attended National Christian Academy in Maryland. Ohio State and UCLA are sadly New York City-free teams.

Is it going to be Florida’s year again? Can the likely #1 pick in this year’s NBA draft, Greg Oden, lead Ohio State to a championship? Is Georgetown ready to return to elite status? These questions and many more will be answered over the next three weeks as March Madness begins.

How often does college football matter to a New York-area team? Rutgers's game against Louisville garnered enough attention the Empire State Building was lit up in scarlet. It was the biggest local game in recent memory. But despite all the hype, the Scarlet Knights were heavy underdogs to the Cardinals, even at home. A last-minute field goal by Jeremy Ito stunned the No. 3 Cardinals and capped a shocking 28-25 Rutgers win. The result effectively ended Louisville's national title hopes and kept Rutgers, which still has to play three more games -- including at West Virginia -- in the discussion. That's right. Rutgers is in the national title discussion.

Anyone who has participated in higher levels of organized sports knows that there's always some sort of hazing involved. From NFL rookies paying for the meals of veterans, to MLB rookies dressing up in drag. Well, Badjocks has some pictures of a local team - the Fordham Softball Team. The pictures, which aren't as racy as some of the others on the site, speak for themselves. Our personal favorite is the one pictured above, which you can click to enlarge.

How fitting is it that the St. John's Red Storm is facing two years of probation because of a basketball player from the Mike Jarvis era? The player in question is Abe Keita, who was but a minor blip on the college basketball scene. In three seasons that Gothamist found, Keita never managed to average more than 2.4 points. Despite Keita's miniscule contribution to the team and that all the infractions came under Jarvis, St. John's will lose one scholarship next season, forfeit the games that Keita participated in, and return 90% of the money it received for the 2002 NCAA tournament. All that in addition to a self-imposed ban for the 2004-05 post-season and one less scholarship last season.

Gothamist knew this Final Four had the potential to be a dud following the first two weeks leading up to the tournament. That said, we didn't think it would be this bad. Florida romped through UCLA 73-57 in Monday's championship game, giving the Gators their first national title and preventing the Bruins from collecting their twelfth. Florida played like a well-coached, athletic team that made a normally stingy UCLA team look lost on defense and out of rhythm on offense.

Defending the National Invitational Tournament title is not something a basketball program sets as its goal the year after winning it. The coach and players no doubt would prefer a berth in the NCAA tournament than a trip to New York for the NIT championship. Still, South Carolina coach Dave Odom and his players got that return trip and the bonus of a 76-64 win over Michigan Thursday. Better to win the NIT than lose in it, Gothamist supposes.

As much as teams crave perennial postseason success, they don't want to be repeat performers in the NIT. But South Carolina and Michigan have become familiar faces at Madison Square Garden in late March. The Gamecocks defeated Louisville and the Wolverines dispatched Old Dominion in Tuesday's semifinals. South Carolina can win its second straight title, and Michigan will play in its second final in three years. Both would have gladly traded a shot at the title for the berths in the NCAA tournament that eluded them.

As most of the country fawns over George Mason's surprise advancement to the Final Four, four teams will fight it out for the National Invitational Tournament championship at Madison Square Garden this week. Pundits joke the winner represents the 66th best team in the country, but Gothamist has found it usually represents the best power conference team to not make that other tournament, the NCAA Championship version.

OK, so Gothamist was talking about the NIT, but a #1 is still a #1, no? Yesterday the Manhattan Jaspers won their first round NIT game against the Maryland Terrapins. Sure, Maryland players and fans have no interest in the tournament (only 4,761 were at the game), but that's no really not much of an excuse. Win the win, Manhattan and Hofstra are now the only local men's basketball teams that are still playing in the post-season. Iona, Albany, Syracuse (which actually bills itself as "New York's College Team), Monmouth, and Seton Hall were all bounced from the NCAA Tournament already. For what it's worth, that tornament still has all its top seeds...so far.

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has lost its first team. Last night, Monmouth defeated Hampton 71-49 in the play-in game. It's Monmouth's fourth trip to the big dance and its first victory. Their reward? A trip to Philadelphia to play Villanova. While Phily might ordinarily be a great place to play an opening round game if you're from the West Long Branch, New Jersey school, Villanova is less than 20 miles away. That should be a nice home-court advantage for the Wildcats.

It is an annual right of spring; “Selection Sunday” gives way to “Moaning Monday”, a chance for the teams who didn’t make the NCAA Tournament to complain. Florida State, Michigan, Cincinnati and Maryland are all grumbling today after not being invited to the big dance.

For a week, the Syracuse Orange used a label of "overrated" to motivate their run to the Big East title. Now, as Big East champions, they'll sit and wait to see how much they helped their seeding with a win over Pittsburgh in the championship game. Last year, West Virginia, like Syracuse, sat on the Big East bubble entering the conference tournament. The runners-up got a seven seed, and Gothamist thinks Syracuse can do better than that. West Virginia clearly proved better than its seeding, and Syracuse could easily make the Sweet 16.

Syracuse could have taken it easy after knocking off Connecticut, confident a win over the nation's top-ranked team secured them an NCAA tournament berth. Pittsburgh could have rested after taking care of archrival West Virginia in their quarterfinal game. Even with nothing meaningful to play for except a bump in seeding, both underdogs lived to fight another day in the Big East semifinals Friday. Syracuse rallied to top Georgetown 58-57, and Pittsburgh crushed second-ranked Villanova. The two teams play for the Big East championship on Saturday to cap what has been a upside-down tournament.

Gerry McNamara won a national title in his freshman year at Syracuse and he wasn’t going to miss the tournament in his senior year. McNamara hit a game tying three-pointer with 10 seconds left to force overtime in Syracuse’s 86-84 upset over UConn in the Big East Tournament.

If it wasn't a big enough spectacle before, the Big East tournament now has even more power to its punch. Starting today at Madison Square Garden, the league's top 12 (out of 16) battle it out for the conference's tournament title and the berth in the NCAA tournament that comes with it. Of course, most of the teams are playing for seeding, but a few are on the bubble.

To beat Villanova at home, a team would have to play flawless basketball, or at least close to it. When West Virginia knocked off the Wildcats earlier this year, they used scorching three-point shooting. St. John's didn't play perfect basketball, and their shooting ended up far from accurate in a 65-52 loss at Villanova Wednesday. The Red Storm did a good job of keeping it close, but not of making Villanova sweat. They'll need a win over Rutgers on Sunday to have a shot at making the Big East tournament. Twelve of the 16 teams advance.

With a victory over Seton Hall in their final regular season game at Madison Square Garden, the St. John's Red Storm can still entertain thoughts of returning there for the Big East tournament. Their 58-47 win Tuesday makes it a possibiliy they can earn one of the berths given to the top 12 teams in the 16-team conference. St. John's finishes with Villanova on the road (a likely loss) and Rutgers at home.

After beating Pitt at home three weeks ago, St. John's appeared to have a good shot to avoid the pileup that is the bottom of the Big East conference. Since then, the Red Storm have lost five straight, including Thursday's 64-41 loss at Georgetown. As Georgetown coach John Thompson III put it, St. John's had "a bad night." Whether the recent collection of bad nights will cost St. John's a chance at the Big East tournament remains to be seen, but if they want to change their fortunes, the Red Storm had better start playing better soon.

As conference play continues, St. John's Big East conference continues to make its claim to the title of best conference in the country. Given the talent of the teams at the top, the Red Storm have played well. Unfortuantely for Norm Roberts' squad, playing well was not enough for the second straight game. West Virginia held off St. John's Sunday days after the Red Storm hung with top-ranked Connecticut on the road Wednesday.

As impressive a week as St. John's had last week, defeating Louisville and Pittsburgh at home, the Red Storm could hardly have hoped to beat Connecticut on the road Wednesday. They didn't. After hanging with the nation's top-ranked team for a half, St. John's lost in Storrs 66-50. The Huskies outscored the visitors by 15 points in the second half and took control after two ejections with a 15-4 run.

Earlier this week, Gothamist thought that St. John's win over Louisville was the win of the season for the team. Well, we were mistaken because yesterday they defeated Pittsburgh, 55-50, at Madison Square Garden. The 9th ranked Panthers entered the game as one of three undefeated teams left in the nation, but like the Duke Blue Devils and the Florida Gators, they ended the day with their first loss. The win was reminiscent of better days at St. John's, when the team was once a dominant force in the Big East. Fittingly, the school honored 10 people - Mark Jackson, Chris Mullin, Walter Berry, Lou Carnesecca, Dick McGuire, Alan Seiden, Malik Sealy, Sonny Dove, Tony Jackson and Joe Lapchikas - as Basketball Legacy Honorees. In attendance was Jackson, Mullin, Berry, Coach Carnesecca, and McGuire. The win was the Red Storm's third straight and improves their record to 10-6, 3-2 in the Big East. The 10 wins matches the team total from last season.

After stumbling through the non-conference season, St. John's finally picked up a victory it can be proud of when the Red Storm defeated Louisville at the Garden Tuesday night. Louisville may have been worn out from battling a tough Pitt team this past weekend, but St. John's still deserves plenty of credit for taking down the 17th-ranked team in the country. The Red Storm still figure to struggle in Big East play this year, but they didn't struggle Tuesday night.

It was a perfect confluence of events: a big game that lived up to the hype, the fall of a dynasty and the birth of a legend. Texas beat USC 41-38 behind the legs and arm of Vince Young who accounted for 467 yards of offense.

New York is one of the few areas of the country that doesn’t care about college football. Maybe it’s because we don’t really have a local team to root for (Rutgers isn’t quite there yet) but we don’t pay a lot of attention to it. Tonight would be a good time to change that attitude as Texas plays USC in one of the best matchups in recent history.

In last night's Panasonic Holiday Festival basketball tournament (could that be the worst name ever?), two local teams matched up in a game that didn't turn out to be much of a competition. The Red Storm from St. John's defeated the Columbia Lions, 63-39. As the final score shows, the game was never close. The Johnnies started the game by going on an 11-2 run and led by seventeen at the end of the first half. In the second half, the Lions fared slightly better, coming as close at fourteen points. St. John's stifled the Lions offense as they were 13-48 (27%) in field goal attempts, had no players score in double digits, and turned the ball over 17 times. Columbia is now 0-17 against the Big East since 1985-86.

Yesterday, Columbia University introduced Norries Wilson as head coach for their football program after the firing of Bob Shoop last month. Wilson goes to Columbia after seven years with the University of Connecticut and four as the offensive coordinator for the Huskies. In 2003, the Huskies offense ranked 8th in the nation in yardage. In 2004, UConn's first year in the Big East, Wilson's offense led the league in total offense and scoring. Wilson's offensive expertise will be needed as he joins a Columbia team that was last in total points scored (and allowed) in the Ivy League. Wilson will be the first black head coach in the Ivy League.

We finally have a Bush election that cannot be questioned. USC’s star running back, Reggie Bush, won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night in a landslide over his teammate Matt Leinert and Texas quarterback Vince Young. Leinert won the trophy last season which means two Heisman winners will be playing for the same team for the first time ever when USC faces Texas in the Rose Bowl on January 4th.

Apologies to Salt-N-Pepa, but it's clear that Columbia University was not happy with the Lions' head football coach, Bob Shoop. Shoop was fired Sunday morning after a dreadful 2-8 season (Hey, they have the same record as the Jets!). Columbia University's athletic director M. Dianne Murphy said that it was "necessary and appropriate to make a change in leadership at this time." Shoop's team was also last in total points scored and allowed in the Ivy League this year.