All the Big 12-2 Conference news that is and isn't fit to read...
And some other stuff.
So that's the reason. [AAS]
The Longhorns (27-7) said the No. 4 seed they received after losing four of their final eight games did not upset them.
"If you look at some of the losses that we have, we should be lucky to even have a four seed," senior Gary Johnson said.
Similarly, sophomore Jordan Hamilton said the Longhorns are confident as a team but understand the seeding.
"Three out of four games we lost," Hamilton said. "That really hurt us. But that's in the past."
Texas finishes at No. 8 in the final Associated Press poll. [Texas Sports]
Here's some quick thoughts on Oakland. [Barking Carnival]
Pete Thamel predicts an Oakland upset. [NY Times]
Yes, we would like to see this, too. [Fox Sports]
Best potential matchup: No. 1 Duke vs. No. 4 Texas – This would be a fantastic Sweet 16 game. At one time, not all that long ago, you could make a case that these were the top two teams in the nation. I’d love to see Texas’ Dogus Balbay, one of the top perimeter defenders in the country, guarding Player of the Year candidate Nolan Smith.
Dennis Dodds isn't too sure about the Horns. [CBS Sports]
Halfway through the Big 12 season, the Horns were on track to end Kansas' dominance. A Jan. 22 victory in Lawrence ended the Jayhawks' 69-game home winning streak. At that point, Jordan Hamilton was the conference player of the year. Things didn't quite go as planned. Kansas State won at Austin. Colorado scored 58 in the second half in Boulder. At one time, Texas was one of the best defensive teams in the country. We're not sure after Kansas scored 90 in the Big 12 title game Saturday.
Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson are working out bathroom duties. [National Post]
The West Regional is wide open. [Get Buckets]
Welcome to Texas, Manny. [NY Times]
Diaz said he was blown away by the passion in Texas, as he sees youngsters in his neighborhood playing football in full pads. "It’s February," he said. "I don’t even know what they’re doing."
He added: "Football is very important in a lot of places. I don’t know if there’s a place in the country where it means as much as it does in the state of Texas."
Just like Clorox. Emmanuel Acho could become a household name. [ESPN Big 12 Blog]
Linebacker Emmanuel Acho. He was overshadowed a bit by his older brother, defensive end Sam Acho, but the senior will likely be a captain in 2011 following a pair of All-Big 12 seasons. With a new defense, the linebacker could become a household name by midseason next year.
A trip down memory lane. [Football Study Hall]
Fox is giving the Big 12-2 60 million for a network deal. [Sports Business Journal]
The Big 12’s current cable contract with Fox runs through the 2011-12 academic year and will pay the league $20 million in the final season. Terms of the new deal will drive revenue above $60 million and potentially close to $70 million annually for the league.
The conference also has a network broadcast contract with ABC/ESPN worth $480 million over eight years that runs through 2015-16. It was first thought that the Big 12 would extend its cable agreement to 2016 to make it concurrent with the ABC/ESPN contract, but now sources say that the Fox extension will go beyond 2016 and could go out as long as 10 years, to 2022.
The network and cable deals combined will bring an average of close to $130 million a year into the conference to share with the 10 teams, putting the Big 12 only slightly behind the ACC, which recently struck a deal for $155 million a year with ESPN.
How does the deal affect the conference? [ESPN Big 12 Blog]
The conference deserved better. [K-Stated]
Frank Martin was shocked on all three accounts.
“Our league continues to get slighted nationally, and it’s unfair,” Martin said. “Our league doesn’t take a backseat to anybody.”
Despite being considered one of the top basketball conferences in the country, the Big 12 only landed five teams in the NCAA Tournament (Kansas is a No. 1 seed, Kansas State a No. 5 seed and Missouri a No. 11 seed). Martin insists the conference deserved more.
“I’m disappointed our league didn’t get six in,” he said.
Do the Jayhawks have the easiest path to the Final Four? [Big 12 Hoops]
Colorado, Oklahoma State and Nebraska were invited to play in the NIT tournament. [Big 12 Hoops]
Land Thieves
They fired Jeff Capel. [Sports Illustrated]
It was just business. [NewsOK]
Jeff Capel’s firing from OU basketball was nothing personal. It was strictly a business decision.
Waning attendance. Lagging ticket sales that figured to get a lot worse. Not a lot of hope for much improvement next season.
The Sooners are released their football spring depth chart. [Sooner Sports]
Well deserved. Safety Quinton Carter has won the Wooden Citizenship Cup. [Sooner Sports]
It's all about the bracket. [NY Times]
There are burning media questions for the tournament and Charles Barkley will be, well, Charles Barkley. [Sports Illustrated]
Don't buy into the media hype. [538 NY Times Blog]
But most of all, don’t buy into the hype — the hype about a "hot" team, or a one that "knows how to win," or one that is playing basketball "the right way," or most of the other stuff that people talk about on television. It’s not necessarily that this stuff is entirely wrong — there might be some granules of truth amid the mountains of platitudes. But it’s exactly the stuff that everyone else in your pool is listening to, and winning your pool requires differentiating yourself from the pack.
This year, you have to sit through the whole basketball game, even if a team is down by 30 points. [Yahoo Sports]
The NCAA tournament is very big business. [CNBC]
$1.3 million: Price of a 30-second ad during the Final Four, according to Ad Age. That's about $1.7 million less than this past year's Super Bowl rate.
$1.4 million: Amount each tournament game is worth to the team's conference. Payout is made over six years.
$2.5 billion: Conservative estimate of how much will be bet, legally and illegally on March Madness.
$10.8 billion: Price CBS & Turner agreed to pay for the next 14 years of TV rights.
Here's a list of things athletes just shouldn't touch on Twitter. [ESPNW]
There is a growing disparity between graduation rates for white and black players at schools in the men's NCAA basketball tournament. [ESPN]
Who will cut down the nets in Houston? [USA Today]
Someone paid for this research study? [NY Times]
Just who is Joe Lunardi? [Lost Lettermen]
Some tech advice for making your tournament picks. [Blogging the Bracket]
There is a new documentary on the UNLV Runnin' Rebel basketball program. [Sportsnewser]
Crime pays in college basketball. [Washington Post]
That’s not always foolproof. In one of the great emotion-over-logic, karmic finishes of all time, Kansas came back and snatched the trophy from Memphis’s hands in 2008, further proof the gods of the game also think John Calipari’s programs are malodorous.
But then, crime almost paid last year. In what the NCAA had to fear was the apocalypse, Huggins, Calipari, Drew, Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl and Kansas State’s Frank Martin, a Huggins protege, coached teams in the region finals and seriously threatened to make it an All-Cretin Final Four
Who knew? There is a Nike camp just for longsnappers. [Scout]
Football returns to Stetson University after a 55-year hiatus. [AP Sports]
And finally...Only in Oklahoma.