NCAA 2012 College Basketball Final Four Teams Filled with Top Recruits

How do you get to the Final Four? It helps to have the best players.

Mike Huguenin reports at Yahoo Sports! Rivals.com that Talent wins out: Final Four rosters filled with former four- and five-star recruits

Tiger Woods is Back with a 5-Stroke Win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard

Tiger Woods is back on the winning track in the golf game for his first win since September 2009 as he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard by 5 strokes at 13-under par.

For the story see The Official Site of the PGA TOUR - PGATOUR.com

UW-Whitewater Makes History in NCAA Division III Adding Basketball Championship to Football Crown

Jeff Seisser has the story at NCAA Div. III men's basketball: UW-Whitewater rallies from 18-point deficit to win title, writing inter alia:

"The UW-Whitewater men’s basketball team rallied to make history.

The Warhawks came back from an 18-point deficit in the second half to grab the NCAA Division III championship from Cabrini College (Pa.), winning 63-60 on Saturday night to become the first team in Division III history to win national titles in both football and basketball in the same school year."

Read the whole thing here.

2012 NCAA Basketball Tournament 1st Round of 64 Bracket SHAMBLES

Are you kidding me?

It would take an unlikely miracle, indeed, 10 miracles,
for any bracket to have survived the first round of 64 unscathed,
as lower-seeded teams beat higher-seeded teams in 10 of the 32 games.

Even when higher-seeded teams won
it was sometimes an "upset" as in the decisive 77-64 win
of 8th-seeded Iowa State over 9th-seeded Connecticut,
a result prognosticated in less than a majority of the brackets.

Here are the schockers in the first round of 64,
where lower-seeded teams beat higher-seeded teams:

SOUTH
(in 4 of 8 games the lower-seeded team won, including the 15th seed,
 and, as noted, the clear Iowa State win over UConn was a shocker to this observer)
15th-seeded Lehigh beat 2nd-seeded Duke 75-70
12th-seeded VCU beat 5th-seeded Wichita State 62-59
11th-seeded Colorado beat 6th-seeded UNLV 68-64
10th-seeded Xavier beat 7th-seeded Notre Dame 67-63

WEST
(in 2 of 8 games the lower-seeded team won, including the 15th seed)
15th-seeded Norfolk State beat 2nd-seeded Missouri 86-84
9th-seeded Saint Louis beat 8th-seeded Memphis 61-54

EAST
(the higher-seeded team won all games)

MIDWEST
(in 4 of 8 games the lower-seeded team won, including the 13th seed)
13th-seeded Ohio beat 4th-seeded Michigan 65-60
12th-seeded South Florida beat 5th-seeded Temple 58-44
11th-seeded N.C. State beat 6th-seeded San Diego State 79-65
10th-seeded Purdue beat 7th-seeded St. Mary's 72-69

Who would have expected Duke AND Missouri to get beaten, two teams surely in the Final Four or at least the Elite Eight on many brackets. Indeed, Missouri had been so dominant in the closing Big 12 Championship Tournament that it looked like a world beater, and now a loss to Norfolk State. Basketball is truly an exciting game.

Rules for Winning March Madness Brackets

Jason Gay at the Wall Street Journal has the story at The 23 Rules for Winning March Madness