Go West, young man – to the Final Four
Posted: March 31, 2021 Filed under: Basketball, final four, NCAA tournament, Uncategorized | Tags: Baylor, Bobby Knight, Elvin Hayes, final four, Gonzaga, Hakeem Olujawon, Horace Greeley, Houston, John Wooden, Lew Alcindor, UCLA Leave a comment
In 1865, American author and newspaper editor Horace Greeley said “Go West, young man, go West” inspiring America’s Westward expansion. Who knew he was talking about the Final Four.
- For the first time since the NCAA basketball tournament began in 1939, all four finalists represent schools based West of the Mississippi. Oftentimes the Final Four has consisted of teams East of the Mississippi – as recently as 2014 and 2015 — but this is a first for the West.
- For the first time, two schools from Texas – Baylor and Houston – have cracked the Final Four.
- UCLA has won the most championships (11) and has appeared in more Final Fours (19) than any school except North Carolina, which has made it 20 times. Duke is third with 16 appearances.
- Neither top-seeded Gonzaga, Baylor or Houston has ever won a national championship.
- This is Gonzaga’s second Final Four. The Zags lost to North Carolina 71-65 in the championship game in 2017.
- Gonzaga is seeking to become the first team to finish a season undefeated since Indiana finished 32-0 in 1976 under coach Bobby Knight.
- There have been seven unbeaten NCAA champions overall. UCLA and coach John Wooden did it four times, finishing 30-0 in 1964, 1967, 1972 and 1973 with stars like Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton. North Carolina was 32-0 in 1957, and San Francisco and Bill Russell 29-0 in 1956.
- Baylor hasn’t been to the big stage since 1950, when the Bears finished fourth behind Bradley, NC State and champion CCNY. In 1948 Baylor lost to Kentucky in the championship game after defeating Kansas State in the semifinals. Holy Cross finished third, a year after the Crusader won the title in 1947.
- Houston has been to five Final Fours, but has yet to win a national championship. The Cougars, led by Elvin “The Big E” Hayes, finished third in 1967 and fourth in 1968, with UCLA winning both times. Houston had a three-year run from 1982-82 with Hakeem Olajuwon, losing to NC State in the 1983 title game and to Georgetown in 1984.
- The last team out of a non-power conference to win the title was UNLV in 1990. Gonzaga has a chance to end that streak this year.
- UCLA joins VCU as the only team to go from the First Four to the Final Four.
- This marks the 11th year in a row a seed fifth or higher has made the Final Four.
CRASH!! Looking for a Sweet 16 pool
Posted: March 24, 2021 Filed under: college basketball, NCAA tournament, Uncategorized | Tags: Bill Russell, Gonzaga, Jesuits, Michigan, NCAA basketball tournament, Ohio State, Oral Robert, Pac-12, Sweet 16 Leave a comment
CRASH!!! That loud sound you heard the other day was that of my brackets breaking.
I should have stuck to my instincts. I felt it was a bad year for the Big Ten, yet I picked Ohio State to win in one pool and finish second in another and Illinois to advance to the Final Four in more than one pool. So much for strategy.
And thinking this is the year of the Jesuit (salute to Dr. Fauci and Pope Francis), I did pick Gonzaga to win the championship in several pools. But I neglected my Jesuit brethren Loyola of Chicago and Creighton, both of whom are still alive and well and swimming in the Sweet 16 pool.
There are 28 Jesuit universities in the US, and they’ve won a total of six championships since the NCAA tournament begin in 1939. The University of San Francisco, anchored by Bill Russell, won back-to-back championships in 1955 and 1956. Holy Cross (1947), Loyola of Chicago (1963), Marquette (1977) and Georgetown (1984) also won championships.
Here’s some thoughts and insights on the Sweet 16 while searching for a new pool:
The Pac-12 has been the big winner so far. Despite a rather lackluster regular season, four Pac-12 teams are still alive – Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and USC. Oregon won the first NCAA title and UCLA has won the most with 11, but neither was expected to make a deep run this year.
Although the highest seeded Pac-12 team was fifth (Colorado), the conference went 9-1 in the first round. That includes three wins by UCLA, which had to defeat Michigan State in a First Four game.
The Big Ten, on the other hand, hardly live up to expectations. The conference had nine teams in the tournament, most of any league, including two No. 1 seeds (Illinois and Michigan) and two No. 2 seeds (Ohio State and Iowa). Michigan is the lone survivor after two games.
The Big East, ACC and SEC each have two schools in the Sweet Sixteen. The Big 12 has one. The other four slots were secured by non-majors – West Coast Conference (Gonzaga), Summit League (Oral Roberts), Missouri Valley Conference (Loyola of Chicago) and American Athletic Conference (Houston).
Four double digit seeds (No. 15 Oral Roberts, No. 12 Oregon State and No. 11 seeds UCLA and Syracuse) survived the first two rounds. That’s one short of the record five.
However this Sweet 16 has a seed total of 94, highest in the history of the NCAAs. It breaks the previous high of 89, set in 1986.
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How Marvin Hagler drove this foe out of town
Posted: March 14, 2021 Filed under: Boxing, Uncategorized | Tags: Jim Murray, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Marvin Hagler, Middleweight, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Vinnie Curto Leave a comment
Marvelous Marvin Hagler, one of the great middleweight boxers of all time, died unexpectedly March 13 at his home in Bartlett, NH. He was 66.
His passing evokes memories of the opponent Hagler once scared so bad that he fled clear across country – before the fight even took place.
Back in 1977, this young reporter from the Fitchburg Sentinel & Leominster Enterprise covered a middleweight between Vinnie Curto, a boxer from East Boston, and DC Walker at the Wallace Civic Center in Fitchburg, MA.
Curto won by unanimous decision, and later that year, in September, was scheduled to fight Hagler, then a fearsome talent and a rising star, in Boston.
However, Curto, pictured at right, never made the date. Reportedly, he was so intimidated by the mere presence of Marvelous Marvin at a press conference before that fight that he completely disappeared.
Curto got as far out of Dodge as he possibly could, and eventually resurfaced in the Pacific Northwest. From there, Vinnie wound up in Canada.
The esteemed columnist from the Los Angeles Times, Jim Murray, wrote a column about the Hagler-Curto fiasco nearly 10 years later.
“No one knows why Curto didn’t go through with that fight,” Murray said. “Unless you belong to that growing majority that doesn’t understand why anybody shows up for a scheduled fight with Marvelous Marvin Hagler.”
For the offense, Curto was stripped of his state license and was not allowed to fight in Massachusetts for three years.
Marvin Hagler had a marvelous career, no pun intended. He was 62-3-2 with 52 knockouts from 1973 to 1987, and he was the undisputed middleweight champion from 1980 to1987.
Hagler, who was born in Newark, NJ and later moved to Brockton, MA, fought during the golden age of the middleweight division, and squared up against legends like Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Sugar Ray Leonard.
After avoiding Hagler, Curto, now 65, resumed his career in 1978. He finished with a 62-10-3 career record. On September 20, 1996, he won won the World Boxing Federation (WBF) Super Cruiserweight Title and then retired.
Celebrities in the picture at Ali-Frazier I
Posted: March 11, 2021 Filed under: Boxing, Uncategorized | Tags: Ali-Frazier I, Bob Dylan, Burt Lancaster, Don Duphy, Frank Sinatra, Joe Frazier, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali, Ted Kennedy Leave a comment
Fifty years ago this week, on March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in what is often called “The Fight of the Century.”
It has long been considered one of the greatest heavyweight fights in boxing history, and one of the biggest sports events ever in New York City.
That night, Smokin’ Joe Frazier would win a unanimous decision over Ali in the first of three titanic confrontations. Ali won the last two, including a return bout at MSG and the Thrilla’ in Manila.
Ali-Frazier I will forever be remembered as perhaps the greatest assemblage of celebrities at a sporting event. We’re talking big-time celebrities.
Frank Sinatra was there, taking photographs for LIFE magazine from his ringside seat. Burt Lancaster was an analyst for the closed-circuit broadcast. Sinatra and Lancaster sat next to one another at the Garden, bonded as they had been in “From Here To Eternity.”
Norman Mailer wrote about the bout for LUFE, and hundreds of big-name sports journalists covered the fight.
Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford and Dustin H
offman were at ringside.
Others in the house included Bill Cosby, Diana Ross, Diane Keaton, Woody Allen and Sammy Davis Jr.
Bob Dylan was there. Hugh Hefner and Barbi Benton came together.
U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey made the scene.
Leroy Nieman painted Ali and Frazier as they fought.
Members of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, who called MSG home, were in attendance that night at the Garden.
Gene Kelly was there, along with Eunice Shriver. Boxing historian Bert Sugar and future heavyweight champion George Foreman, who would later fight both Ali and Frazier for the title, were in MSG that starry night..
The worldwide broadcast was called by legendary announcer Don Dunphy, joined by Lancaster and former champion and boxing legend Archie Moore. The bout was not televised on the networks, but was broadcast by closed circuit, to 50 countries in 12 languages to an audience estimated at 300 million viewers.
Paul Newman and Glen Ford viewed the fight at a closed circuit screening in Beverly Hills. Elvis and Priscilla Presley did the same at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis.
Bing Crosby couldn’t get into the Garden (seriously) and watched the fight on closed-circuit at Radio City Music Hall.
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