NCAA Basketball Tournament

March Madness: Further Evidence The 2013 NBA Draft Is Going To Be Terrible

When it comes to rebuilding a professional sports team, the ultimate sign of the desperate fan is to take one possible outcome that has worked for a few teams before, apply it as gospel, and then shout from the rooftops that "[fill in name of favorite team here] needs to [do that thing that's worked ... More >>

March Madness 2013: My Predictions In The Form Of Prop Bets

The play-in game appetizers are done, and Thursday morning the main course of 63 games involving 64 teams over the next two weeks begins. For the first time since I got into radio in 2007, I will be able to actually settle in and watch the games for the entire first two days with no radio responsibi ... More >>

Top Five Things to Do in Houston Sports This Weekend: Color Runs, Roller Derby and March Madness

It's almost the weekend and time for the inaugural edition of what to do this weekend in Houston: sports edition. Each week, we'll be giving you color commentary on events in and around the area you might want to choose for some weekend relaxation, all for sports fans. It's the first week of spring ... More >>

Cougars And Owls Finish Very Disappointing Basketball Seasons

March Madness begins on Tuesday and gets into full swing on Thursday. And for the first time in probably forever (technically 1977), not one single Texas college was invited to play in the NCAA Tournament. No UT. No A&M. No Baylor. No Rice, UH, Sam Houston State, or SFA. Not one. But not all hope ... More >>

College Basketball: Buzzer Beaters Galore This Weekend! (w/ VIDEO)

Sometimes it takes the trailer to a movie to get casual fans really interested. Take some of these superhero movies, for instance. I don't dork out heavily over Batman or Iron Man movies at all. I don't count down the days until those movies are coming to theaters, and I can't tell you the unfilmed ... More >>

Rice Owls Play The Game of "What If?"

The story is not that the Memphis Tigers defeated the Rice Owls 77-51 on Wednesday night. That was to be expected. The story's not that Rice struggled shooting the ball. That's a season-long pattern. The story's not really about the game the two teams played on Wednesday night. The story's more ab ... More >>

2012: The Year In Zapruder, A Recap Of My Detailed Video Recaps

I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line in 2012, the Zapruder-style analysis of viral videos became my thing. Much like you'd go to Clay Travis on SEC football or to Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback for the weekend that was in the NFL, when you the reader needed hardcore ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets, "Taking The Escalator" Edition (Also, Praise For UConn's Jim Calhoun)

Sitting and watching Jim Calhoun's retirement press conference as I type this post, and I got to thinking....it's nice to build something. In 1986, Jim Calhoun inherited a UConn men's basketball program that was 12-16 the year before and to that point had won just four NCAA tournament games in its ... More >>

College Basketball: Sweet Sixteen Best Bets

The casual fan likes March Madness because, unquestionably more than any other major sports postseason, the odds are at least only stacked manageably against the Davids (as opposed to football and series-based postseasons like baseball and in the NBA). In short, when there's no personal interest, pe ... More >>

Hey, Rice Owls Fans, Do You Even Know You Have a Basketball Team?

The College Insider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) is just another of college basketball's postseason alphabet tournaments -- see also the NIT and the CBI. But the Rice Owls are playing in the CIT, and it's the first time the team's made a men's postseason basketball tournament since 2005. It's ju ... More >>

March Madness -- The Most "Live" Teams At Each Seed, 1 through 16

Last year, the Final Four made its way to Houston and in a turn of events entirely emblematic of the type of sports year Houston sustained in 2011, we wound up with arguably the most underwhelming collection of four teams ever assembled at college basketball's marquee event. The highest seeded team ... More >>

UK Papers Explain Strange Concept of "Basketball" & "March Madness" to Their Readers

President Obama took UK Prime Minister David Cameron to a play-in game for March Madness last night. As a result, newspapers in the UK had to explain just what the hell was going on. Basketball isn't big there -- it was the first time Cameron had ever seen a game -- so results were, well, scattered ... More >>

5 Things to Know About March Madness So You Don't Look Like a Complete Lummox

Just admit it: You won't have a clue about how to talk about the 2012 NCAA tournament, much less how to fill out the bracket once the teams are selected on March 11. That's what we're here for. As March Madness heads toward its March 15 start date (no need to watch the games on March 13 and 14; s ... More >>

Bowling for Chumps

How insiders use the college bowl system to loot American universities.

Cruel Summer -- Andre Jones (1969-2011)

Notable deaths: They do come in threes sometime​In a recent blog post about Major League Baseball realignment, I expressed the following sentiment: The best memories for most sports fans are the ones that took place from their mid-teenage years through their late 20s. Generally, for most of u ... More >>

Health Department Roundup

The end of the Age of Aquarius ​In honor of the NCAA Tournament ending, we're going to highlight some health inspection Cinderella stories. These are the little guys that lack citywide recognition but still have to conform to the same tough sanitation standards as the big-name restaurants. For ... More >>

The NCAA Title Game: Forget One Shining Moment, Try a Brick House Instead

John RoyalAnd so begins one of the worst championship games in NCAA Tournament history.​Houston is the home city of two Conference USA basketball teams. That means that there's been some really bad basketball played in this city the last several years. So perhaps it was the lingering stench ... More >>

NCAA Tournament -- Four Winners, Four Losers

Jim Calhoun reboots once again​Well, if a Final Four of a three, four, eight and eleven seed wasn't a metaphor for Houston sports in 2011, then Connecticut and Butler establishing a watchability bar that the women's final may actually surpass tonight (ok,ay I am totally joking, but still...) m ... More >>

Final Four -- R.I.P. College Basketball Regular Season

It's Cinderella overload in Houston​"See, BCS! This is how it's done! College basketball, baby!!" -- Any number of random tweeters after Virginia Commonwealth and Butler punched their tickets to the Final Four this weekend Yes, in a world plagued by war, unemployment, and earthquakes, the m ... More >>

NCAA Sweet Sixteen Central

What the hell happened to Leslie Visser?​It's generally accepted that the first two full days of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament provide the greatest two-day watching/gambling/drinking/eating experience annually, for obvious reasons: 1. Whether by illness, approved vacation, or planned s ... More >>

NCAA Days Three and Four -- Winners and Losers

March madness underway.​Well, I'm guessing that this past weekend of basketball is not how the money people behind the Final Four's coming to Houston drew it up on the chalkboard. In a tournament that already had last year's regional darling Baylor on the outside looking in, the only two Te ... More >>

NCAA Day One -- Winners and Losers

Need some downtime for the NCAA tourney? Try a vasectomy.​Yes, you read that headline correctly -- yesterday was "Day One" of the NCAA Tournament. Not Tuesday! Despite what the NCAA propaganda machine will tell you, the greatest single two-week period of sports during the calendar year is not ... More >>

11 Keys to Your Filling Out Your NCAA Bracket

Have you done your brackets yet?​So it's that time of year again. Time for the Big Dance, March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. It's that one time of year when absolutely everyone in the office actually pays attention to college basketball and everyone thinks they're an expert ... More >>

Why Is Everybody Hating on UAB?

Seth Greenberg wants to know why no one likes him​"It makes you wonder if someone in that room has their own agenda, and it does not include Virginia Tech, unfortunately," Coach Seth Greenberg said Sunday night. "You'd hate to think there's politics involved, but it makes you wonder." I've ... More >>

Charles Barkley Drops "Jackass" on Billy Packer (And Seven Other Barkley-As-Analyst Highlights)

Don't mess with the Barkley​The unveiling of the brackets for March Madness, which is a scant 48 hours away, takes on a little different meaning this year, for three intertwined reasons: 1. The field has expanded to 68, so now Tuesday and Wednesday will include four play-in games to get us to ... More >>

Rice Basketball: Farce? Fiasco? Either Way, the Owls Lose Another

John RoyalThe malfunctioning shot clock displays Rice's chances of advancing to the NCAA Tournament​What if they played a basketball game and nobody cared? What if it was senior night, but the school was on spring break and not even the band or cheerleaders could be bothered to make even a to ... More >>

Resurrecting Phi Slama Jama

Can UH resurrect its basketball glory days?

Game Time: What If Gordon Hayward's Shot Goes In?

As sports fans, I think we probably let single events define players and coaches more than we should. In this era where we want to evaluate things quickly and neatly, it's always easier (and oftentimes, lazier) to just let one play on a big stage define somebody. It's clear, it's concise, it's also ... More >>

For Opening Day: The Worst Pregame Renditions Of The National Anthem Ever

What so proudly we hailed... Can you pass the earplugs, please?​ You can be forgiven for not realizing Opening Day for baseball season was here already (yesterday, in fact). Maybe you've been too busy cursing the guy in your NCAA tournament pool that filled out his brackets using the coin-flip met ... More >>

Game Time: Prediction Monday -- Men's Hoops Finals And The Astros' 2010 Season

​NCAA MEN'S HOOPS FINALS (Butler vs Duke, 8:21 PM tip-off)When I ranked the list of NCAA Finals permutations from "Most Compelling" to "Least Compelling" in this space last week, I had Butler vs Duke ranked as the most compelling. The figurative "Cinderella" (although let's not forget that Cinde ... More >>

Game Time: Yeah, My Bracket Blows, But At Least I'm Not This Guy

​Sometimes I forget that the cushy little sports world I live in is not the end-all and be-all. For the better part of the last two weeks, it has felt like everything was crashing down around me as housewives and receptionists everywhere had outpicked me on their March Madness brackets using such ... More >>

UH Makes An Odd Choice For Its Basketball Program

​When Tom Penders resigned last week, University of Houston Athletic Director Mack Rhoades made it clear that he was looking for more than just a head coach of the basketball team. He was looking for a partner. Somebody who would not only turn the team into a winner, but would also grow the pro ... More >>

Game Time: Assessing The 2010 Final Four

​I was on fire. As dismal as my bracket had become whittling the field down from 64 to 16 teams, once the field was down to the Sweet Sixteen, I was seeing things much more clearly. This wouldn't save my bracket, because brackets are like kids -- once you crank one out, it's yours for better or ... More >>

Exit, Tom Penders; Enter.....To Be Determined

Photo from wikipedia​It was rather surreal inside the Carl Lewis Auditorium at the University of Houston Athletics/Alumni Center yesterday afternoon. Let's start with members of the Houston media actually showing up for something that didn't involve a free buffet -- there hasn't been that large ... More >>

Coogs Show Sparks, But Are One-And-Done In The NCAAs

Photo courtesy UH​On Friday, I laid out a series of necessary keys that the Houston Cougars had to meet were they to have any chance of defeating the Maryland Terrapins in Friday night's opening-round NCAA Tournament match. You've seen the final score by now: Maryland 89, Houston 77. But at th ... More >>

Game Time: "I've Done Some Pretty Bad Things"

​"I've done some pretty bad things..." -- Tiger Woods, 3.21.10That makes two of us, Tiger. Of course, while the bad things you did were decidedly more kinky and homewrecking than my transgressions, it doesn't make me feel any less remorseful than you. Hey, by the way, saw your texts to Joslyn ... More >>

Game Time: "My Bracket Looks Like Edward James Olmos' Face"

​There is a silver lining in a plundered bracket in the year 2010, and it's this -- with the advent of Twitter, you immediately get reaction to the various buzzer-beaters, bracket-busters, and inexplicable gaffes that make up the first few days of the tournament (and there were plenty). So whereas ... More >>

Game Time: We Interrupt March Madness For This Earl Thomas Interview

​By the time this post is up, March Madness will have tipped off, so I hope everyone was able to glean enough "infotainment" (a word my good friend WWE Hall of Famer, Jim Ross, loves to use) to mentally and psychologically prepare you for the next few weeks. If you missed it, you can get the Mar ... More >>

Obama Shows Little March Madness Love For Texas Schools

Texas -- not just UT, but the state's other March Madness teams -- ain't getting much love from Barack Obama. His annual bracket picks do have Baylor, A&M and Texas getting past the first round, but not UH.Take heart, Coog fans: As Obama says, "I got killed last year in the first round."Texas ... More >>

Cougars Are, At Long Last, A Part Of March Madness Again

Photo courtesy UH​I owe Tom Penders and his players an apology. I thought that there was no chance of the Houston Cougars running the table in the C-USA men's basketball tournament, and thus making the NCAA Tournament. And I wrote such.Boy was I wrong.The Cougars pulled off the expected defeat ... More >>

UH Hoops Still Dreaming Of Making It Back To March Madness

Photo courtesy UH​Guy V. Lewis last coached the University of Houston men's basketball team in 1986. His last great team lost in the 1984 NCAA title game to the Georgetown Hoyas. He left a legacy of 27 straight winning seasons. Fourteen seasons with 20-plus wins. Fourteen NCAA tournament appearanc ... More >>

UT Actually Makes The Final Four For Once: In Chess, And In Brownsville

While UT barely made it out of the first round in this year's college basketball tournament, a lesser known member of the state university system was playing in the Final Four ... of chess.UT Brownsville/Texas Southmost College wiped the geek right off the faces of the players from Stanford to claim ... More >>

25 Random March Madness Facts

Photo by All your picture are belong to us It's once again time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, or as most refer to it, March Madness. And instead of doing an analysis and picking the winner, like I do (badly) every year, I've decided to go another way. I'm sure you've all seen those Fac ... More >>

25 Random March Madness Facts

Photo by All your picture are belong to us It's once again time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, or as most refer to it, March Madness. And instead of doing an analysis and picking the winner, like I do (badly) every year, I've decided to go another way. I'm sure you've all seen those Fac ... More >>

John Royal’s NCAA Basketball Picks, Take Two

Drenched in Blog: March Madness, Rock-Style

John Royal’s NCAA Picks

A View to the Rooms

It's Never Too Early