{"id":2160,"date":"2015-04-16T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=2160"},"modified":"2015-04-16T09:00:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T13:00:35","slug":"2160","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2015\/04\/16\/2160\/","title":{"rendered":"Eventful March Madness Comes to an Exciting End"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ALEX MULHALL – STAFF WRITER<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The best time of the year officially came to an end. College basketball will not grace our hearts or TVs for another six months. It is indeed a sad time for all.<\/p>\n

Well, almost everyone. Duke University Blue Devils fans have another six months to revel in championship bliss. Led by a trio of all-star freshmen, Coach Mike Krzyzewski outwitted Coach Bo Ryan of the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison Badgers down the stretch to nab his 5th NCAA Championship title, a mark that is good for second place on the all-time championships list. He\u2019ll need another five more to pass first place John Wooden of the University of California, Los Angelos Bruins, but we\u2019ll let him enjoy this one before he starts his quest for those five more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The one-seeded Duke Blue Devils eventually came out on top to cut the net. GOOGLE IMAGES FAIR USE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The biggest story of the tournament was Wisconsin\u2019s defeat of the University of Kentucky Wildcats in the Final Four. The game was an instant classic for both better and worse. On the plus side, there was so much on the line for these teams. It was a Final Four rematch from the previous year, but this time, Kentucky held a perfect 38-0 record. The level of skill on the court was unbelievable. At any given moment in the game, there were between five and eight future NBA players playing their hearts out on the biggest of stages. Consensus National Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky of Wisconsin dominated the show with 20 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 assists.<\/p>\n

On the negative side, the officiating was atrocious. A wise coach once told me that there are three things you can\u2019t change in a game: the weather, the referees, and the other team.<\/p>\n

Well I don\u2019t mean any disrespect, but these refs should have been changed out in the first five minutes. There were several terrible calls made or not made against both teams. The two biggest were an apparent Flagrant 1 on UK\u2019s Trey Lyles when his fist made contact with Wisconsin\u2019s Josh Gasser. That terrible no call equaled out a few minutes later when Wisconsin\u2019s Nigel Hayes scored a putback nearly a full second after the shot clock expired.<\/p>\n

In both cases, the referees went to the monitors to review the plays. In both cases, they made the wrong call. That is horrendous. The referees have one job and they could not do it with so much on the line.<\/p>\n

There was plenty of excitement in the other rounds of the tournament as well. The Georgia State University Pounces and University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Blazers, both 14 seeds, upset their 3 seed counterparts the Baylor University Bears and Iowa State University Cardinals. Georgia State Coach Ron Hunter gave the tournament its most memorable moment. After he tore his Achilles tendon celebrating Georgia State\u2019s conference championship the week prior, Hunter was confined to a stool on the sideline. During the closing seconds of their first round matchup against Baylor, Hunter\u2019s son R.J., the star of the team, hit a deep 3 to put Georgia State up. The elder Hunter could not contain his excitement and fell off the stool in celebration. That\u2019s what March Madness is all about.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t talk about March without mentioning brackets, of course. This year, a 12-year-old boy named Sammy Holtz had the number one bracket in the country in ESPN\u2019s online tournament challenge. Holtz, who is too young to collect the prize money, didn\u2019t seem too analytical about his choices. “[I] just rushed right through it. I think it was all skill, some people say it was luck, but I think I studied enough,” Holtz\u00a0said in an interview with WLS-TV. Don\u2019t worry, though. His father is collecting his winnings for him.<\/p>\n

The fact that a child picked better than every professional analyst shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone. Those who are the most knowledgeable about college basketball often fall short in bracket pools. I know I did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ALEX MULHALL – STAFF WRITER The best time of the year officially came to an end. College basketball will not grace our hearts or TVs for another six months. It is indeed a sad time for all. Well, almost everyone. Duke University Blue Devils fans have another six months to revel in championship bliss. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[15,19,23,25],"class_list":["post-2160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-basketball","tag-duke","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}