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2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament 2nd round- March 21st

This post will remain at the top of the blog for the rest of today. To see newer posts, scroll down.

As results come in today, I will update this post. I’ll also include any related tournament news here.

Syracuse beats Gonzaga 87-65
West Virginia beats Missouri 68-59
Ohio State beats Georgia Tech 75-66
Cornell beats Wisconsin 87-69
Michigan State beats Maryland 85-83
Duke beats Cal 68-53
Xavier beats Pitt 71-68
Purdue beats Texas A&M 63-61

 

2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament- March 19th

This post will remain at the top of the blog for the rest of today. To see newer posts, scroll down.

As results come in today, I will update this post. I’ll also include any related tournament news here.

West Virginia beats Morgan St. 77-50
Cornell beats Temple 78-65
Xavier beats Minnesota 65-54
Purdue beats Siena 72-64
Pittsburgh beats Oakland 89-66
Wisconsin beats Wofford 53-49
Texas A&M beats Utah St. 69-53
Gonzaga beats Florida St. 67-60
Duke beats Arkansas-Pine Bluff 73-44
Michigan St. beats New Mexico St. 67-64
Syracuse beats Vermont 79-56
Maryland beats Houston 89-77

 

2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball predictions

Here are my selections-

2010 predictions1

2010 predictions2

So you heard it here first. Duke and Ohio State in the finals.

Note- Starting tomorrow I will have a sticky post at the top of the blog featuring that day’s results. Feel free to make your own predictions in the comment.

 

2010 NCAA Women’s Tournament Bracket

Here it is-

2010 Women's bracket

Like with the Men’s tournament, I’ll take a shot at making some guesses predictions in the women’s also.

 

2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket

Well here it is-

2010 bracket

I don’t have to say. Later in the week, I’ll take a shot at predicting the outcome.

 

Former PGA Tour player Mike Souchak dead at 81

Mike Souchak won 15 tour events in a career that lasted over a decade. He was an accomplished college football player and shot the lowest score ever in PGA history for 72 holes at the 1955 Texas Open. That record stood for over four decades. RIP.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP)—Former PGA Tour professional and Duke Sports Hall of Fame member Mike Souchak has died.

The school said the 81-year-old died Thursday in Belleair, Fla.

Souchak won 15 events on the PGA Tour from 1955-66 and had 11 top-10 finishes in major championships. He finished third at the U.S. Open in 1959 and 1960, and played on the winning U.S. Ryder Cup teams in ‘59 and ‘61.

He set a tour record for four-round low score at the 1955 Texas Open, opening with a 60 and finishing a 257. That record stood until Mark Calcavecchia’s 256 at the 2001 Phoenix Open.

At Duke, Souchak lettered three seasons in football and four in golf, helping the Blue Devils win two Southern Conference golf titles.

 

Judge: Duke Football Stinks

Louisville sued Duke for pulling out of a four game football contract after only one game and demanded $450,000 in damages. Duke claimed that, because their team is so bad (13-90 since 1999) any Division I team would meet the contract’s “team of similar stature” clause.

Judge Phillip J. Shepherd of the Franklin County (Ky.) Circuit Court agreed, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

“At oral argument, Duke [with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty] persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower,” Shepherd wrote in a summary judgment issued Thursday, according to the paper. “Duke’s argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.”

You almost hate to win with that kind of argument.

 

Duke fires Football coach Ted Roof

The Blue Devils went 1-11 last season. From AP-

DURHAM, N.C. – Duke fired Ted Roof on Monday, two days after the Blue Devils concluded a 1-11 season with their ninth straight loss.

A news conference was scheduled for Monday afternoon to discuss the program. A person close to the Duke program, speaking on condition of anonymity because an announcement had not been made, said athletic director Joe Alleva would announce Roof’s dismissal.

The coach’s career record dipped to 6-45 after a 20-14 overtime loss to North Carolina, the Blue Devils’ fourth straight to their main rival. Duke has lost at least 10 games in three straight seasons, including a winless 2006.

After snapping a 22-game losing streak with a victory at Northwestern, the Blue Devils lost nine straight to end this season.

Duke has had exactly one coach with a winning record while at the school since 1966. That was Steve Spurrier, who coached the Blue Devils from 1987-89. Coaching Duke Football is a thankless job. You would think someone would have to be a masochist to take a job in Durham.(No I’m not applying.)

 

Duke University’s Michael Schachner shoots 60 at NCAA Tournament

It breaks a 13-year-old NCAA record.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Duke’s Michael Schachner broke the NCAA tournament record with a 10-under 60 on Friday, and Stanford took a two-stroke lead over Coastal Carolina with one round left.

Schachner, 120th after opening rounds of 79 and 69, matched the NCAA tournament record for lowest score in relation to par, former Stanford star Notah Begay’s 10-under 62 in 1994. Schachner jumped to 14th, four strokes behind the third-round leaders.

Schachner was 11 under after 14 holes, bogeyed No. 15 and closed with three pars. He missed a 15-foot birdie putt on 18 that would have given him a 59.

“I was excited and I really thought I was going to make it,” Schachner said. “I’d been putting really well obviously. I had the line and just gave it a little too much speed. It hit the top edge and went by a little farther than I wanted. I think if I hit it a little softer it goes in. It would have been fun. I’m not complaining.”

The professional US record(let’s not get started on Kim-Il Jong) is 59, first set by Al Geiberger in 1977. David Duval, Chip Beck and I believe one other equaled that score(on one of the mini-tours) but I’m not certain. I’m sure Michael Schachner would like to have a Geiberger like career.

 

Duke Lacrosse Case Charges to Be Dropped

ABC News is reporting that, thirteen months into one of the most notorious criminal prosecutions in memory, all charges will be dropped against three players from the Duke Lacrosse team.

Duke Lacrosse Players Charges Dropped The three Duke lacrosse players originally charged with raping a dancer at a private party soon will not be charged, ABC News has learned. The state attorney general took over the case in January, after Durham County prosecutor Mike Nifong recused himself under pressure, claiming a conflict of interest because the North Carolina State Bar Association charged him with misconduct in the Duke case. (AP Photo )The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case. The three players, Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty, were facing charges of first degree kidnapping and first degree forcible sexual offense. The charges stem from an off-campus party on the night of March 13, 2006.

In the hours after the party, one of two dancers hired to perform for the players claimed she had been violently raped in a bathroom by members of the lacrosse team. The players had also been indicted for first degree rape, but that charge was dismissed on Dec. 22, 2006.

Special prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office took over the case after Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong recused himself in January, citing charges of unethical conduct filed against him by the North Carolina Bar. Since then, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead have examined the case from scratch, interviewing key witnesses and working through reams of evidence.

The reasons that will be cited for the dismissal are not yet known, though the case has been riddled with criticism and colored by controversy since its early months. Defense attorneys released documents showing the accuser changed key details of her story in the weeks and months after the alleged assault.

Legal analysts and forensic experts have criticized what they call a critically flawed photo identification lineup — a lineup that led to the identification and indictment of Evans, Finnerty, Seligmann. No DNA evidence was found matching any lacrosse players with samples from the rape kit, while DNA from unidentified men was found on the accuser’s body and clothing.

The complete lack of evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, and lack of witness credibility might have has something to do with this. One hopes Nifong and the accusers wind up in prison.

It seems clear from this an a few other high profile cases involving athletes and other celebrities that the penalties for bringing fraudulent criminal charges are far, far too low. Were the penalties commensurate with those the falsely accused party would face, these incidents would drop precipitously.

 
 


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