Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice lost job this week after video surfaced that show him using slurs, kicking players, and throwing basketballs at them. Friday, athletic director Tim Pernetti resgined. Bill Littlefield talks with Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples.
For 75 years, the winner of the NAIA basketball tournament has received the Maude Naismith Trophy, named after the wife of basketball inventor Dr. James Naismith. Many Naismith artifacts scattered are throughout the U.S. and Canada. As Only A Game’s Greg Echlin reports, some feel that Naismith’s collection should be concentrated in one location. The question is where.
Wichita State is back in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1965. The ninth-seeded Shockers topped No. 1 Gonzaga and No. 2 Ohio State along the way. Austin Colbert of The Sunflower, Wichita State’s student newspaper, joined Bill Littlefield to discuss the Shockers’ run.
Andy Enfield, who coached the Florida Gulf Coast University men’s basketball team to a couple of exciting upset wins at the NCAA tournament, has changed jobs. This apparently surprised his former employer at Florida Gulf Coast, but not Bill Littlefield.
Only A Game intern and Harvard Crimson basketball writer Martin Kessler traveled west to the NCAA tournament for his spring break. While in Salt Lake, he crossed paths with Pat Riley, encountered a group of Arizona cheerleaders, and nearly witnessed an historic upset.
Last week, Florida Gulf Coast made NCAA men’s basketball history by becoming the first 15th seed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. FGCU professor Dr. James Brock joins Bill to talk about the team’s unexpected success.
Back in 1970, the NCAA basketball tournament wasn’t even called the “Big Dance.” There were only 25 teams in the tourney and South Carolina wasn’t one of them, although everyone expected them to be. With help from former Gamecock Bobby Cremins, Only A Game’s Alex Ashlock relives the heartbreaking end of the Gamecocks’ season.
The University of Kentucky, last year’s NCAA champion, would have been considered a favorite for the NIT crown. But they lost in the first round to allegedly-lowly Robert Morris University. Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports joins Bill Littlefield.
In 1963, the Loyala Ramblers won the NCAA tournament with four black players in their starting lineup. In his new book “Ramblers,” Michael Lenehan chronicles the historic season.
With the Big East breaking up, 2013 is the final year of the tournament as we’ve known it. Jim O’Grady went to Madison Square Garden to talk to fans about the changes.
