— Florida 84, Texas Tech 79
Red Raiders led by 9 with 3:14 left in the game.
Florida was 25-27 on foul line, Tech was 7-13.
Gators are in Final Four for first time since they won the 2007 title.
— Duke 85, Alabama 65
Blue Devils led 46-37 at halftime.
Alabama shot 35.4% from floor, 8-32 on arc.
Duke is going to the Final Four for the 18th time.
— This year’s Elite 8: three games between #1-#2 seeds, and a #1-#3 seed game, making it the chalkiest Elite 8 since 2007, when the same thing happened.
In 2009, there were two 1-2 matchups, two 1-3 matchups.
In 2008, all four #1-seeds advanced to the Final Four, the last time that happened; that year, there was a #10-seed in the Elite 8. Davidson had some kid named Steph Curry.
— Final Four of the NIT this week will be in Hinkle Fieldhouse, home of the Butler Bulldogs and site of the climactic scene in Hoosiers, the great Gene Hackman movie.
Semi-finals Tuesday:
North Texas vs Cal-Irvine and Chattanooga vs Loyola-Chicago.
— Does winning the NIT or CBI help a team the next season? Interesting question……..
Last six teams to win the CBI didn’t go to any postseason tournament the next year, so that’s a big no for the CBI, although in 2011, VCU made the Final Four the year after they won it, but that was 14 years ago. Since then, Pitt (2012), Nevada (2016) are only teams who made the NCAA’s the year after winning the CBI
Of the last nine NIT champs, only three made the NCAA’s the next year; Xavier made the Sweet 16 in 2022, Memphis (2021), TCU (2017) are the other two teams.
Since 2008, the 15 NIT champs are a combined 5-6 in NCAA Tourney games the next year.
— Memphis Grizzlies fired coach Taylor Jenkins this week, despite the team’s 44-29 record; Jenkins coached the Grizzlies to a 259-228 record, 9-14 in playoff games. This will be their fourth winning season in five years.
Memphis is 28-15 this year when Ja Morant plays, 16-14 when he doesn’t; this whole situation seems pretty strange- there must be an interesting backstory we don’t know about.
— Fordham Rams hired Cal-Riverside coach Mike Magpayo as its new coach; Riverside was 55-32 in Big West games during his time at Riverside, 89-63 overall.
Fordham was 25-8 two years ago, their only winning season since 2016.
— Arkansas State’s coach bolted to South Florida after the Red Wolves’ 25-11 season that ended in the 2nd round of the NIT; Ark State’s new coach is Ryan Pannone, an assistant coach at Alabama, just like the previous coach (Bryan Hodgson) was.
— Famous birthdays, March 30th
John Astin, 95
Warren Beatty, 88
Jerry Lucas, 85
Dave Chapple, 78
Paul Reiser, 69
Lomas Brown, 62
Celine Dion, 57
Chris Sale, 36
Alex Bregman, 31
Jacob Wilson, 23
— If you like baseball and you’re on Twitter, Umpire Scorecards is a good follow; they post a chart for every game, showing how accurate the home plate umpire was in that game, and where the pitches were that he missed. The one thing you learn is, these guys are pretty, pretty good.
— Padres 1, Braves 0
Pinch-hitter Yuli Gurriel knocked in the only run with a 7th inning single.
Braves are off to an 0-3 start, scoring total of seven runs.
— Angels 1, White Sox 0
Jose Soriano allowed only four baserunners, no runs in 7 IP (73 PT)
Angels’ TV guys even said that it seemed weird that they took him out.
Yoan Moncada’s 8th inning infield hit knocked in the game’s only run.
— Bronx 20, Brewers 9
Nestor Cortes returned to New York and gave up home runs to the first three hitters he faced, on the first three pitches he threw. Aaron Judge hit three homers, knocked in eight runs.
Weird game; Bronx hit eight home runs in first four innings, made five errors in the first five innings.
— Astros 2, Mets 1
Jeremy Pena homered for Houston.
Mets had only one hit, a Juan Soto double.
First three games of this series, total of only 11 runs have scored.
— Marlins 5, Pirates 4 (12)
Dane Myers’ RBI single was a walk-off winner.
Myers, Otto Lopez, Kyle Stowers had three hits apiece.
Marlins are 2-1 this weekend, with two walk-off wins.
— Rangers 4, Red Sox 3
Adolis Garcia was 3-3, with a double, two-run homer.
Texas used six pitchers, none of whom got more than six outs.
Wilyer Abreu is 6-9 this week, but Boston pinch-hit for him in 8th inning, because God forbid he hit against a lefty pitcher.
