— Underrated Fact of the Day: Since 1976, Michigan State has had only TWO basketball coaches, Jud Heathcote and Tom Izzo. Two coaches in 48 years.
By way of comparison, over the last 10 years, UNLV has had five coaches, and they had winning seasons in eight of those ten years.
— Iowa State 68, BYU 63
BYU led this game 38-27 at halftime.
Cyclones won 8 of last 9 games; they went undefeated at home this season.
Iowa State is 24-6/13-4 this year; three years ago, they went 0-18 in Big X.
— Texas A&M 75, Mississippi State 69
A&M came into game shooting 26.7% on arc (#361); they were 8-21 in this game, an improvement.
— Tennessee 66, South Carolina 59
Vols win the outright SEC regular season title for first time since 2008.
Dalton Knecht scored 26 points, had one assist; his job is to score points.
Knecht played at Northern Colorado the last two years; Bears went 34-36 in those two years, 19-19 in Big Sky games.
Plus, they’re 19-12/12-6 this season, without Knecht. That doesn’t seem possible.
— Seton Hall 66, Villanova 56
Pirates played only two subs, for total of 21:00.
Seton Hall did a lot here to get themselves off the bubble.
Villanova shot 32.8% from floor; they still have work to do, to make NCAA’s.
— Florida Atlantic 80, North Texas 76
Owls led 12-0 early, but were down 7 early in 2nd half.
FAU is 23-7/13-4; they shot 56.2% inside arc.
— LeMoyne 82, FDU 61- Dolphins win a conference tournament game in their first season as a Division I team.
— Word of the Day: Apopleptic- infuriated, overcome with anger.
— Magic 119, Wizards 109
Orlando is 14-4 ATS in its last 18 games.
Washington has lost 16 games in a row (2-6 ATS in last eight)
— Washington Commanders signed TE Zach Ertz for one year, $5M; Ertz played for Kliff Kingsbury in Arizona. Kingsbury is the Commanders’ new offensive coordinator.
— Buffalo Bills saved $47M in cap space with a flurry of roster moves:
They cut six players, one of whom won’t be cut until after June 1st.
They restructured two other contracts, including LB Von Miller’s.
Bills also signed QB Mitch Trubisky to back up Josh Allen.
After the flurry of moves, Buffalo is now only $1,177,381 over the salary cap.
— Baseball stuff:
Astros’ P Justin Verlander (shoulder) will open the season on IL
Rockies OF Nolan Jones left Wednesday’s game (back spasms)
Padres 2B Ha-Seong Kim is out until Friday (back spasms)
MRI on Orioles’ CF Cedric Mullins’ hamstring came back negative.
A’s SS Nick Allen has a mild back strain.
Cubs’ 3B Nick Madrigal had an MRI on his hamstring
— Famous birthdays on March 7th:
Lynn Swann, 72
Bryan Cranston, 69
Tommy Kramer, 69
Joe Carter, 64
Willie (Flipper) Anderson, 59
Ricky Proehl, 56
Jenna Fischer, 50
Michael Harris, 23
— I try to listen to podcasts about fantasy baseball, to learn things that can make my team better; this week, one of the guys on a podcast said he has teams in 12 different leagues.
That would be overwhelming to me, to keep track of 12 different teams. As it is, I probably spend too much time tracking my one team, can’t imagine doing it with 11 more.
— How favorites/underdogs are faring in conference tournaments:
A-SUN underdogs 5-1 ATS
Big South favorites 1-0 ATS
Horizon favorites 2-1 ATS
NEC underdogs 3-1 ATS
OVC favorites 2-0 ATS
Patriot favorites 1-1 ATS
So far this month, underdogs are 10-8 ATS in conference tournaments.
