RealClearSports
Advertisement

RealClearSports College Basketball

In 2006, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski was set to "save" the United States Olympic basketball team. All those rich NBA stars supposedly needed a college coach to hammer some discipline...(full article)

“All-consuming” feels like too weak a phrase to describe the extent to which Alabama football and Kentucky basketball are appreciated in the Yellowhammer and Bluegrass states,...(full article)

Part of the rationale which, prior to Tuesday, had many pundits predicting No. 1 overall recruit Andrew Wiggins going to Kentucky was the potential for a Fab Five-ish recruiting h...(full article)

t was nearly 40 minutes of classic Calipari. There were challenges to his players and fans. There were swipes at Louisville and Indiana without either school ever being mentioned...(full article)

Were it not for the invention of Twitter, this would have been the quietest recruitment of a high school basketball superstar since they used to do the whole thing by telegraph. A...(full article)

More Recent Articles

No Wiggins, But Kentucky Still the Favorite

Kansas landed the big fish in Andrew Wiggins, but the grip by John Calipari and the Kentucky on the top spot in the 2013 rankings remains strong. Julius Randle is part of what cou...

Snaring Wiggins a Testament to KU's Self

Andrew Wiggins may or may not be the best high school basketball player since LeBron James. He may or may not be the guy who keeps The Streak alive, who turns Kansas from a Big 1...

Wiggins Could Make Kansas a Contender

The most anticipated announcement in many years in college basketball recruiting took place Tuesday afternoon in a manner befitting the quiet, intensely private prospect who was m...

4 Schools Await Word From Next LeBron

Andrew Wiggins, considered the best high school basketball player since LeBron James, could shift the NCAA basketball landscape when he announces his college decision Tuesday, ch...

Tyler Summitt Following Mom's Footsteps

There’s a sentimental and iconic image from the 1996 women’s NCAA basketball championship game, the fourth of Pat Summitt’s eight titles in 38 seasons as the coach of Tennes...

Despite Claim, Rutgers Coach Didn't Earn Degree

On April 23, Rutgers introduced Eddie Jordan as the new men's basketball coach. Nearly three weeks earlier, ESPN had aired video of the previous coach, Mike Rice, calling his play...

Want to Be Rich? Become a Football Coach

You may have heard that the highest-paid employee in each state is usually the football coach at the largest state school. This is actually a gross mischaracterization: Sometime...

Without College Sports, Summer a Bummer

Hi, my name is Jim and I’m a college sports addict. I’ve been clean of college football and basketball for just eight days, after the completion of spring games and the NFL dr...

How Cable Saved College Basketball

In the history of college basketball, most of the unsung heroes are role players such A.J. Granger of the 2000 Michigan State Spartans or A.J. Bramlett of the 1997 Arizona Wildcat...

Revenue Sharing an NCAA Dilemma

Wednesday ends the 10-year excommunication of former basketball player Chris Webber from the University of Michigan, part of the NCAA's punishment for what the NCAA said Webber d...

Return of Fab Five? If Webber Apologizes

For most Michigan fans, May 8 is just a date. The significance of May 8, however, could change today when the school's 10-year dissociation period with Chris Webber ends. Because ...

Seventh Grader Gets Division I Offer

This seventh-grade basketball player is better than yours. Marvin Bagley III's highlight video -- courtesy of City League Hoops guru Ty Kish -- may only consist of a series of lay...

Lawsuit Could Break Up NCAA Cartel

The storm that's slowly rolling toward Indianapolis quietly gained strength this week with the filing of several devastating documents in a federal court in California. If it stay...

Don't Blame Kansas for McLemore Saga

This is a case that calls for maturity, or fairness, or logic. At the very least, this is a case that calls for consistency. If you're incapable of mustering any of those qualitie...

McLemore's AAU Coach Took Cash From Agent

ST. LOUIS — Ben McLemore's former AAU coach says he received thousands of dollars in cash, lodging, meals and trips from a middle man who courted the Kansas player on behalf of ...

Grading the College Basketball Hires

There have been 43 jobs in the Division I ranks that have changed hands -- and 40 of them have already been filled. That means it's time to hand out our annual Coaching Grades, an...

Let's Hope Pitino's Tattoo Is 1-and-Done

In the moments that followed Louisville’s national championship victory over Michigan earlier this month, Rick Pitino’s players reminded him about the bet. Prior to their ti...

Decades-Old Cheating Scandal Still Stings

For me and my brother, City College was one of God's greatest gifts. I enrolled in the college in February, 1948 and was graduated in June, 1951. It was a time of campus tumult, ...

Can Griner Change Baylor's Biblical Beliefs?

After years of speculation about her sexuality, Brittney Griner -- the first pick in the WNBA draft and all-around game changer for women’s hoops -- casually told SI.com that sh...

Shoe Doesn't Fit These Prince Charmings

Chris Brand's résumé touts his work over the past decade in sales, marketing and finance, plus his current jobs running a fitness center in Indiana and remodeling foreclosed hom...

Alford Biggest Risk Among Coaching Hires

With Rutgers' reported hiring of Eddie Jordan Thursday, the primary activity is over for the spring on the college basketball coaching carousel. All things considered, it was a rea...

Mistreatment a 2-Edged Sword

The investigation of UW-Green Bay coach Brian Wardle on allegations of player mistreatment elicited plenty of reaction last week, even if much of it happened to be directed at a ...

Michigan Waiting for Other Shoes to Drop

If anyone was confused, Michigan basketball coach John Beilein cleared it up immediately. In his opening statement before Trey Burke announced Sunday he was leaving for the NBA, B...

Kentucky Will Be Back on Top Next Season

  Kentucky haters were laughing and pointing fingers when John Calipari’s team missed the NCAA tournament and lost in the first round of the NIT. That was no way for the defend...

Let-'Em-Play Philosophy Ruining Basketball

Basketball has long been my favorite sport, but it is growing increasingly difficult for me to really care about even the most important games because the officiating is so consi...

The Old Pitino Is Not Walking Through That Door

“All these guys, if they say, ‘Hello,’ they get a tattoo,” Rick Pitino said of his Louisville team almost immediately after they defeated Michigan for the ...

Fab Five Proved Winning Isn't Everything

Some years back, Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, is reported to have said "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." He may have cribbed the sentim...

As the World Turns, So Do Sports Fans

If you could have been anywhere in the world on Monday night, you might have picked Atlanta and the Georgia Dome and the 74,326 people cheering a heaving, throbbing two hours of ...

UConn's Auriemma Reaches Summitt

We heard greatness was coming, as sure as the distant whistle of an oncoming train. As sure as Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore, we all knew it was coming. We just didn't know exactl...

Burke's Big Move to Top of College Basketball

Two weeks ago, The Dagger appeared to fall on Michigan basketball’s 2012-13 season. A team that started out a collection of underclassmen and hype playing in the strongest confe...

Men's Title Game Classically Overhyped

Maybe I'm missing something. It was a good game, hard fought. That's what you expect from any NCAA championship game. But the slavish praise for last night's tilt between Louisvi...

Pitino Proves Point of Tiger's Nike Ad

He is, in my opinion, the greatest sports writer of all-time. He's hilariously funny. Incredibly poignant. Amazingly thought-provoking. Which is why I was shocked when I read Rick ...

33-Point Rout Gives UConn 8th Title

Freshman Breanna Stewart scored 23 points and Connecticut won its eighth national championship with a record 93-60 rout of Louisville on Tuesday night. The victory tied Geno Aur...

Louisville 3-Point Artist Paves Way

No hill too high. No gap too wide. No deficit too daunting. No waiting any more for these Louisville Cardinals. The Floyd Street escape artists climbed back from 12 points behind ...

Cardinals Have What It Takes to Repeat, But ...

Shortly after the final horn sounded in Louisville's NCAA title game victory over Michigan on Monday, the question became obvious.   Can the Cardinals do it again?   As ...

Humbled Pitino Completes Resurrection

ATLANTA -- Rick Pitino stood a few feet to the side of the basket, his hand interlocked with his wife Joanne's. Neither were unable to contain their emotion as One Shining Moment ...

Michigan's Got Plenty to Be Proud of

ATLANTA — Destiny isn’t bestowed. Ultimately, it’s seized.   It was there for Michigan, bouncing off the rim with each missed Louisville shot in the closing...

With Rice, Rutgers Got What It Deserved

The only upside to this entire Rutgers thing is that we can all be grateful the university isn’t a thermonuclear plant.   During Rutgers’ news media session Frida...

It's Pitino's World; We're Just Living in It

They posed together as a family after one of the greatest days in Rick Pitino's life. A whole gaggle of them at midcourt of the Georgia Dome, waiting for all the photographers to...

Great Game Produces Great Champ

It was all anyone could want from a championship game, and it came at time when the sport needed it. A season pockmarked by low scores and defensive excess saved the absolute bes...

NCAA Basketball Cannibalizing Itself

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's men's basketball tournament is the biggest, baddest, most spectacular playoff in American sports. Really, nothing else comes close:...

Culture Shift Obscures Value of Abusive Coach

When I was a high school freshman, my basketball coach shoved me, pushed me, mocked me, and chucked basketballs at me. He compared me in unfavorable ways (and remarkably foul la...

How NCAA Refs Handle Their Mistakes

In the second round of the 2012 NCAA tournament, 16th-seeded UNC-Asheville trailed top-seeded Syracuse by three points with 38.2 seconds remaining, Orange inbounding the ball. T...

Women's Coaches Wise Guys, Good Fellows

He didn't want to talk about equaling Tennessee's eight national championships. He didn't want to talk about catching Pat Summitt, or John Wooden and taking that long, forever ar...

Big East Pins Hopes on TV Deal

If television producers wanted to cast the Big East Conference as a 1980s sitcom, the plot would revolve around a series of hastily arranged marriages constructed to avoid deport...

Calipari Ready to Reload

It probably was inevitable, though a good deal premature, that someone would ask Kentucky center Anthony Davis about his impending decision regarding the NBA draft with this NCAA...

Championship All About Calipari

The second net was hanging by just a few final strands, but the ceremonial cutting was briefly put on hold as the familiar chords of "One Shining Moment" started to spill from th...

'Worldwide Wes' Behind Bench

He sat behind the Kentucky bench on Monday night during the NCAA Championship basketball game and I'm thinking William "Worldwide Wes" Wesley should have just dropped the charade...

Young Team Shows Maturity

W on and done.The University of Kentucky is NCAA men’s basketball champion for the eighth time and Wildcats coach John Calipari for the first after beating Kansas 67-59 bef...

'Blue Together' Defines Wildcats

"BLUE TOGETHER." Those were the words written on the grease-board John Calipari carried out with him to the floor of the NCAA Tournament national championship game Monday night a...

Slow Start Dooms Kansas in Loss

The losing coach didn’t have to look at the box score of a 67-59 victory by the Kentucky Wildcats on Monday night. Bill Self had seen enough of Anthony Davis to tell you a gu...

Withey Could Be Difference-Maker

The five Kansas starters piled into a golf cart in the Superdome hallway Sunday, dutifully on their way to yet another scheduled media engagement. Center Jeff Withey, one of the ...

Davis Most Outstanding Player

It’ll forever be known as Anthony Davis’ One-and-Done Shining Moment. With being the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft far more likely than his ever being a sophomore at Ke...

A-to-Z Guide to Title Game

A is for the adversity Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor overcame growing up in a crime-ridden part of Hoboken, N.J. "The people in my life that were important to me made sure I kept ...

Which Program Is Best All Time?

Never before have college basketball's all-time winningest programs met in the NCAA tournament's Final Four, much less the championship game, as Kentucky and Kansas will do today. ...

Mayhem Breaks Out in Lexington

Jubilation over the University of Kentucky's win over the University of Louisville quickly turned into scenes of couch-burning mayhem in key celebratory areas around campus. Stat...

Davis Embellishes No. 1 Draft Status

We have to admit we'd rather be in New Orleans dealing with late interviews and overhyped fans and crazy deadlines and the fact that CBS can't be on time for a first-game tipoff ...

Robinson, Defense Spark Kansas

"It certainly wasn't a pretty game," Kansas coach Bill Self said, "and not artistic at all." When has it been for the Jayhawks in this NCAA tournament? A team deemed vulnerable in ...

OSU-KU Different From December

Back in December, after Ohio State held Jared Sullinger out of a 78-67 loss at Kansas because of back spasms, coach Thad Matta joked that he’d given the Jayhawks an early Ch...

Players Who Can Improve Draft Stock

William Buford, G/F, Ohio State. Buford probably didn’t need to use this tournament to remind scouts of the struggles he’s had with a bigger offensive role here in hi...

1 Great State, 2 Great Coaches

To Kentucky fans, Rick Pitino is Traitor Rick. To Louisville fans, John Calipari is Con Man Cal. Who knows what the two men really think of each other. On this Final Four day, how...

Glockner: 10 Burning Questions

re you the type who turns on Super Bowl coverage for the first time 10 minutes before the actual game? Then we have something for you. Forget having to look back through four day...

Calipari in Must-Win Situation

University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari seems his usual confident self, the best salesman in the room with a Cadillac basketball team expected to win a ...

Louisville Aims to Shock Wildcats

Mission Impossible. Can’t be done. Kentucky cannot be beaten – not by anyone in this Final Four, and certainly not by Louisville. That is the conventional wisdom, and ...

Kentucky's Davis Embraces Unibrow

Any Louisville fans hoping to get under Anthony Davis' skin Saturday night will need to find a different tactic besides harassing the Kentucky freshman with signs and chants abou...

Don't Forget About the Point Guards

There are probably more difficult jobs than being a point guard at the Final Four for a demanding coach. The guy who has to clean sewers for a living, he has it pretty tough. Insta...

Terrence Jones: Kentucky's Wild Card

A lot of Division I players have come out of Jefferson High School in north Portland, Oregon, but Terrence Jones has all the tools to be the best of them. Jones led the school to...

Kansas-Ohio St. Is Game to Watch

Days before senior citizens tussled over the rivalry -- seriously -- the animosity between Louisville and Kentucky already had steered the overall buildup to the Final Four. The ...

Origins of 'One Shining Moment'

David Barrett's inspiration for the song that has since become the anthem for the NCAA tournament was a beautiful waitress, a clumsy pick-up attempt and the dominance of Larry Bird...

Analyzing the Final Foursome

Ohio State: Turnometer Gone Wild How many players can say their best performance of the season was in the NCAA tournament? That’s the case for Buckeyes pest/point guard Aaro...

Don't Doubt Jayhawks' Robinson

It’s Anthony Davis’ Final Four, isn’t it? He’s the best player in college basketball, according to Sporting News, and therefore its preeminent big man. On ...

Potential Pros From Final 4 Teams

Be it the coaching carousel or a player’s NBA Draft prospects, it’s fascinating to watch the impact that these three weeks can have. While all four head coaches in th...

Ohio State, Kansas Evenly Matched

Point Guards Without a hint of exaggeration, this may be the most intriguing individual matchup of the entire Final Four. Ohio State's Aaron Craft is arguably the best on-ball de...

Tournament Conference Rankings

Although the story lines from the first weekend of March Madness are dominated by the Cinderella stories of the Norfolk States and Lehighs, the Final Four is generally reserved f...

Final 4 Better Without Cinderella

No one loves mid-majors more. I felt cleansed each time after departing Hinkle Fieldhouse on Butler University's campus, left smiling after hearing VCU's band play an...

Illinois Focuses on Ohio Coach Groce

The focus of Illinois’ coaching search shifted Sunday to Ohio’s John Groce after Butler’s Brad Stevens issued a statement saying he isn’t going anywhere. Gr...

Sullinger Asserts Leadership Role

When the second half started Saturday night, Ohio State got its All-American back. When the Buckeyes needed him most in the last month of the season, they got him back then, too....

Early Look at Final 4 Matchups

As fond as my memories are from last year’s NCAA tournament, there was a pervading sense that by the time we reached Houston, the drama was on a downward arc. Butler had al...

Self's Tactic Ices It for Kansas

Happiness bled through Thomas Robinson as he climbed to the top of the ladder, cutting his strand of the net, kissing it and showing it off to the Kansas faithful. Ditto Jeff Wit...

Marshall's Injury Sinks N. Carolina

This time, there was no Ty Lawson miracle for North Carolina’s basketball team, as there was in 2009. This time, there were only misery, tears and the beginning of a nonstop ...

North Carolina's Title Hopes Slim

It started out exactly like a game between a No. 1 seed and a No. 13 seed should. Bigger, stronger North Carolina asserted its dominance over smallish Ohio. The Tar Heels jumped ...

Sullinger a Big Problem for Syracuse

Jared Sullinger and Rakeem Christmas met while both were high school basketball stars who only imagined what it might be like to ply their trade on a stage as illustrious as the ...

Syracuse Survives 3-Point Barrage

The game wasn't a track meet. The score was only 64-63. But this was one of the best games of the college basketball season. The way Wisconsin played last night, they would've cr...

Louisville Executes Pitino's Plan

Here was Rick Pitino, the innovative basketball coach, sounding like the 59-year-old man who he shockingly is. He stood in front of his team during the pregame and reminisced about...

Momentum Going into Sweet 16

The kenpom crowd, by now, is well-versed in matters of teams’ full-season efficiency ratings. Ohio State is the nation’s No. 1 team in efficiency, due in large to it...

Florida Tall Order for Marquette

If the Marquette Golden Eagles think they prepared themselves to play a high-energy, up-tempo team last weekend against Murray State, wait until they take the court against Flori...

'Cuse, Wisconsin Bring Unique Style

The NCAA Tournament is college basketball’s version of the blind-date. Most of the time, the two teams paired together know very little about each other. The tournament&rsquo...

Videos

Top 25 Scoreboard