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Clemson, SC - Clemson will begin play in the NCAA National Tournament at Purdue University’s par 72 Kampen Course on Wednesday. The Tigers under Larry Penley are seeded fifth in the field of 30 teams and will begin play at 12:30 PM from the first tee. The Tigers will be paired with the teams from Oklahoma State and Florida.
Clemson will have a 7:20 AM tee time from the 10th tee on Thursday. Friday’s pairings will be based on the standings after two rounds. Clemson’s initial goal will be to rank among the top 15 teams through Friday’s third round. The top 15 teams advance to the final round on Saturday.
Clemson will take a team of three sophomores and two juniors to the NCAA National Tournament, the same five players who led the Tigers to a strong third-place finish at the NCAA West Regional 10 days ago.
Clemson Head Coach Larry Penley, who is taking his 23rd team to the national championship tournament in his 25 years as head coach, is optimistic about his team’s chances. “The Kampen Course should be a grinders course,” said Penley. “It requires patience and par will be a good team score. That was the type of course we saw at the West Regional in Washington and we finished third, just five shots off the lead. We didn’t fair as well at the ACC Tournament, where scores were very low.”
Penley’s team will be led by number-one player Kyle Stanley, who has a 72.25 stroke average this year. Stanley was a first-team All-ACC player this year when he recorded five top 10 finishes. Last year, he finished second at the NCAA National tournament when he played as an individual. He is second in Clemson history in career stroke average, but first in stroke average in NCAA Tournament events.

cstv.com

Chase Dempsay threw two scoreless innings of relief, allowing Houston to celebrate the Conference USA tournament baseball championship with a 3-2 victory over Marshall on Sunday.
The victory in New Orleans was the fourth in less than 48 hours for Houston (39-22).
Cougars players piled on each other in celebration when the final out was recorded, then poured a bucket of ice over head coach Rayner Noble.
Marshall, which finished 30-30-1, needed to win the conference tournament for its first NCAA berth since 1978.
Lacrosse big shots:
Perennial lacrosse powers Syracuse and Johns Hopkins were long shots to meet in the national championship game.
Syracuse struggled to a 5-8 record last season when three players were suspended after being arrested for disorderly conduct outside a Syracuse bar. Defending champion Hopkins was just 3-5 midway through this season. Today, one of them will win the NCAA men’s title for a record 10th time.
“We certainly take pride in Syracuse tradition, and they have a great tradition as well,” said Mike Leveille, who scored the winning goal 2:17 into the second overtime to beat Virginia, 12-11, in Saturday’s semifinal.
Northwestern won its fourth consecutive women’s lacrosse national championship in Towson, Md., avenging its only loss of the season with a 10-6 victory over Penn. Northwestern’s string of NCAA titles is second only to Maryland, which won seven straight championships from 1995 to 2001.
Four Cleveland State baseball players have been honored as All-Horizon League.
Senior third baseman Alex Kerins and junior center fielder Brad Buell are on the first team, and senior left fielder Kyle Bischof is on the second team.
Kerins, Buell, Bischof and freshman right fielder Adam Heideman were named to the Horizon’s all-newcomer team. Kerins batted .335, led the league in RBI (51), was second in home runs (11) and fourth in slugging percentage (.584).

cleveland.com

T AMPA, Fla. | No, the Big 12 didn’t have a team in the Women’s Final Four, played here in the Sunshine State for the first time. But the league certainly did come out the winner in one area of this NCAA Tournament.
Of the four regional sites, Oklahoma City had the best attendance: 19,373 for two sessions. And among the eight early-round sites, Des Moines, Iowa — where Iowa State was the host — was second in attendance at 21,772 for three sessions.
The Oklahoma City Regional’s success was particularly noteworthy because there was no local team involved to draw fans. Oklahoma, the No. 4 seed, was in that region but was upset in the second round by No. 5 Notre Dame. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State was in the New Orleans Region.
Of the four teams that made it to the Ford Center — Tennessee, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Duke — the Vols and Aggies brought the most fans from out of town. And Oklahoma and Oklahoma State fans came, wearing their school colors but cheering for fellow Big 12 school A&M. Plus, people from Oklahoma City with no particular allegiance came.
“The first thing I would do is really credit their local organizing committee with what they did to really get out and push the event,” said Judy Southard, chair of the NCAA Division I women’s basketball committee. “I have to take my hat off to (Oklahoma’s) Sherri Coale and the other coaches in the Big 12. They really got out and promoted the event from a Big 12 perspective. And it’s a real testament to the Oklahoma City community.”
Indeed, the attendance was far better in Oklahoma City for the women’s regional than it was at that event when it was held in Kansas City in 2005 and in Dallas last year, the two other cities that have also hosted the Big 12 women’s tournament.

kansascity.com

TAMPA, Fla. - Candace Parker pulled off a rare awards feat Monday.
The Tennessee forward was presented with the Naismith Trophy, becoming the fifth women’s player to win this national player-of-the-year award for college and high school.
Parker won the high school Naismith in 2003 and 2004 when she played for Naperville (Ill.) Central High.
“We are proud to welcome a former winner back into the Naismith family, especially someone who has achieved excellence on a consistent basis,” said Gary Stoken, president of the Atlanta Tipoff Club. “Candace has enjoyed a tremendous season and career at Tennessee and the college game will miss her dearly.”
Parker, who beat out Stanford’s Candice Wiggins, LSU’s Sylvia Fowles and Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris, was selected by the Tipoff Club’s board of selectors and by the fans, who accounted for 25 percent of the overall vote.
“The Naismith Award has been long considered as one of the top honors for both high school and collegiate athletes,” UT coach Pat Summitt said. “Candace Parker is one of those rare talents who has been able to win the award on both levels.”
Parker is leading Tennessee is scoring (21.4 points per game) and rebounding (8.5) this season.
© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
Sorry you couldn’t make it to the finals, GENO! Oh, but congratulations on your nominees for player of the year. Wait, YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANY! No ring, no individual honors. Wish you had made it to the finals because Candace, Pat and company would love to have hung the new banner in your face. You can watch on ESPN. Maybe they’ll let you watch at their HQ. I hear they give great tours.
Congrats Candace! You have the heart of a lion and so do your teammates. It is so refreshing to see such a talented athlete be so humble. I am always proud when you give credit to the TEAM rather than accepting acolades for yourself. This is for ALL the Lady Vols who have made us proud this year…GO LVS!!!!

govolsxtra.com

Atlanta, GA 3/24/2008 05:16 PM GMT (FINDITT)
The 2008 NCAA Tournament’s March Madness Sweet 16 begins on Friday in the South Region bracket. The Sweet Sixteen was full of upsets, marking the first prestigious hump teams must go over on their road to the Final Four.
5 Michigan State and No. 4 Pittsburgh sent the lower seed to the Sweet 16.
No. 2 Texas Longhorns will battle No. 3 Stanford Cardinal at 7:27pm in
. The Longhorns will benefit from playing in-state, but their main advantage will be having the nation’s top point guard, D.J. Augustin, at the helm. Augustin and A.J. Abrams are a deadly combination that will keep defenses honest and on their heels.
Stanford’s strength is their frontcourt led by Robin and Brook Lopez. Stanford’s inside-outside game will spread the points around, but will make it difficult for teams to truly key in one just one person.
No. 1 Memphis will play No. 5 Michigan State at 9:57pm in
. The Tigers are one of the fastest, most athletic and most talented teams in the nation. Freshman phenom Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts will maintain their backcourt presence and push the tempo. Joey Dorsey will handle the paint by grabbing rebounds and intimidating players penetrating for lay-ups.
Drew Neitzel will need to continue his second round shooting in order to stretch out the Tigers defense. Raymar Morgan will be the leader for the Spartans’ frontcourt.

transworldnews.com

March Madness 2008 Printable Bracket
It’s that time again….March Madness and every office with any semblance of life will be incorporating March Madness 2008 office pools.Needless-to-say, all our readers will require a printable bracket. These can be found at either ESPN.com or CBS Sportsline.
Just how popular are office pools and contests?
The tournament is no longer the exclusive province of the sports-obsessed. Office pools have dramatically expanded the number participating in and obsessing about the tourney. Last year, more than 3 million participated in online tournament contests, and with each year, more and more women enter office pools. Many — men and women alike — are simply ill-equipped to handle the pressure.
"Given the levels of unremitting stress, is it any wonder that thousands of Americans experience degrees of mental dysfunction during and long after the three-week event?" asked Dr. Frederick Geisel, a renowned industrial psychologist. "Effects can range from minor and temporary emotional imbalance to more prolonged periods of melancholy — or, its opposite, bouts of seemingly unprovoked rage — to longer-term effects, such as acute clinical depression."
By the way, if you feel guilty printing 2008 March Madness brackets with your thought process being that you are somehow promoting deviant behavior in the office, here is something to keep in mind:
Nearly half of U.S. workers have participated in office pools and nearly one-quarter have watched or followed sports events on their computers at work, according to a recent survey by Spherion Corp.
The other 50% of workers probably either work alone or work in offices that are run by dictators.
So print out your bracket here and walk into your office proudly.While you’re at it, tell the IT guy to stop blocking March Madness educational websites the likes of Gambling911.com.Who do they think they are? It’s sacrilege this time of year to do so.At least we think so!

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2008 ncca tournament bracket
2008 ncca tournament schedule
NCAA tournament bracket
OK, it’s technically called the "opening round" of the NCAA Tournament, but we all know that Tuesday’s game between Mount St. Mary’s and Coppin State is the play-in game, with the winner to be fodder for No. 1 overall seed North Carolina on Friday in Raleigh, N.C.
Actually, Coppin State (16-20) has made history this season, becoming the first NCAA Tournament team with 20 losses. In fact, the Eagles, champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, were 4-19 (losing 17 of 18) at one point this season before finishing 12-1. They will be making their first NCAA Tournament, appearance since 1997, when they made history by upsetting No. 2 South Carolina as a 15 seed.
"A lot of people could have quit in that situation," Coppin coach Fang Mitchell said of his players’ early struggles. "These guys didn’t quit. I was really proud of them for having that fight in them … even though it seemed that the season was over for them.
"Now we’re striving to be the first 20-loss team to win a tournament game now," Mitchell said, although the Eagles are betting underdogs for Tuesday night’s game at WagerWeb.com.

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Usually, the week’s prelude to NCAA Selection Sunday is a reasonably orderly process, some teams emerging, some eliminating themselves, the sum of it birthing a bracket that most of us hoopheads can live with.
This year’s jostling — you could also call it swooning — is reminiscent of the scene in “Animal House” in which Stork commandeers the role of drum major at homecoming and leads the marching band down an alley into a brick wall.
So the background music to today’s bracket revelation is trombones smashing and clarinets crumpling. To put it another way, what do they do in track when the entire field false-starts in a sprint?
Never have there been so many candidates to make the 65-team field. Never has there been so much potential for: a) celebration or b) stricken smiles for TV as you realize your team is headed for the inaugural College Basketball Invitational.
On Bloody Thursday, one after another marginal prospect for the field fell flat. Some teams on the bubble immediately looked done, but at the end of the day, they didn’t look nearly as homely. To put it in terms Bluto and Flounder could appreciate, thank heaven the selection committee has to grade on the curve.

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