NCAA basketball

A closer look at the First Four games that will kick off the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

What about Loyola-Chicago? But even just looking at the top three seeds in the South is enough to cause some heartburn after all three finished in the top six of this season's final AP Top 25 this week. Then, it could come down to a meeting with Kansas, and the Jayhawks are the weakest of this year's four No. 1 seeds. Eventually, a rematch of a 69-55 Dec. 18 loss to Gonzaga would be in store for TTU. But at least it would have some familiarity for that game. A potential Elite Eight matchup with No. 2 seed Kentucky or No. 3 seed Purdue would also be a challenge for the Bears without Tchamwa-Tchatchoua inside to help contain the star post players on those rosters. Auburn is just 5-4 over its last nine games since a 22-1 start that catapulted it to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 for the first time in program history. The Jayhawks have the shakiest case to be a No. 1 seed yet managed to land the easiest path of the group. The Badgers lost at home to lowly Nebraska on March 6 and then bowed out of the Big Ten Tournament after one game. Then there's Auburn, which enters playing the worst basketball of anyone with a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the bracket. Providence has been a team of destiny at times this season and has a Big East regular season title to prove it. The Zags and their front court duo of Drew Timme and Chet Holmgren would match up quite favorably against the undersized Catamounts, and their path to the Final Four would all of the sudden become easier. But until the ball is tipped, it's impossible to know who is going to get the breaks that will help facilitate a deep run. At long last, the 2022 NCAA Tournament is upon us, and debate is raging in the final days leading up to the first round action over how the bracket shapes up.

With stunning upsets, Cinderella runs and memorable finishes, we rank the top 20 tourneys from Bird vs. Magic until today.

We got the requisite Cinderellas (three 11- or-12 seeds in the Sweet 16, though one was Kentucky), and we got loads of star power in the Final Four, primarily via Patrick Ewing and Georgetown facing Chris Mullen, Walter Berry and St. John's for the fourth time in two months. UNLV nearly lost to Ball State in the Sweet 16, and oh yeah, Christian Laettner sent Duke to the Final Four with a buzzer-beater. Meanwhile, the biggest story was a team that won its first two games by a combined 53 points. We didn't get an unusual number of upsets out of that, but those came in the second round, with Northern Iowa riding Ali Farokhmanesh to a shocker over top-seeded Kansas and four double-digit seeds reaching the Sweet 16. Wisconsin title game, but UConn took down the Gators by 10, and Kentucky outlasted Wisconsin in the most high-quality game of the season. (The Zags missed buzzer-beaters in two overtime periods and fell 96-95.) The first weekend was chaos, and then the stars took over. In the Sweet 16, Robinson hit a late game-winner to take down Cleveland State and advance to the Elite Eight before Duke ended the dream. It gave us fewer upsets and close games than normal, and Duke won its second straight national title with a 20-point pounding of Michigan in the final. Granted, that created quite a few lopsided matchups in the coming rounds, and the two national semifinal games were decided by a combined 61 points. Did this tournament have one of the most frustrating and unwatchable finals in memory (UConn's 53-41 win over Butler)? Absolutely. But the journey to that point was awfully fun. Two No. 1 seeds came within a point of losing -- Georgetown barely survived Pete Carril's Princeton (50-49), while Billy Tubbs' Oklahoma almost fell to East Tennessee State (72-71) -- and Michigan proved willing to do some heavy lifting in the drama department. It was OK. This was a time period defined in part by the Duke-Maryland rivalry, and those teams gave us a wild Final Four matchup -- the Terps surged to a 39-17 lead, only to watch Duke outscore them 78-45 the rest of the way -- but what was maybe Mike Krzyzewski's best team won its six games by an average score of 87-70, depriving us of much late-tournament drama.

Consider yourself an expert on college basketball? Here's your chance to test your knowledge with The Courier Journal pop quiz.

We did the work so you don't have to. But how much do you really know? You fashion yourself an expert on the rules of the game.

Ahead of the 2022 NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament, heres a look at who holds the single-game records for points, rebounds and more.

Playing all 40 minutes, Bauman accounted for 64% of her team’s points while shooting 21-for-35 overall and 8-for-11 from the free throw line. Along with buzzer-beaters and championship nail-biters, some players have put together historic stat lines in the big dance. Drake’s Lorri Bauman erupted for 50 points in the Elite Eight against Maryland in 1982, the first year the NCAA women’s tournament was held.

The Sweet 16 probables, and possible party-crashers... What follows is a prediction of the Sweet 16 field in the NCAA Tournament (with rankings based ...

Arizona (1) vs. Kansas (1) vs. Arizona (1) vs. Michigan State (7) vs. Michigan State (7) vs. Kansas (1) vs. Arizona (1) vs. UCLA (4) vs. UConn (5) vs. Villanova (2) vs. Baylor (1) vs. Memphis (9) vs.

Kentucky Wildcats basketball recruiting links from the Next Cats blog on the recruits who missed the 2022 NCAA Tournament, Kenny Payne and Louisville, ...

Doug Edert simply did what he has always done. As a senior at Bergen Catholic in 2019, he heated up during the NJSIAA boys basketball playoffs and helped ...

“The stage is set, everybody’s juiced up, we’re all ready,” he said. “It’s a shame that Doug Edert didn’t get Sixth Man of the Year,” Holloway said. They play with the same basketballs we do. “Winning is the only thing that will allow you to stay in it and keep playing basketball, which is what I love doing. “The thing is, they put on sneakers just like we do. “We’re a team that played 10-11 guys double-figure minutes.