Archive - Mar 2012 - Story

No surprises on first day of Big Ten Tournament; Purdue and other league leaders ready to roll on Day Two

The Big Ten Conference women's basketball tournament got under way Thursday, March 1, in Indianapolis, with all the higher seeds holding serve.

In fact, none of the games was even close. All four winners shot better from the field than their opponents, and each was ahead by at least 13 by halftime.

ACC Tournament, Day One: NC State's comeback caps a day with little drama

With the exception of North Carolina State's thrilling comeback win over Florida State, things went according to chalk on the first day of the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament on Thursday, Mar. 2.  However, the opening day's events did set up what has the potential to be a fascinating quarterfinal round of games. 

Game 1: (5) North Carolina 90, (12) Clemson 51

Big East titans offer mini-NCAA preview as conference tournament begins

With six ranked teams and two more worthy the Big East Tournament gets under way Friday where it usually does – at XL Center in Hartford.

Acacia O’Connor will be on the scene for daily coverage and yours truly, who is hunkered down at the Atlantic 10 here in Philadelphia, will offer some outside observations and commentary as we go through.

This is also the farewell for at least one school – West Virginia – that heads to the Big 12 this summer. Syracuse and Pittsburgh are bound for the Atlantic Coast, but have yet to secure an exit arrangement.

Mid-Major tournaments tip off Wednesday with plenty of talent on display

While most of the nation's eyes have been glued to the major-league powerhouses of women's college basketball -- the Baylors, Notre Dames, Connecticuts, Stanfords and Tennessees -- some fiercely competitive games featuring some of the nation's top female athletes have been going on, mostly under the radar. Indeed, the talent pool in the non-BCS conferences runs so deep this year that it is hard to refer to some of these programs as "midmajors" anymore.

"Bubble Wrap" 2012 -- Week 3: Seven bubble teams join ranks of locks; six others drop out of contention

Last week, seven more teams -- three of them in the BIG East (West Virginia, Louisville and Rutgers), two from the Big Ten (Purdue and Nebraska), one from the PAC-12 (Califronia) and one from the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga) -- made the move from bubble teams to to locks for an at-large invitation to the NCAA tournament by taking care of business in the final weeks of their conference regular seasons.