Weekend Watchdog: Opening up and closing down
In college basketball, four teams are vying for number one.
In major league baseball, everybody’s tied for first place.
The 2011 Major League Baseball season gets going on a Thursday this year, with three games on ESPN. The Tigers visit the Yankees at 1 p.m. and the Padres take on the Cardinals at 4 p.m.
The night closes with a big bang, as World Champion San Francisco Giants host the Dodgers by the Bay at 8 p.m.
ESPN continues the opening action Friday with a pair of games – Houston at Philadelphia at 1 p.m. followed by Boston-Texas. Weather permitting in Philly.
Sunday night on ESPN2, the Dodgers and Giants close out their series at 8 p.m.
The Nationals open the season at home against the Braves. MASN has the first pitch Thursday at 1 p.m., and the last two games of the series Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
The Orioles start the year in Tampa Bay, playing Friday at 7 p.m. on MASN. The teams play Saturday night on MASN and Sunday afternoon on MASN2.
NCAA basketball closes its season with the men’s Final Four in Houston and the women’s championship in Indianapolis.
Who had VCU playing Butler for a spot in the national championship game? It sounds more like a Bracket Buster game from February. But these two have advanced to Saturday’s 6 p.m. game, and one will play either Kentucky or Connecticut for the title Monday.
On the women’s side, Texas A&M plays Stanford in one semfinal Sunday and it’s a Big East battle between Notre Dame and Connecticut in the other on ESPN. The victors meet Tuesday for the national championship.
Before the Final Four, the NIT crowns its champion Thursday at 7 p.m. on ESPN. Wichita State, which eliminated Virginia Tech, takes on Alabama.
NASCAR invades the paper clip this weekend, as the racers cruise around the Martinsville Speedway starting at Sunday 1 p.m. on FOX.
The PGA tour gets ready for the Masters with the Shell Houston Open on NBC Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m.
TNT returns Thursday NBA doubleheader action as the Celtics visit San Antonio at 8 p.m. followed by the Mavericks against the Lakers. ESPN offers a Friday twinbill, with the Celtics at the Hawks at 8 p.m. The Lakers visit the Jazz at 10:30 p.m.
The NBA on ABC opens April with the Suns at San Antonio Sunday at 1 p.m. Then the Nuggets face the Lakers.
A tough task faces the Wizards Friday – a Cleveland team coming off a win over LeBron and the Heat. Comcast has the coverage at 7 p.m., then Sunday at 6 p.m. the Wizards head to Charlotte.
The Capitals host Columbus Thursday at 7 p.m. and the Sabres Saturday at 7 p.m. on Comcast. NBC has the Rangers facing the Flyers Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
Tennis stars compete at the Sony Ericsson Open this weekend. ESPN2 has coverage Thursday and Friday starting at 1 p.m., and Friday at 7 p.m., then CBS takes over Saturday and Sunday.
In college baseball, Florida meets Tennessee Saturday at 1 p.m. on Comcast. Sunday at 2 p.m., Alabama hosts Arkansas. If you want college football, ESPN has the Texas preseason finale Sunday at 3 p.m.
ESPN2 has a women’s soccer match between England and the USA Saturday at 3 p.m.
The SEC women’s gymnastics championship will be on ESPN2 Sunday at 3 p.m.
The AFP on WREL: Sweet (16) Dreams
AFP editor Chris Graham talks Virginia sports on WREL-1450AM’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan.”
The segment begins with a look back and look ahead at VCU and Richmond and their runs in the NCAA Tournament. Can either of the two surprise Sweet 16 teams be Final Four-bound? Read more
The AFP on WREL: Sweet (16) Dreams
AFP editor Chris Graham talks Virginia sports on WREL-1450AM’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan.”
The segment begins with a look back and look ahead at VCU and Richmond and their runs in the NCAA Tournament. Can either of the two surprise Sweet 16 teams be Final Four-bound?
Chris and Jim then break down the rest of the Sweet 16. Who will make it to Houston?
Chris then reports on the exciting three-game college baseball series from the weekend pitting two top-five teams in UVa. and Florida State. Chris was there for all three one-run, extra-inning affairs, and thinks he might have seen two of the teams that will be playing in Omaha in June.
Sweet 16: Richmond 2, Big East 2
You read that right. Our state’s capital city has all of two NCAA teams, both of which made the NCAA Tournament field of 68, and both of which fought their way into the Sweet 16 with a combined record of 5-0.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the Big East, a 16-team superconference stretching from the Northeast practically into the Southern Hemisphere, which had a record 11 teams make the tourney field, will have, like the City of Richmond, two teams still alive in the Sweet 16 later this week.
(And those came from second-round matchups featuring a pair of Big East teams of which the winner had to be from the Big East. Otherwise …)
That it’s not out of the realm of the average basketball fan’s imagination that neither of the teams from Richmond – the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth – could have even been in the NCAAs to begin with is what makes March Madness so interesting.
UR, I thought, was a lock with its 24-win regular season in the respected Atlantic 10, but even after winning the A-10 conference tournament the Spiders earned just a #12 seed, an indication that the poo-bahs had Richmond pegged for another postseason destination without the automatic bid.
VCU, meanwhile, was not even part of the conversation heading into Selection Sunday. After limping down the stretch of the 2010-2011 season to a fourth-place finish in the CAA, the Rams seemed destined for the NIT before hearing their names called for the inaugural First Four, a set of play-in games featuring the final four at-large teams to get berths into the NCAA field.
VCU dominated Southern Cal from the Pac 10 in the first round, then beat Georgetown from the Big East on Friday night to earn a matchup with the Southwest Region’s third seed, Purdue of the Big 10. The Rams, the #11 seed, played like they were the big boys in a convincing 94-76 win that lands them in San Antonio for a 9:55 p.m. Friday tipoff.
Playing the game before them: Richmond, which upset fifth-seeded Vanderbilt on Thursday and then decimated Morehead State on Saturday.
VCU gets another Cinderella in its Sweet 16 matchup in the form of #10 seed Florida State of the ACC, which was slighted on Selection Sunday with just four bids, but has a tournament-high three teams left in the field after the first weekend.
Richmond’s test will be the toughest of the two teams from the capital city to date – top-seed Kansas.
Here’s to our Cinderellas not realizing it’s close to midnight a little while longer, and having the champion of the Southwest also be the city champs of Richmond for 2010-2011.
Selection Sunday: What it all means
Virginia and Virginia Tech need to beef up their out-of-conference schedules
OK, so ACC teams don’t get to play the likes of Georgia State in January and February. That said, the Committee has made it clear that it expects power-conference teams to play more challenging nonconference schedules than Seth Greenberg likes to put together.
That much should have been clear to Greenberg a while ago, but, well, here we go again. I think Tech had clearly played its way into the field this year (as I had thought last year), but the message has been sent. Read more
Tech’s bubble bursts again: Mason, VCU get at-large bids, UR, ODU, Hampton earn automatics
It’s a rite of Selection Sunday that Virginia Tech fans could do without.
The Hokies, with a 21-11 record, 11 wins in the ACC, two wins over NCAA Tourney participant Florida State, a win over #1 West Region seed Duke two weeks ago, were once again left out of the NCAA field.
George Mason (26-6) and VCU (23-11) from the CAA both got at-large bids, joining tournament champion Old Dominion (27-6), marking the first time the Colonial got two at-large bids into the tournament field.
Richmond (27-7), which won the Atlantic 10′s automatic bid, and Hampton (24-8), champs of the MEAC, also earned bids.
Hampton, the #16 seed in the West, will take on Duke (30-4) in its NCAA opener. Richmond, the #12 seed in the Southwest, takes on #5 seed Vanderbilt (23-10).
ODU, the #9 seed in the Southeast, opens with #8 Butler (22-9). VCU plays Southern Cal (19-14) in a play-in game for the #11 seed in the Southwest Region. Mason, the #8 seed in the East, takes on #9 seed Villanova (21-11).
The ACC landed four teams in the NCAA field – Duke, Florida State (#10 seed in the Southwest), North Carolina (#2 seed in the East) and Clemson (which faces Alabama-Birmingham in a play-in game for the #12 seed in the East).
Virginia Tech seemed to have played its way into the field as a fifth ACC participant with its 64-60 win over then-#1 Duke on Feb. 26 and then posting two wins in this week’s ACC Tournament, including a 52-51 win on Friday over Florida State in the ACC quarterfinals.
The win gave Tech a season sweep of Florida State. Tech also beat another bubble team that was given an NCAA bid, Penn State (19-14, the #10 seed in the West Region).
Losses in the final week of the regular season to Boston College and Clemson and a pair of losses to 16-15 Virginia were key blemishes on the Hokies’ resume, as was a relatively weak strength of schedule (74th among the 345 teams in Division I).
Weekend Watchdog: Opening up and closing down
Posted by afp on March 31, 2011 · Leave a Comment
In major league baseball, everybody’s tied for first place.
The 2011 Major League Baseball season gets going on a Thursday this year, with three games on ESPN. The Tigers visit the Yankees at 1 p.m. and the Padres take on the Cardinals at 4 p.m.
The night closes with a big bang, as World Champion San Francisco Giants host the Dodgers by the Bay at 8 p.m. Read more
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with butler, connecticut, final four, kentucky, major league baseball, nascar, nba, opening day, uconn, vcu, weekend watch