— Straight-up records in NCAA Tournament, by conference:
Big 18- 13-3
SEC- 13-6
Big XII- 9-5
Big East- 4-1
ACC- 5-7
WCC- 1-3
— Creighton coach Greg McDermott is retiring after 16 years with the Bluejays; McDermott has a career record of 514-319 in 25 years as a head coach, at Northern Iowa, Creighton and Iowa State. Alan Huss is Creighton’s new coach; he had previously been head coach at High Point, and was “coach in waiting” with Creighton this year.
— Gonzaga’s move to the Pac-12 has already hurt Saint Mary’s; Randy Bennett has bolted from the Gaels to be the new coach at Arizona State. Bennett was in Moraga for 25 years, making 12 NCAA Tournaments; he got the Gaels to the Sweet 16 in 2010.
Arizona State has missed the NCAA’s five of the last six years.
— Saint Mary’s hired from within, replaced Bennett with assistant coach Mickey McConnell, who played for the Gaels and had been on the Saint Mary’s staff since 2019. Saint Mary’s figures to get a lot less national TV exposure now, with Gonzaga moving on.
— There are five coaches who have won a game in this year’s NCAA Tournament who at one time were head coaches at a Division II school:
Jerrod Calhoun, Utah State (off to Cincinnati today)
Grant McCasland, Texas Tech
Ben McCollum, Iowa (won 4 D-II national titles)
Ryan Odom, Virginia
Josh Schertz, Saint Louis
— Jerrod Calhoun has moved on from Utah State to Cincinnati; Calhoun was 55-15 in two years with the Aggies, but he is a Cincinnati alum who was a student assistant for Bob Huggins with the Bearcats in 2003-04, after playing at Cleveland State.
Next season, Utah State will have its 7th head coach in 12 years, and they’ve only had one losing season in the last 11 seasons. No one stays there, but they keep winning. Last four years, under three different coaches, Aggies are 109-31, 57-19 in Mountain West games, 2-4 in NCAA games.
— This past weekend, #2-seeds were 4-0 ATS in second round games of the NCAA’s, the first time that happened since 1991.
— Famous birthdays, March 24th:
Garry Templeton, 70
Scott Brunner, 69
Bruce Hurst, 68
Mike Woodson, 68
Kelly LeBrock, 56
Lara Flynn Boyle, 56
Steve Karsay, 54
Peyton Manning, 50
Aaron Brooks, 50
Jessica Chastain, 49
Chad Gaudin, 43
Chris Bosh, 42
— Famous birthdays, March 24th:
Garry Templeton, 70
Scott Brunner, 69
Bruce Hurst, 68
Mike Woodson, 68
Kelly LeBrock, 56
Lara Flynn Boyle, 56
Steve Karsay, 54
Peyton Manning, 50
Aaron Brooks, 50
Jessica Chastain, 49
Chad Gaudin, 43
Chris Bosh, 42
— Robert Mueller passed away this weekend, at age 81; he was director of the FBI for 12 years, after being nominated by the older George Bush.
He was a Marine Corps officer during the Vietnam War, receiving a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He went to college at Princeton, before going to Vietnam.
RIP, sir.
There are eight teams left in the NIT:
— Wichita State (24-11)- Shockers won nine of last 10 games; they beat Tulsa 2 out of 3 games this season, including the AAC tournament.
Wichita has #23 eFG% defense in country.
— Tulsa (28-7)— they’ve won eight of their last nine games, with their last two wins in OT.
Tulsa is shooting 38.9% on the arc, #5 in country.
— St Joe’s (24-11)- Hawks won nine of last 10 games, including NIT road games at Colorado State and California.
St Joe’s subs play #321 minutes, a potential problem in higher altitude.
— New Mexico (25-10)- Were 5-6 in last 11 Mountain West games, but won their first two NIT games, by 24-25 points.
Lobos drew over 9,000 fans for their last game, big crowd for the NIT.
— Illinois State (22-12)- Redbirds are 9-3 in non-conference games; they won at Wake Forest Sunday.
Illinois State is #45 in the country in experience, #13 in continuity.
— Dayton (25-11)- Flyers are 11-3 in their last 14 games, with all three losses to VCU.
Dayton won its first two NIT games on the road, at Bradley/NC-Wilmington.
— Nevada (24-12)- Long road trip for the Wolf Pack; last time they played outside of Nevada was March 3rd, in Wyoming.
Nevada gets 25.5% of its points on foul line, #3 in country.
— Auburn (19-16)- After going 3-9 in their last 12 SEC games, Tigers beat South Alabama by 11, Seattle by 6 in two NIT home games.
Auburn gets 24% of its points on foul line, #20 in country.
— There was a cool moment Monday night during the Royals-Rangers exhibition game; Texas had a pitcher named Carter Baumler on the mound. He gets a guy out and manager Skip Schumaker comes to the mound. Players start laughing during the meeting, Schumaker goes back to the dugout, Baumler stays in the game.
Turns out that Schumaker told the pitcher that he made the team, that he was a big leaguer for the first time in his career. Pretty excellent way to find out.
