NCAA

Howdy, I’m your host, Austin Knoblauch. Let’s get right to the news.From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Until the end, Janelle McDonald kept dancing.As she walked down the stairs after UCLA’s final bar routine, with hopes of advancing to the NCAA finals fading with every stuck landing by Utah’s beam lineup, the first-year Bruin coach extended her arms over her head.“Y-M-C-A,” she spelled out to the music.McDonald brought the Bruins back to the national stage by rekindling the program’s joyful dynamic and her work persisted even as the…

FORT WORTH —  Until the end, Janelle McDonald kept dancing.As she walked down the stairs after UCLA’s final bar routine, with hopes of advancing to the NCAA finals fading with every stuck landing by Utah’s beam lineup, the first-year Bruin coach extended her arms over her head.“Y-M-C-A,” she spelled out to the music.McDonald brought the Bruins back to the national stage by rekindling the program’s joyful dynamic and her work persisted even as the season ended Thursday with a third-place finish at the NCAA semifinals at…

UCLA is still dancing.With their best floor rotation of the season, the Bruins advanced to the NCAA championships for the first time since 2019 by finishing second in Saturday’s NCAA regional final at Pauley Pavilion.Utah finished first with a score of 198 points, while the Bruins charged back from a two-tenth deficit at the halfway point of the meet to edge out Missouri for second place. UCLA totaled 197.925 points, while the Tigers, who kept the Bruins out of nationals by 0.025 points last season, had a score of 197.6.…

Take heart, potential Cinderella stories and bracket busters.The odds don’t favor you past the first weekend, but history offers you a North Star, a small glimmer of hope that anything is possible. On April Fools’ Day, 1985, eighth-seeded Villanova became — and remains — the lowest seed to win the NCAA men’s basketball championship, when it defeated top-seeded Georgetown 66-64.The Wildcats reached the final without reaching 60 points in any of its previous five tournament games, which included defeats of a No. 1 seed…

TULSA, Okla. — University of Northern Colorado junior Andrew Alirez didn’t eat Mexican, Italian or processed foods this year. It was all in an attempt to win a national title. Well, his next several meals will be “something that tastes good,” because he reached his goal. No. 2-seeded Alirez (28-0) won the 141-pound national championship on Saturday night, becoming the first-ever champion in the modern era. UNC’s most recent titles came in the Division II days and in the 1960s before the NCAA created divisional breakdowns.…

SACRAMENTO —  Before he left the podium late Thursday night, Mick Cronin saluted someone several hundred miles away.“Jaylen Clark,” Cronin said, “we miss you, buddy.”Yes, the UCLA Bruins certainly do.Clark is their best defender, if not the nation’s best. He’s their emotional spark plug, following his takeaways leading to easy baskets with a muscled flex and a mighty roar.He has also become a galvanizing force, even while resting his injured leg back in Southern California as his team attempts this March march without…

SACRAMENTO —  No Furman here. No Princeton here. No late craziness or shocking weirdness or shining momentousness here.No Cinderella, only smashing pumpkins.UCLA was not going to lose its NCAA first-round tournament game to 18-point underdog North Carolina Asheville at the Golden 1 Center on Thursday night.No way. No how. Not for all the madness in the world. This was evident in the first three minutes, which went roughly as follows:UCLA layup. Asheville brick. UCLA two free throws. Asheville brick. UCLA trey. Asheville…

SACRAMENTO —  The only nervous moments came several hours before tipoff.A slew of massive upsets put UCLA on high alert against another Cinderella seeking a sprinkling of March magic.None would be found after an early Bruin blitz of baskets eased any lingering fears. UCLA would not go the way of Arizona or Virginia and get eliminated during the NCAA tournament’s opening day.The big question facing the second-seeded Bruins during an 86-53 first-round rout of 15th-seeded North Carolina Asheville on Thursday at the Golden 1…

March Madness is a delightfully inefficient market. Every year, a selection committee gathers to place a value on 68 college-basketball teams, and fans make predictions based on all sorts of information available to them. Every year, they are thrilled to be proven very wrong.  The beauty of the four days of men’s and women’s basketball games this week is that nobody has any clue what to expect besides chaos. There are underdogs that defy the odds to find success and favorites that melt into the most…

Baylor forward Jalen Bridges (11) celebrates with forward Josh Ojianwuna (15) after making a shot at the buzzer ending the first half against Iowa State in the second round of the Big 12 Conference tournament on March 9 in Kansas City, Mo.(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press) No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 16 Texas A&M-Corpus ChristiThursday, 11:45 a.m.TV: CBSLine: N/APick: Alabama has been blowing out overmatched teams all year. The Crimson Tide will show no mercy.Alabama 104, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 59…