Big Ten Conference Tournament Preview

By Robert Ferringo

The Big Ten Tournament begins Thursday, March 10 in Indianapolis. Here is Doc’s Sports Big Ten Tournament preview and predictions, with odds courtesy of BetUs.com:

The Favorite: Ohio State (-150)
The Buckeyes are the class of the conference and right now they would be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. I don’t think that their No. 1 seed would be in jeopardy if they didn’t win this tournament but I think that they understand that having momentum this time of year

NCAA – Duke defeats UNC for ACC Tournament

Only a week ago, the North Carolina Tar Heels went on to defeat the Duke Blue Devils in one thrilling, winner-takes-all game for the Atlantic Coast Conference outright regular season title. The Tar Heels made it look all too easy. But perhaps the Tar Heels took just too many chances against a very solid and well paced team.

This time around, the roles were going to change and the Blue Devils would show no mercy against the Tar Heels. The second-seeded Duke Blue Devils were up by 18 points by halftime, and truth be said, they never let the Tar Heels get even close in the second half. The Tar Heels had managed to rally their way out of a mess in the last three games of the tournament, but not against head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his brilliant Blue Devils.

Seniors Nolan Smith and Kyle Singer from Duke had a flawless performance at Greensboro, North Carolina. The two seniors who led the 5th seeded Blue Devils to the National Championship brought on their A-game and clearly overpowered the Tar Heels, not only to win the ACC Tournament but also to do it while crushing their biggest rival. Nolan Smith had 20 points, 4 rebounds, 10 assists and Kyle Singer had 11 points, 8 rebounds and 1 assist for the 75-58 win over North Carolina, securing Duke’s record-breaking 19th ACC Tournament Title.

The Blue Devils have now won their third straight ACC Tournament and 10th in the last 13 years, proving that Coach K. and the guys from Duke take this tournament just as seriously as they take the NCAA Tourney.

North Carolina’s fans were hoping that once again the Tar Heels would put together one of those amazing come-from-behind wins that had kept them alive in this year’s tournament. Check it out: North Carolina had rallied from a 19-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to beat Miami on a last-play layup in the quarterfinals. On their next game the Tar Heels rallied from 14 down to force the game into overtime and beat Clemson in the semifinals. This time, the Blue Devils were going to stop North Carolina on its feet, as the Tar Heels got no closer than nine after halftime.

Seth Curry had 20 points last week when the Tar Heels beat Duke. This time around Curry only had 11, including a 3-pointer after the Tar Heels had pulled to within nine. John Henson was the strongest Tar Heel of the night with 10 points, 18 rebounds and 2 assists. As for the rest of North Carolina’s squad, Harrison Barnes had a very hard picking up his tempo despite scoring a tournament freshman record 40 points on his previous game. Barnes finished the game with 16 points and Tyler Zeller had 14 but to be fair, we must say that North Carolina shot 34 percent (against 50 percent from Duke) and never looked like the team that had managed to win 19 of their last 21 games.

The Duke Blue Devils still lost their race for the top seed in the NCAA Tournament to the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Blue Devils are now seeded No.3 for the March Madness Tourney, following the Kansas Jayhawks who is second and just in front of Notre Dame, which is 4th.

NCAA Tournament – Clemson crushes UAB in the First Four

We all knew it. Ok, no, let me rephrase that. Apparently we all knew it except for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee: UAB had neither record nor merit to be in the NCAA Tournament. And sure enough, even though they had to play the Clemson Tigers, who on their own are not exactly on the firmest ground when it comes to receiving a berth for the NCAA Tournament, it was more than evident that they had no business been there. You can make your case for your favorite, but Colorado and Virginia Tech had certainly more reasons to be in the Big Tournament, and perhaps teams like UAB and Georgia should had stayed in the NIT.

Sure enough Clemson didn’t have much trouble sending UAB back to Birmingham and for an early vacation. The Tigers went for a 21-2 run in the first half and never looked back. It was a good win not only for the Tigers but for the UAB detractors. Perhaps what matters most is that Clemson has justly won its first tournament game since 1997. And maybe, and only maybe, they did so not just because they were playing UAB. We’ll have to wait a bit more on that one, and see what the Tigers can put together at Tampa against West Virginia University.  

The Tigers ended their season strong, beating (and perhaps pushing out of NCAA Tournament) Virginia Tech and then wiping out Boston College by 23 points in their first ACC tournament game. That was certainly a very important win when it came to impressing the Committee. Even more, Clemson led North Carolina by 10 at halftime before the Tar Heels put on one heck of a comeback and beat the Tigers in overtime for the ACC’s Tournament semis.

Jerai Grant had a career-best 22 points and 7 rebounds for the Tigers helping Clemson break out of an ACC record five game losing streak in the NCAA tournament. The 18-point victory was the largest winning margin in any of Clemson’s tournament games.

US Open: Beatrice Capra pulls biggest upset of the tournament

Last year it was American teenager Melanie Oudin who was making the sport world’s headlines as she managed to advance pass this year it is Beatrice Capra making the news when she managed to defeat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 6-1, in the first round of the 2009 US Open. She then stunned fourth seeded Elena Dementieva in the second round by 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. She defeated the stunning Maria Sharapova in the third round. She kept her winning streak and took down Nadia Petrova on the quarterfinals.

She had handwritten on her tennis shoes the word: