Born from the ashes of the Big East and fortified by a raid on Conference USA (and failed bids to go bicoastal with the Mountain West's Boise State and San Diego State), the American Athletic Conference first rose up in 2013 in the final year that it retained automatic-qualifying status under the old BCS system. UCF claimed the final...
Connecticut v. Marshall
Tropicana Field -- St. Petersburg, FL
December 26, 2015 -- 11:00 am Eastern (ESPN)
Why You Should Watch
If nothing else, this quirky bowl game that has been shoehorned into a domed ballpark in Florida for the past eight years will provide you with a reason to stay home on...
Two weeks ago I talked about how seemingly sure locks for BCS bids stumbled on the path in recent seasons, counseling caution lest we get too excited about any team's chances of claiming the first-ever guaranteed bid into one of the six premier bowl games for a mid-major program. No longer do teams have to meet arcane requirements...
In his 20 years as the head coach at Michigan State, Tom Izzo has been a model of consistency. Every one of his recruiting classes has managed to play in at least one Final Four during their four years at the school... every one, that is, until the streak ended on Sunday. Against the Connecticut Huskies, the Spartans committed an...
Half the fun of March Madness every year is that it yields upsets galore. The story of the NCAA Tournament is a story of Cinderellas, of that one shining moment that can turn a group of college kids into legends.
But not all upsets are created equal. Some were of the mildly-shocking variety, while others genuinely resulted in the...
The first weekend of March Madness is in the books, and in its wake lie millions of busted brackets. Some people might still have all their Final Four teams still alive, while the chaos of the opening rounds has wreaked greater havoc on other predictions. The only real winner, though, is Warren Buffett, who now gets to keep a...
The Huskies of Connecticut had to give everything they had to sneak away from 10-seed Saint Joe’s in the second round of the NCAA tournament to advance to the round of 32. After forcing overtime, the Huskies went on a 7-0 run to go up 80-73 with a minute left in the extra period and never looked back. Despite all that the Hawks did to...
The State of the Program Entering I-A
With far more tradition as a basketball school than a football factory, the University of Connecticut had little pedigree at the lower levels of the sport to draw upon when they vaulted to the I-A ranks in 2000. Despite fielding a team consistently since 1896, UConn was an afterthought season...
The beauty of sports isn't in the competition or the sheer amount of stats - it is in the memories it can evoke from the simplest thing. The smell of freshly mown grass can take you back to a Little League game you played or your first visit to Yankees Stadium. The squeak of a sneaker on a wet floor takes you back to the hours of...
