March madness future

opinion Tom Krattenmaker Opinion columnist Published 12:41 PM EDT Mar 18, 2019 Many of your family, friends and colleagues — and maybe you — are about to become obsessed with college basketball. March Madness is here, and if it matches recent years, the 68-team NCAA men’s basketball tournament will generate an audience approaching  100 million people in 180 countries watching on television and 700,000 to 800,000 attending live games. The NCAA will rake in about  $900 million from TV commercials, ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and other sources. In excess of $10 billion will be wagered (most of it illegally). Those are insane numbers. So are these. College student debt has climbed to roughly  $1.57 trillion in this country, more than the amount owed for  credit-card balances. Appropriations for public colleges and universities — the schools most students attend — have declined precipitously over … [Read more...] about March Madness revenue numbers are insane, so is student college debt

Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, and Gonzaga take No. 1 seeds in NCAA Tournament as 68-team March Madness field unveiled.Download the bracket here:  Download PDF Make your picks before the first game of the tournament with The Gazette's March Mayhem Brackets challenge.  Make your picks: March Hoops Bracket Challenge Get the latest updates here: 8:05 p.m.North Carolina State's omission from the NCAA Tournament field doesn't sit well with athletics director Debbie Yow.The Wolfpack (22-11) was 33rd in the new NET rankings, a more analytical system that incorporated factors such as game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin and net efficiency at both ends of the court.In a statement, Yow pointed out that the Wolfpack beat eventual Southeastern Conference Tournament champion Auburn while playing five games against Atlantic Coast Conference peers Duke, North Carolina and Virginia — which all ended up with NCAA 1-seeds.But N.C. State went … [Read more...] about March Madness: The field is set for the NCAA Tournament

Daniel P. Finney Des Moines Register Published 1:06 PM EDT Mar 14, 2019 Before bracket busters, bubble teams, mid-majors and 3-pointers, there was the 1968-69 Drake men's basketball team — a scrappy, high-jumping, hard-defending team that clawed its way from the middle of the Missouri Valley Conference all the way to the Final Four. Fifty years ago this month, Drake played the role of David against the Goliath — two-time defending NCAA Tournament champion UCLA, led by an actual giant, 7-foot-1 Lew Alcindor. As Drake and Des Moines host first- and second-round games this month, let’s look back at the first time March went mad in the capital city. Drake dominance  This is something hard for younger Bulldog fans to wrap their minds around: From the early 1960s through about 1971, Drake was good. Like, nationally good. Shot at the NCAA tournament or NIT good. Nearly every year. They were led by head coach Maury John, who preached the … [Read more...] about March Madness: 1969 Drake Bulldogs challenged UCLA dominance in NCAA Tournament Final Four