WBEZ | NCAA

Are you into the NCAA's Big Dance?

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:50:00 -0500

There will be an untold number of electronic devices tuned into the NCAA men's basketball tournament and stealing from a productive work environment starting Thursday. The champion will be crowned April 8 in Atlanta. Across the country people are investing time, labor or luck filling out their brackets for the The Big Dance. Some money will be won and a lot more will be lost. It is one of the most emotionally charged sports events of the year.

There seem to be three categories for doing the brackets:

Who wants to buy one of the NCAA teams for a couple of bucks? (the popular one)

Some offices have set up pools for co-workers to buy a random team instead of filling out a bracket. Your selection is for the tournament’s duration and if you are lucky, the final outcome of the championship earns the cash. Of course, when you are doing a blind draw, pulling a Number 1 seed (Louisville, Kansas, Gonzaga, and Indiana) or Number 2 seed (Miami, Duke, Georgetown and Ohio State) makes you feel confident for a winner in the NCAA title game. If you get a 16th seed team, you can forget about it. People who participate in this type of pool know it is mostly a matter of luck. It is a way to participate without even having a clue about the game or the teams. You'll find college alumni of a school root for a team they wouldn't normally care about or may be a rival. It also gets you to watch a game that maybe you wouldn’t bother viewing otherwise.

I should have been a player or a coach since I know the game so well. (the hard-core one)

The NCAA basketball pools that people really sink their teeth into is the selection of teams through the rounds, right to the Final Four and the eventual Championship. This is where everyone believes they are a master of picking the winners. Some participants will pour over every team and delve into every stat and try to get their hands on every morsel of information. This is for the real college basketball junkie: What did the team do in the past ten games, who is hot, what region are they playing, what is the team’s travel, are they from a strong conference, did the selection committee give them a proper seeding, does this team have a great x’s and o’s coach, are there NBA caliber players on the squad, is it an up-tempo team or is it a physical team?

Hey the Internet has the bracket and I can ask my wife/husband who to pick (the casual one)

This is a perfect vehicle to make selections when you work from home and can be wrong and no one will find out. The casual fan will get involved with this pool and sometimes the randomness of picking the winners pays off. You can be safe with your NCAA selections and choose the favorites throughout. Maybe it’s your alma mater. It could be a parent picking where they send their kids (and money) to college. You probably won't win since there are always upsets that will implode your bracket (Hint: a #12 seed usually trips up a #5 seed. Think Oregon.). If you don't have the knowledge you can find someone who will do it for you.

This is when there is a tap on my shoulder and a sheet put in my hand as my husband asks, “Will you fill this out for me?”

Follow Cheryl on Twitter @CRayeStout and Facebook Cheryl Raye Stout #AtTheGame.

Local colleges need more Chicago prep talent

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 06:00:00 -0500

While colleges across the country celebrate getting into the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, there is no madness in Chicago. It has been years since Chicago had a spotlight on it for its men's college basketball prowess. This is difficult to understand with the quality of the players who excel on the high school courts of Chicago. Particularly since the Big Ten Conference (arguably the best in the country) just held court at the United Center for its tournament. It’s tough to see local teams in such a rut. It’s hard to watch the best talent from Chicago not play here on the NCAA Division I level.

Fifty years ago, the Loyola Ramblers celebrated the last time a time from Chicago won a national title. DePaul during the 70s and 80s was a nationally renowned team under Head Coach Ray Meyer. During the Blue Demons hey day, they were the basketball team in Chicago (not the Bulls). This of course was pre-Michael Jordan and six NBA titles. There have been Chicago schools in the NCAA tournament in the past few decades, but none have been a premier team in the country.

There have been times when Bradley, Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois and Illinois have produced winning men's programs. Illinois has made numerous appearances in the NCAA tournament. It was just eight years ago when Bruce Weber took the Illini with Dee Brown and Deron Williams to the brink of a NCAA championship. They lost to North Carolina in the final.

Many give credit to former coach Bill Self for bringing in those players before he bolted to Kansas and won the NCAA championship there. After the loss to the Tar Heels, Illinois saw erosion of talent. Weber was fired and now Illinois is under the leadership of John Groce. In his first season, the Illini coach is guiding the team to post season play. The #7 seed Illinois will play #10 seed Colorado in first round NCAA action on Friday in Austin, Texas.

Simeon High School’s Jabari Parker, the top national player and an excellent student, is headed to Duke. Why not? It is an elite program and has been consistently challenging for national titles. It is a huge shame that a team from this area, DePaul or Northwestern, was not even considered. Derrick Rose left here to play at Memphis for a year before leaping to the NBA.

Why is it hard to keep the best Chicago high school players? The factors are numerous: campus life, coaches, consistency of excellence, putting a distance from the streets of Chicago (and for some, the weather). Whatever the reasons, the local college teams see players leave and not become hometown heroes.

Here is a look at what the Chicago college teams did this season:

DePaul 11-21 (overall) 2-16 (Big East conference)

The Blue Demons been spinning their wheels for years. They have been the doormat in the conference and now they will be joining the new league of the Catholic schools. Playing in Rosemont is a huge negative for the school. Their last NCAA appearance was 2004.

Northwestern 13-19 (overall) 4-15 (Big Ten Conference)

They started the season 7-0. Numerous injuries and a suspension depleted the team’s roster. With the loss to Iowa in the first round on Thursday, Northwestern fired head coach Bill Carmody on Saturday after 13 years guiding the team. One of the names highlighted for this job is Duke assistant Chris Collins. He is from the area and his father Doug is a former Chicago Bulls coach. NU has never been to the NCAA tournament.

University of Illinois Chicago 17-15 (overall) 7-9 (Horizon Conference)

The Flames will go to the Collegeinsider.com tournament. It's a rather new event that gives some teams a chance to experience post season play. UIC has had four post season appearances, three NCAA, one NIT and no wins.

Loyola 15-16 (overall) 5-11(Horizon Conference)

Head coach Porter Moser has had the job for two years. The Ramblers have not been to the NCAA since their "Sweet 16" appearance in 1985.

Chicago State 11-21 (overall) 5-5 (Great West Conference)

They won the Great West Conference tournament, which they also hosted on Saturday. The win gave them a berth in the Collegeinsider.com tournament. It is the school’s first post-season appearance. The Cougars will join the WAC next year. Head coach Tracey Dilby is finishing his third season. He was a former DePaul and UIC assistant.

According to former players, it doesn’t take much to turn a basketball program. If a school can recruit one or two top notch players, it can catapult a college team. The challenge is convincing Chicago student athletes to stay here and make a difference.

Looking at what John Groce did in his first recruiting year may mean Illinois is moving in the right direction. He will have two players from Simeon high school playing for him next season: Kendrick Nunn and Jaylon Tate. Groce got some help from an Illinois alumni and former star Kendall Gill. The new coach asked him to recruit and it worked. Gill’s pitch is something his parents told him: stay in your home state and it will be beneficial when the playing career is completed. He believes the alumni base in Illinois helped him when his playing days in the NBA were over.

Follow Cheryl on Twitter @CRayeStout and Facebook Cheryl Raye Stout #AtTheGame.

Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller knows a thing, or 7, about winning

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:21:00 -0500

Full disclosure: I am a former Wildcat. But that’s not usually something to boast about amongst sports fans—unless you happen upon a group of Keyshawn Johnson fans. Or, in a slightly less dated scenario, you find yourself surrounded by "lax heads." That’s the endearing term used to describe the sizable group of loyal fans who turn up at Northwestern University women’s lacrosse games. Of course, it’s a lot easier to remain faithful to a team when they’re winning—and this team wins a lot.

Last Sunday, the Wildcats out-laxed Syracuse in the NCAA championships. Playing in the title game has become something of a routine for the Wildcats—this was their eighth consecutive appearance and seventh win in the final. Lucky number seven sealed the team’s dynasty and head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller’s rightful reign as its adored queen.

When Amonte Hiller first inherited the team, it was far from a kingdom; in fact, when she arrived in 2001, women’s lacrosse was a club program. She was tasked with reviving the team’s varsity status and luring talent to the Midwest. That was no small feat considering that for more than five decades, the East Coast dominated college lacrosse. According to Sports Illustrated, when the Wildcats first won the title in 2005, it was the first time a program—male or female—from outside the Eastern time zone won a national championship.

Amonte Hiller is, herself, a product of the East Coast machine. She was a four-time All-American and a two-time Player of the Year at the University of Maryland. She was in her hometown, working as an assistant in at Boston University, when Northwestern approached her for help. She was skeptical about leaving the seaboard but her older brother, Tony, just happened to be the captain of the Chicago Blackhawks at the time—so at least she had a place to crash. Soon she embraced the role of the underdog and got to work. She famously promised her first freshman class that she would lead them to a championship—and sure enough, that class won the school’s first title their senior year.

The success of the team during Coach Amonte Hiller’s tenure has been credited with increasing the visibility of Northwestern’s entire athletic program and fan base; a fan base that includes Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Eddie Vedder, all of whom called to wish the team luck before last Sunday’s game (please take a moment to image those three watching a game together—grooming each other’s odd facial hair while kicking around ideas for a Vitology-flavored Gatorade).

Coach Amonte Hiller is quickly becoming a celebrity in her own right: In October, she will be inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame for her performance as a player at Maryland, the Big Ten Network recently named her a Big Ten Coaching Icon and after last Sunday’s big win, she’s just one title shy of tying her former Maryland coach, Cindy Timchal, for the most NCAA championships.

She’s not just pushing her peers, she’s propelling the sport. In a recent column for the Chicago Tribune, David Haugh wrote that he does not “consider it a coincidence that the number of Illinois high schools offering girls lacrosse has increased from 21 to 41 since Northwestern won its first title.”

And it was no coincidence that Afternoon Shift was interested in learning more about the highly-decorated queen of lacrosse. Fresh off her team’s most recent title win, Coach Amonte Hiller joined Steve Edwards for an extended chat.

Unpacking Penn State fallout

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:09:00 -0600

College football is no stranger to scandal but the situation at Penn State University involving allegations related to the sexual abuse of minors has criminal implications.

Former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was charged on Nov. 5 with 40 counts related to the sexual abuse of minors.

Eight Forty-Eight discussed the evolving claims with regular sports contributor Cheryl Raye-Stout and espn.com senior writer Lester Munson.

Raye-Stout spoke with Penn State alums and current Chicago Bears players Anthony Adams and Robbie Gould about the allegations and about playing for coach Paterno.

“I think the biggest part is it made you become a better man,” Bears kicker Robbie Gould began. “Obviously being on time for things, making sure that you’re responsible for doing whatever homework or assignments or projects or helping your teammates out; being held accountable for things that you do, obviously is something that we all learned from him. Obviously we became better people and better athletes by attending Penn State and that’s why you go there,” Gould added.

Gould’s teammate Adams’ expressed shock by the details in the grand jury’s report.

“You can’t make sense out of this stuff. I mean, 23-page, you know, that report… it’s hard to read that,” Adams tried to explain.

Raye-Stout told Eight Forty-Eight's Alison Cuddy that players’ reactions changed throughout the week—at first, she said, Adams thought it was just “allegations and innuendos” but after he read the indictment, the allegations took on a new shape and he became quite distraught.

The Big Ten powerhouse continued to crumble throughout the week. Head coach Joe Paterno was fired Wednesday for failing to do more to stop Sandusky.

Munson reported that there were three investigations underway: One by Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Linda Kelly, who filed the criminal charges against Sandusky; a second by the Department of Education, which is led by Secretary Arne Duncan, who Munson said was “outraged” by what he had learned about Penn State and the coaching staff; and a third investigation by the University’s Board of Trustees.

The Trustees have been under considerable pressure from the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, who began the investigation more than two years ago while serving as the state’s attorney general.

Both Munson and Raye-Stout said that they had never seen anything like this in years of covering sports. In his 22 years reporting on scandals and legal issues in sports, Munson said there have been times when, as a journalist, there was some satisfaction and happiness in covering a scandal—but that this was no such an occasion and referred to the reports of the alleged abuse thus far as, “disgusting, repulsive and abhorrent.”

Unfortunately, Munson added, he was afraid there could be more abuse allegations to come.

As to whether the NCAA might pursue the matter, Munson said it has no jurisdiction. But, he expected that Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany would exercise his authority in some way. In a statement, Delany offered sympathy for the alleged victims and their families and added that there would be no comment or conclusions drawn until the grand jury and the university’s Board of Trustees’ Special Committee finished their respective investigations of the circumstances that gave rise to the grand jury report.

The elephant in the room, Raye-Stout explained, was the fact that college sports remained a multi-billion dollar industry which creates power and desire to cover up any malfeasance so sports can continue to profit.

Munson wrote a column Friday in response to the fallout wherein he suggested that for Penn State to recover, it should cancel football for the next two years and start over. He echoed Raye-Stout’s point and said that the money involved in college sports skews everything, adding that it distorts the balance between academics and sports and is the root cause for the many bizarre things that happen in college sports. Munson noted that his employer, ESPN, pays billions of dollars for college sports making the media giant a part of the problem as well.

As additional alleged victims come forward, they will be debriefed by Pennsylvania authorities.

“We must also watch,” Munson said, “as Sandusky prepares his defense—is he going to dig in and defend this or is he going to plead guilty and take his punishment and make a bargain with the prosecutors? All of this, we have, on the horizon,” Munson finished.

Cheryl Raye-Stout talks latest action from March Madness

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:48:00 -0500

This year’s NCAA tournament included a stop at the United Center. The Bulls hit the road while college basketball’s top teams vied for a place in the Final Four – or at least the Sweet Sixteen.

Meanwhile out in the desert, the boys of summer are battling for their spot on the roster. To find out more Eight Forty-Eight turned to Cheryl Raye-Stout.

Music Button: Nick Faber, "Hot Knife Blues", from the CD Dope On Plastic Vol. 8, (React Music)

Illinois' odds not so good in NCAA tournament

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:51:00 -0500

There's some statistical help in filling out those NCAA basketball tournament brackets. But University of Illinois fans might not like the odds.

The Illini are a No. 9 seed in the Southwest region. Later this week, they'll face off against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a No. 8 seed.

U of I computer science Professor Sheldon Jacobson says the Illini are favorites to win that game. That's based purely on statistics that 9 seeds have historically faired better than No. 8s in the second round of the tournament.

Jacobson put together a mathematical model that helps determine who will make it to the Final Four.

"If you look at the seeds there are very consistent patterns that have evolved over the past 26 tournaments. So you can actually determine how likely they are to occur," Jacobson said.

Jacobson said the best bet for the Final Four is two No. 1s, No. 2 and a No. 3.

As for Illinois, Jacobson said the odds aren't so good for the team to advance past the third round, much less win the championship.

"In fact it's so low that you'd be better off buying a lottery ticket than you'd be betting on Illinois," he said.

The Illini are the only team from Illinois to make the tournament. The team came close to winning the championship in 2005, but lost out to the University of North Carolina. That year, Illinois was a No. 1 seed.

Jacobson and two undergraduate students created a website for people to check the odds of their brackets.

Eamonn Brennan of ESPN gives his breakdown on March Madness

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:22:00 -0500

College basketball may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but apparently up to 1 in 5 office workers will participate in some kind of March Madness pool. Chicago participants won’t have many local options. Only Illinois made it to the dance, but if they look regionally there’s plenty of powerhouse teams to chose from.

So before you start filling out your own bracket, Eight Forty-Eight asked Eamonn Brennan of ESPN’s College Nation Sports blog to give his breakdown.

Big Ten may reconsider division names

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:20:00 -0600

The Chicago-based Big Ten conference may be reconsidering the names of its new divisions.

Earlier this week the Big Ten announced the creation of two divisions, Legends and Leaders. The divisions were necessary after the conference added a twelfth school, Nebraska, which will join the Big Ten in time for the football season next fall. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney said the names were meant to highlight the conference's rich athletic history.

But fans and critics alike have mocked the division names. And now Delaney says the conference may reconsider Legends and Leaders.

Delaney made his comments in a radio interview, saying the Big Ten offices have been flooded with letters asking the conference to change the names.

He said new division names could come after the first of the year.