The Pit was inundated with Carolina blue on Monday. The fifth-seeded North Carolina women’s basketball defeated fourth-seeded Kentucky 86-74 in the second round of the women’s NCAA tournament.
The North Carolina women’s basketball team was just plain bigger than Fresno State. And the basket, at least for the Bulldogs, seemed as small as a golf hole. The 12th-seeded Fresno State Bulldogs took 50 3-pointers, missing 36, and their best player Jaleesa Ross made just four of the 20 3-pointers she launched.
The Kentucky women’s basketball team heard about Hampton through the college basketball grapevine.
Two words for the UNM men’s basketball team: Roll tide. The fourth-seeded Lobos will face top-seeded Alabama at its home tonight in the second round of the National Invitational Tournament.
LAS VEGAS — There’s a reason Utah’s Michelle Plouffe was the Mountain West Conference women’s Freshman of the Year. After hitting a similar, end-of-times buzzer-beater against BYU in the semifinals, Plouffe hit a two-point jumper with 24 seconds left in overtime to lift the fifth-seeded Utah women’s basketball team over second-seeded TCU 52-47 in the MWC tournament championship.
LAS VEGAS — San Diego State reminded basketball fans that the game is a team sport — not a one-man show, no matter how bedazzling. Like he has all season, BYU’s Jimmer Fredette put up another scintillating individual performance — 30 points — in Saturday’s Mountain West Conference tournament championship, but the second-seeded Aztecs exuded collective confidence, with three players in double figures.
LAS VEGAS — It was a Jiimmer jamboree. For four straight contests, the UNM men’s basketball team walked away with wins against BYU.
LAS VEGAS – It was the best show Vegas had to offer, unfortunately for the UNM men’s basketball team, its star performer missed the second act.
LAS VEGAS — It was a widely held opinion that the UNM women’s basketball team had no shot at the Mountain West Conference tournament. And on Friday, the shooting-in-the-dark Lobos literally didn’t.
LAS VEGAS — Luck be the UNM women’s basketball team tonight. Already boasting two wins, the Lobos look to extend their unlikely Mountain West Conference tournament run in today’s semifinals where they’ll face second-seeded TCU at the Thomas & Mack Center.
LAS VEGAS — Sure it was hyperbole when guard Kendall Williams said he couldn’t understate the importance of Thursday’s first-round tournament game against fourth-seeded Colorado State. A bit of an overstatement, the freshman guard compared the Mountain West Conference tournament game to “war.” What couldn’t be embellished, though, was his importance to the UNM men’s basketball team in its 67-61 win over the Rams at the Thomas & Mack Center on Thursday.
LAS VEGAS — Once again, the UNM men’s basketball team will knock on BYU’s door. The fifth-seeded Lobos, behind forward Drew Gordon’s 13th double-double, knocked fourth-seeded Colorado State Rams out of the Mountain West Conference tournament 67-61 in a seesaw affair at the Thomas & Mack Center that saw five second-half ties and lead changes.
LAS VEGAS — Wyoming, pack the bags and go home; TCU, stay another day. The ninth-seeded Horned Frogs defeated eighth-seeded Wyoming 70-61 Tuesday to advance to face top-seeded BYU in the Mountain West Conference tournament quarterfinals.
LAS VEGAS — War is how the UNM men’s basketball team is describing it, but for those tired of the oft-used comparison, it’s more appropriately a game of Risk. On the line: an appearance in the Mountain West Conference tournament quarterfinals, and a likely date with No.
LAS VEGAS — Call them the flavor of the month. Forward Porche Torrance had two key blocks on Wyoming’s Aubrey Vandiver in the final 1:59, and the seventh-seeded Lobo women’s basketball team leaned on stingy, physical defense to shut down third-seeded Wyoming 67-61 Wednesday, setting up an improbable semifinals matchup against second-seeded TCU.
LAS VEGAS — The Thomas & Mack Center crowd couldn’t help the home team Tuesday. Fifth-seeded Utah took out the eighth-seeded UNLV women’s basketball team 55-44 in the first round of the Mountain West Conference tournament. First-year head coach Anthony Levrets earned his first MWC tournament victory, after replacing former head coach Elaine Elliott who took a leave of absence before the season started.
LAS VEGAS — Of all things, it was a 1981 hit song that inspired the Air Force women’s team to earn its second-ever Mountain West Conference tournament win. Shaking up the bracket, the ninth-seeded Falcons defeated fourth-seeded Colorado State 66-63 in the first game of the women’s MWC tournament on Tuesday.
LAS VEGAS — Might it be madness that UNM women’s basketball team’s head coach Don Flanagan loves the month of March? Maybe, but in getting past sixth-seeded San Diego State 65-57 in the first round of the Mountain West Conference tournament, the Lobos found new life Tuesday — but they might have expended too much energy to secure that second chance. To pull off the victory, Flanagan said he didn’t want key players to log a lot of minutes.
LAS VEGAS — The Lobos’ seed was unfamiliar, but the outcome was familiar. The seventh-seeded UNM women’s basketball — unfazed by its lowest seed since the Mountain West Conference’s inception — took its first step toward winning a sixth tournament championship with a 65-57 win over sixth-seeded San Diego State on Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
This late-season feel, to be sure, is foreign to the UNM women’s basketball team.
Solutions by The State News
