There wasn’t much madness at sportsbooks until No. 14 seed Oakland, a 13½-point underdog, eliminated Kentucky on Thursday behind 10 3-pointers by Jack Gohlke.
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After starting the day 7-1 ATS, underdogs finished 9-7 ATS with four outright wins by Minnesota, Murray State, Baylor and Florida, which eliminated UNR in a 70-61 win.
Westgate sports book manager Ed Salmons and Boyd Gaming sports book director Bob Scucci reported taking sharp action on Kansas State, a 5½-point underdog to Kentucky after the line climbed as high as 6½.
It’s hard to figure any of the other 15 teams still breathing can match UNR for its unity and resolve, amazing when you consider the Wolf Pack offer a starting lineup of five transfers.
I have colleagues that cannot write about Steve Alford, now the coach at UCLA, formerly the coach at New Mexico, without mentioning that he likes to wear a basketball net as a fashion accessory. But he wasn’t the first.
There wasn’t enough twine in California and all neighboring states to save Steve Alford during his first news conference for the college basketball coaching job no one can ever succeed at to the level it once knew.
All it took was one game to stain millions of brackets. Aaron Craft’s potential winning layup rolled off the rim as the buzzer sounded and Ohio State went down. And that was just the beginning.
It was not predetermined, and this is unlikely to be a popular pick. Even since the return of senior forward Ryan Kelly from a foot injury, Duke has been far from dominant. So how did it come to this?
If anything, the shove exposed the urgency that has attached itself to Mike Montgomery’s legacy. Perhaps it was for motivation’s sake, of driving his best player to greater heights. Perhaps it came from that cavernous place that said the moment was big, the game was bigger, and not many of either are left in his coaching career.