Time to exhale: Marquette advances in the NCAA Tournament

Marquette fought off Kentucky in the final minutes to notch their first NCAA tournament victory in the post-Wade era, winning by a final score of 74-66. With the victory Marquette advances to play the Stanford Cardinal on Saturday in Anaheim.

Jerel McNeal hit for 20 points (8-15 shooting), and Lazar Hayward netted 16 points (7 -11 shooting). Dominic James added 15 points and three assists (and zero turnovers in 29 minutes). Marquette shot 44% for the game.

Marquette led by as many as 11 in the second half, but Wildcat Joe Crawford had the game of his life, hitting 35 points, keeping UK in the game longer than expected.

With just about five minutes remaining, the Wildcats cut the lead to just three at 56-53 when Dominic James delivered in the game's key sequence. Following an offensive rebound by Dan Fitzgerald, James drilled an open three-pointer with 4:23 remaining to boost the MU lead to 59-53. After a UK miss, James took advantage of Ramel Bradley's tentative defensive play with four fouls to drive past the UK guard for the layup, stretching the Marquette lead to 61-53 with 3:14 to play.

Wesley Matthews sealed the win by sinking eight consecutive free throws in the last 30 seconds of the game. Matthews finished with 13 points. Overall, MU was an impressive 23-29 from the charity stripe on the afternoon.

Note to teams playing at the Honda Center, the games are being played under "West Coast Rules" whereby intentional fouls don't exist. Twice in the last minute, UK purposely fouled Dwight Burke, the worst FT shooter on the court, far far away from the ball. Twice, the refs applied West Coast Rules and neglected to call an intentional. Oh, well.

Tipoff for the MU-Stanford game is TBD -- either 5pm or 8pm.

This day has been a long time coming, and I've been dreading it all season. Lose, and we're one and done once again. Win, and we've got the monkey off our backs. I hardly slept last night, but I woke up believing this was our day.

I admit, it was very odd seeing Marquette's name on a bracket line to the right. LET'S GO WARRIORS!

AP Wrap / Official Box

Marquette Press Conference:

NCAA to bloggers: Off to the Gulag

While even the most staid of corporate cultures have wholly endorsed the benefits, power and usefulness of new media, the bass ackwards NCAA refuses to see the light. Courtesy of CNET,

According to the Courier-Journal, staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning of a game between the University of Lousville and Oklahoma State, told that blogging "from an NCAA championship event 'is against NCAA policies (and) we're revoking the (press) credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.'"

But the NCAA was not content with simply stomping on the First Amendment. In legendary KGB fashion, they went on to threaten the University of Louisville with severe penalties --

Courier-Journal representatives were told by two members of the U of L athletic staff that if the school did not revoke Bennett's credential it would jeopardize the school's chances of hosting another NCAA baseball event

If this wasn't the NCAA, I'd find this story unbelievable. When in doubt, threaten the members of your own Politburo -- that appears to be the mantra from Comrade Myles Brand.

The NBA and MLB have seen the light. Consider that Dallas Mavericks opened a wiki to allow fans to chronicle every single game in real-time. MLB allows media partners to 'glog' on games in real time (and encourages registered fans to jump in as well). Heck, the NBA live blogs during the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, the San Antonio Express-News has a live blog during the NBA Finals -- btw, does anybody think David Stern will send his henchmen over to shut these folks down? Not a chance in hell.

Yet the NCAA refuses to enact a smart, enlightened policy that would actually increase interest in the championship events it is chartered to foster. That's pure insanity, especially given the undeniable benefit that new media vehicles provide in reaching a fast-growing audience even as traditional newspaper readership and network television viewership decline precipitously. In fact, during the first six months of 2006, newspaper circulation in the United States declined at the fastest rate in at least 15 years. That decline is rosy compared to statistics revealed by The Audit Bureau of Circulations several weeks ago which indicated that "daily circ fell 2.1% while Sunday tumbled 3.1%" despite "easing comparisons". Cooking the books doesn't even help the dinosaurs.

So, while new media readership expands at a nearly unprecedented rate, the NCAA battens down the hatches to protect a doomed patient on life support (even if the patient in this case is trying to evolve in order to survive). Brilliant!

Here is Rick Bozich's article on this mess.

Deadspin clobbers the mental midgets at the NCAA. Baseball America jumps in a well.

NCAA to texting: RIP

Perspectives on the looming ban are outlined here -- including a passionate Tom Crean.

"It's just another agenda-driven proposition that doesn't make any sense," Marquette coach Tom Crean said. "It's really an insult, I think, to everybody involved - coaches, families and recruits. If you choose not to answer your text, don't answer it."

Tell that to the mother of unsigned prep star Patrick Patterson -- who received "7,000 text messages, 4,000 over the (plan) max" in March!

That'll be $500, please.

NCAA to Address Impact of Technology on Recruiting

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again

The helplessness captured in these classic Roger Waters lyrics must reflect the frustration of the folks at the NCAA these days as they grapple with the impact of rapid technology adoption on recruiting. Today and tomorrow the NCAA is meeting to consider a proposal from Ivy League institutions that would ban the use of text messages by recruiters (read coaches).

The outcome of this week's debate is uncertain, but the NCAA recognizes that the recruiting game has changed due to the ever-accelerating pace of technology adoption. Over time the NCAA has gradually shortened recruiting windows, minimizing the amount of time coaches can watch prospects play or meet with them in person, largely to protect the interests of the student-athletes.

Technology provided a dandy way around this trend, primarily through text messaging.

Today coaches can text message recruits as much as they want - - there is no limit to this method of contact under current NCAA guidelines. And don't forget about blogs, social networking sites, stand-alone Web pages, and other electronic means of marketing a program to prospective recruits - - - most (all?) of which fall outside of the guidelines currently addressed in the 460-page NCAA rulebook.

With young people so eager to adopt new forms of technology, coaches that evolve quickly could have an advantage. Or not. Consider that the receiver pays for incoming text messages -- could this be considered an invasion of privacy, or at the very least inconsiderate if the recruiting target has limited financial means?

The 'simple' issue of using technology to recruit quickly becomes complicated when the discussion gets down to the brass tacks.

According to Cellular News, "more than 158 billion text messages were sent in 2006, representing a 95% increase over 2005 and more than 2.7 billion MMS messages sent in 2006, up from 1.1 billion in 2005."

Remarkable. And that's just text messages and MMS (multimedia messages). There are 55 million blogs out there too. And while MicroPersuasion reports that new bloggers 'flatlined' recently, the readership of those blogs continued to increase.

The challenge before the NCAA is great. Young people today are the primary drivers of end-user oriented technology like text messaging. For example, the University of Florida reported that 75% of their freshman class signed up for its 'Mobile Campus' offering, a cell phone messaging service the university offers to students, faculty, and staff.

Reigning-in technology is impossible, so the pressure is on the NCAA to adopt an enlightened policy that protects the interests of its prospective student-athletes while serving the needs of the institutions it represents. This will be an interesting space to watch.