Many things have changed at UConn since the Huskies won its first national championship in 1999. But what hasn’t change was its status as one of the premier programs in college basketball. That showed in the 2023 National Championship game in which UConn beat San Diego State to capture its fifth title in the past four years.

UConn entered the finals game firing on all cylinders and had a 16-point lead at one point in the first half. San Diego State managed to make a brief run to make it interesting but never seemed close to orchestrating a comeback. Their emotional win against the Florida Atlantic in the semis seemed to have taken its toll.

Junior center Adama Sanogo was the star of the show for the Huskies, scoring 17 points and getting 10 rebounds, five of which came on the offensive glass. Sanogo, who averaged 20.2 points and 9.8 rebounds in the first five games, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

What was especially impressive about UConn’s run was the dominance they exerted on their opponents. With a 76-59 win over the Aztecs on Monday night, the Huskies became just the fifth team in nearly four decades to win all of the six games with double digits.

“We knew we were the best team in the tournament going in, and we just had to play to our level,” said Huskies’ head coach Dan Hurley.

Hurley, who arrived at UConn five seasons ago now joined Jim Calhoun and Kevin Ollie as one of the three coaches to win the national title for the program. And considering the great job he has done so far, who is to say that he won’t add a few more to the trophy cabinet in the future?

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Michigan State men’s college basketball coach Tom Izzo has penned a new five-year deal with the team, the university announced on Thursday. Valued at $6.2 million per season, the agreement sees Izzo earn approximately an additional $2 million per year.

At 67 years of age, Izzo has coached Michigan State since the 1995-96 season, when he was promoted from assistant coach to head coach in replacement of the retiring Jud Heathcote. During this time, he led the Spartans to the 2000 National Championship as well as 24 straight NCAA tournaments, including eight Final Four appearances. In addition, he has won the Big Ten title on 10 occasions and six conference tournament championships.

“We greatly appreciate Coach Izzo’s commitment to our outstanding university and his competitive drive to keep Spartan basketball as a national powerhouse,” university president Samuel Stanley remarked following the signing of the deal. According to the university, the rollover contract will need to be approved by its board next month.

While Izzo’s tenure as the head coach got off to a slow start, he gradually strengthened the Spartans’ ranks until they emerged into a national powerhouse, appearing in regular Big Ten competitions.

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LSU and head coach Ed Orgeron will go their separate ways after the 2021 NCAA season wraps up. The school confirmed the news via an official press release made by athletic director Scott Woodward.

In the statement, Woodward said that LSU is “forever grateful to Coach O” for the contributions he made during his six seasons as the coach of the Tigers. He explained the decision by saying that the school believes it is “time for a new direction” after underwhelming the past two seasons.

“The search for LSU Football’s next championship head coach begins now,” Woodward added.

Ed Orgeron joined LSU as the defensive line coach in 2015 before being hired as interim head coach a year later after the school fired Les Miles. After leading the Tigers to a 6-2 record in his eight games at the helm, Orgeron had the “interim” tag removed.

In 2019, Orgeron led LSU to a perfect season, going 15-0 and delivering the Tigers their fourth national championship. But it turned out that this success was unsustainable as the team went 5-5 the year after and are 4-3 so far in 2021.

Still, Orgeron hopes to finish his stint with the team on a high note and is committed to seeing out the end of the season.

“We’re going to finish,” Orgeron said in a statement. “We’re not going to blink. I’m going to be right there with them. That’s the reason, Scott and I mutually agreed, that I’m going to finish with this team.”

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The 2020/21 college basketball season is going to take place despite the challenges caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The news was confirmed on Wednesday by NCAA Division I Council.

According to the Council’s decision, college basketball will return on November 25th, two weeks later than usual. Teams will not be able to held scrimmages or play exhibition games before that.

The unusual circumstances of this season will result in a smaller number of tournaments and cause teams to play fewer games. The minimum amount of games that teams must play in order to be NCAA tournament-eligible is 13 while the max is set on 27 games.

Reportedly, NCAA is currently considering staging eight tournaments in a bubble setting early in the college season. The organization would follow the NBA’s example, and games would be played at Disney World in Orlando.

The outlook of the NCAA men’s tournament is still unsettled, although the division’s leadership expressed hopes to have 68 teams play in 14 different locations. If this isn’t possible, this tournament could also be held in a bubble setting.

The 2019/20 NCAA Division I men’s basketball season concluded prematurely due to the COVID-19 outbreak and all postseason tournaments were canceled.

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One of the nation’s premier college conferences is preparing for a drastic change for its teams which will affect their schedules greatly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Big 10, which is the college sports home of some of the nation’s biggest athletic schools, like Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State, is planning to have its teams only play their in-conference schedules for fall sports. This is, of course, if college sports even take place in the fall, a possibility which is not 100% certain considering the current situation in the United States.

The sports which this change would impact include cross country, field hockey, soccer, volleyball, and most notably, football. This means that planned encounters such as Oregon-Ohio State and Washington-Michigan won’t take place if sports are allowed to go forward.

The reasoning for the conference’s decision is to reduce travel for schools and also allow for greater cooperation and flexibility, something which the conference values greatly given the fluid situation.

It’s clear that sports and their schedules will have to be adapted in the near future due to the pandemic, but the Big 10’s Wednesday announcement is unprecedented and will have far-reaching effects for programs both within the conference and outside of it.

The post Big 10 Introduces Conference-only Sports Schedules for this Fall appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The NCAA, the governing body of collegiate sports in the United States, was forced to cancel the spring sports season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting the globe.

Due to this decision, the organization has decided to grant an extra year of eligibility to all athletes playing a spring sport, making them eligible to play for one extra season.

Several sports were affected due to the NCAA’s decision to cut short their athletic year. The extra year of eligibility will be applied for student-athletes competing in the following spring sports: baseball, softball, tennis, golf, outdoor track and field, lacrosse, rowing, men’s volleyball, beach volleyball, and women’s water polo.

Despite the NCAA’s decision to be flexible with the student-athletes participating in spring sports, those who play winter sports such as men’s and women’s basketball will not be able to ask for a waiver for another year to play. This decision disappointed some winter athletes who were unable to take part in their sports’ postseason tournaments.

In any case, with this news, senior athletes will be able to return and compete for another year in their sport if they so choose, news that will certainly be welcome for the many student-athletes who saw what looked to be their final season of college sports canceled.

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The Baylor Bears took home the NCAA Women’s basketball crown after holding off Notre Dame on Sunday evening.

Baylor won by a final score of 82-81 despite squandering a 17-point lead in the second half. After being knotted up with just a few seconds to go, Chloe Jackson hit a tie-breaking layup with just 3.9 seconds left to give her team an 82-80 lead.

The Bears weren’t done suffering, however, as Notre Dame received two free throw shots after a foul was committed in the final ticks of the game.

However, Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale was only able to convert one of the two free throws, and Baylor hanged on to win its third NCAA women’s basketball title.

Baylor overcame adversity to win after blowing the aforementioned lead, as well as after losing their star forward, Lauren Cox, to a knee injury in the third quarter of a game.

Cox left the floor in a wheelchair after a scary-looking play that injured her knee and left her crumpled in a heap on the ground.

Despite losing their best player, Baylor showed grit and determination and won to put the cherry on top of a nearly perfect 37-1 season.

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After the tournament started with 68 teams, only 4 remain standing after a topsy-turvy weekend of basketball in the NCAA Men’s Tournament.

Only one top seed is left, and upsets turned what had been a relatively unsurprising tournament into one that provides fans with unexpected surprises in the tournament’s final stretch.

West Region

#3 seed Texas Tech is headed to Minneapolis for the Final Four after defeating #1 seed Gonzaga in the regional final, 75-69. They qualified for the first Final Four in the school’s history with wins over the Zags and Michigan in the Sweet 16

South Region

The only #1 seed that reached the Final Four comes from the South Region in the form of Virginia. The Cavaliers won a crazy regional final in overtime against 3rd-seeded Purdue and will be in the Final Four for the first time since 1984.

Midwest Region

The biggest surprise of the tournament so far came in the Midwest Region, where #5 seed Auburn defeated SEC rivals Kentucky to qualify for the Final Four. Despite being SEC Tournament champions, few expected Auburn to beat #1 seed North Carolina and then #2 Kentucky to qualify.

East Region

Finally, in the East, Michigan State won a matchup of titans against #1 overall seed Duke to advance to Minneapolis. The Spartans won a 68-67 squeaker against Zion Williamson and the Blue Devils to upset the country’s top team and advance.

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The NCAA Selection Committee revealed the bracket for the 2019 Men’s Basketball Tournament on Sunday evening.

This 68-team, single elimination tournament will decide the champion of Division 1 NCAA Men’s Basketball for the 2018-19 season.

The Final Four and the championship game will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota in April this season.

Duke is the overall #1 seed in the tournament and faces a bracket in the East Region that includes strong teams such as Michigan State and LSU. Their team, led by Zion Williamson, is the presumptive favorite to win the region and the tournament.

In the West region, Gonzaga is the #1 seed after a 30-5 season. They won’t have an easy go of it, however, with Texas Tech, Florida State, and Michigan standing in the way.

Virginia is the top dog in the South region after an excellent regular season. They won’t have an easy go of it, however, especially if they face off with #2 seed Tennessee. Many expected the Vols to be a #1 seed after a historical year.

Finally, in the Midwest, North Carolina reigns as the #1 seed. We could potentially see an epic showdown between them and #2 seed Kentucky in the Elite Eight if they progress as expected.

March Madness begins with play-in games on Tuesday, March 19.

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The Associated Press announced on Thursday that Oklahoma Sooners’ quarterback Kyler Murray is the recipient of their annual AP College Football Player of the Year Award. Murray becomes the second straight Sooners’ QB to win the award after current Baker Mayfield received the honors in 2017.

AP Player of the Year@TheKylerMurray

OU's second straight and fifth overall. No other school has had more than two.#OUDNA #BoomerSooner

https://t.co/iPfhyPCbjo pic.twitter.com/PKreIfSmMw

— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) December 6, 2018

Kyler Murray, who was previously named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year for 2018, received 39 first-place votes and ended with a total of 145 points in the voting. Alabama’s QB Tua Tagovailoa finished second with 13 first-place votes and 117 points overall, while the third place went to Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr. who received four first-place votes and had a total of 55 points. The interesting thing is that all three of them are also finalists for Heisman Trophy.

“It’s humbling and an honor to be named AP Player of the Year, to be mentioned in the same realm as a lot of great players, a lot of hall of famers,” – said Murray. “It’s a special deal for me and hopefully I can continue to make my family and teammates proud.“

After serving as a backup to Mayfield in 2017, Kyler Murray won the Oklahoma Sooners’ starting QB job for 2018 in the preseason. During his time as a starter, he completed 216 of his throws out of 306 attempted for 3,674 yards and 37 touchdowns. The 21-year-old also rushed for 853 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Despite the success in college football, Murray won’t play in NFL. Instead, he will play baseball professionally in 2019, after being selected ninth overall by the Oakland Athletics in 2018 MLB Draft.

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Many things have changed at UConn since the Huskies won its first national championship in 1999. But what hasn’t change was its status as one of the premier programs in college basketball. That showed in the 2023 National Championship game in which UConn beat San Diego State to capture its fifth title in the past four years.

UConn entered the finals game firing on all cylinders and had a 16-point lead at one point in the first half. San Diego State managed to make a brief run to make it interesting but never seemed close to orchestrating a comeback. Their emotional win against the Florida Atlantic in the semis seemed to have taken its toll.

Junior center Adama Sanogo was the star of the show for the Huskies, scoring 17 points and getting 10 rebounds, five of which came on the offensive glass. Sanogo, who averaged 20.2 points and 9.8 rebounds in the first five games, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

What was especially impressive about UConn’s run was the dominance they exerted on their opponents. With a 76-59 win over the Aztecs on Monday night, the Huskies became just the fifth team in nearly four decades to win all of the six games with double digits.

“We knew we were the best team in the tournament going in, and we just had to play to our level,” said Huskies’ head coach Dan Hurley.

Hurley, who arrived at UConn five seasons ago now joined Jim Calhoun and Kevin Ollie as one of the three coaches to win the national title for the program. And considering the great job he has done so far, who is to say that he won’t add a few more to the trophy cabinet in the future?

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Michigan State men’s college basketball coach Tom Izzo has penned a new five-year deal with the team, the university announced on Thursday. Valued at $6.2 million per season, the agreement sees Izzo earn approximately an additional $2 million per year.

At 67 years of age, Izzo has coached Michigan State since the 1995-96 season, when he was promoted from assistant coach to head coach in replacement of the retiring Jud Heathcote. During this time, he led the Spartans to the 2000 National Championship as well as 24 straight NCAA tournaments, including eight Final Four appearances. In addition, he has won the Big Ten title on 10 occasions and six conference tournament championships.

“We greatly appreciate Coach Izzo’s commitment to our outstanding university and his competitive drive to keep Spartan basketball as a national powerhouse,” university president Samuel Stanley remarked following the signing of the deal. According to the university, the rollover contract will need to be approved by its board next month.

While Izzo’s tenure as the head coach got off to a slow start, he gradually strengthened the Spartans’ ranks until they emerged into a national powerhouse, appearing in regular Big Ten competitions.

The post Michigan State Basketball Coach Tom Izzo Signs New 5-Year Deal appeared first on SportzBonanza.

LSU and head coach Ed Orgeron will go their separate ways after the 2021 NCAA season wraps up. The school confirmed the news via an official press release made by athletic director Scott Woodward.

In the statement, Woodward said that LSU is “forever grateful to Coach O” for the contributions he made during his six seasons as the coach of the Tigers. He explained the decision by saying that the school believes it is “time for a new direction” after underwhelming the past two seasons.

“The search for LSU Football’s next championship head coach begins now,” Woodward added.

Ed Orgeron joined LSU as the defensive line coach in 2015 before being hired as interim head coach a year later after the school fired Les Miles. After leading the Tigers to a 6-2 record in his eight games at the helm, Orgeron had the “interim” tag removed.

In 2019, Orgeron led LSU to a perfect season, going 15-0 and delivering the Tigers their fourth national championship. But it turned out that this success was unsustainable as the team went 5-5 the year after and are 4-3 so far in 2021.

Still, Orgeron hopes to finish his stint with the team on a high note and is committed to seeing out the end of the season.

“We’re going to finish,” Orgeron said in a statement. “We’re not going to blink. I’m going to be right there with them. That’s the reason, Scott and I mutually agreed, that I’m going to finish with this team.”

The post Head Coach Ed Orgeron Leaving LSU after 2021 NCAA Season appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The 2020/21 college basketball season is going to take place despite the challenges caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The news was confirmed on Wednesday by NCAA Division I Council.

According to the Council’s decision, college basketball will return on November 25th, two weeks later than usual. Teams will not be able to held scrimmages or play exhibition games before that.

The unusual circumstances of this season will result in a smaller number of tournaments and cause teams to play fewer games. The minimum amount of games that teams must play in order to be NCAA tournament-eligible is 13 while the max is set on 27 games.

Reportedly, NCAA is currently considering staging eight tournaments in a bubble setting early in the college season. The organization would follow the NBA’s example, and games would be played at Disney World in Orlando.

The outlook of the NCAA men’s tournament is still unsettled, although the division’s leadership expressed hopes to have 68 teams play in 14 different locations. If this isn’t possible, this tournament could also be held in a bubble setting.

The 2019/20 NCAA Division I men’s basketball season concluded prematurely due to the COVID-19 outbreak and all postseason tournaments were canceled.

The post NCAA Announced that College Basketball is Returning in November appeared first on SportzBonanza.

One of the nation’s premier college conferences is preparing for a drastic change for its teams which will affect their schedules greatly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Big 10, which is the college sports home of some of the nation’s biggest athletic schools, like Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State, is planning to have its teams only play their in-conference schedules for fall sports. This is, of course, if college sports even take place in the fall, a possibility which is not 100% certain considering the current situation in the United States.

The sports which this change would impact include cross country, field hockey, soccer, volleyball, and most notably, football. This means that planned encounters such as Oregon-Ohio State and Washington-Michigan won’t take place if sports are allowed to go forward.

The reasoning for the conference’s decision is to reduce travel for schools and also allow for greater cooperation and flexibility, something which the conference values greatly given the fluid situation.

It’s clear that sports and their schedules will have to be adapted in the near future due to the pandemic, but the Big 10’s Wednesday announcement is unprecedented and will have far-reaching effects for programs both within the conference and outside of it.

The post Big 10 Introduces Conference-only Sports Schedules for this Fall appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The NCAA, the governing body of collegiate sports in the United States, was forced to cancel the spring sports season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting the globe.

Due to this decision, the organization has decided to grant an extra year of eligibility to all athletes playing a spring sport, making them eligible to play for one extra season.

Several sports were affected due to the NCAA’s decision to cut short their athletic year. The extra year of eligibility will be applied for student-athletes competing in the following spring sports: baseball, softball, tennis, golf, outdoor track and field, lacrosse, rowing, men’s volleyball, beach volleyball, and women’s water polo.

Despite the NCAA’s decision to be flexible with the student-athletes participating in spring sports, those who play winter sports such as men’s and women’s basketball will not be able to ask for a waiver for another year to play. This decision disappointed some winter athletes who were unable to take part in their sports’ postseason tournaments.

In any case, with this news, senior athletes will be able to return and compete for another year in their sport if they so choose, news that will certainly be welcome for the many student-athletes who saw what looked to be their final season of college sports canceled.

The post NCAA to Grant Extra Year of Eligibility to Student-Athletes Playing Spring Sports appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The Baylor Bears took home the NCAA Women’s basketball crown after holding off Notre Dame on Sunday evening.

Baylor won by a final score of 82-81 despite squandering a 17-point lead in the second half. After being knotted up with just a few seconds to go, Chloe Jackson hit a tie-breaking layup with just 3.9 seconds left to give her team an 82-80 lead.

The Bears weren’t done suffering, however, as Notre Dame received two free throw shots after a foul was committed in the final ticks of the game.

However, Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale was only able to convert one of the two free throws, and Baylor hanged on to win its third NCAA women’s basketball title.

Baylor overcame adversity to win after blowing the aforementioned lead, as well as after losing their star forward, Lauren Cox, to a knee injury in the third quarter of a game.

Cox left the floor in a wheelchair after a scary-looking play that injured her knee and left her crumpled in a heap on the ground.

Despite losing their best player, Baylor showed grit and determination and won to put the cherry on top of a nearly perfect 37-1 season.

The post Baylor Defeats Notre Dame to Win NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship appeared first on SportzBonanza.

After the tournament started with 68 teams, only 4 remain standing after a topsy-turvy weekend of basketball in the NCAA Men’s Tournament.

Only one top seed is left, and upsets turned what had been a relatively unsurprising tournament into one that provides fans with unexpected surprises in the tournament’s final stretch.

West Region

#3 seed Texas Tech is headed to Minneapolis for the Final Four after defeating #1 seed Gonzaga in the regional final, 75-69. They qualified for the first Final Four in the school’s history with wins over the Zags and Michigan in the Sweet 16

South Region

The only #1 seed that reached the Final Four comes from the South Region in the form of Virginia. The Cavaliers won a crazy regional final in overtime against 3rd-seeded Purdue and will be in the Final Four for the first time since 1984.

Midwest Region

The biggest surprise of the tournament so far came in the Midwest Region, where #5 seed Auburn defeated SEC rivals Kentucky to qualify for the Final Four. Despite being SEC Tournament champions, few expected Auburn to beat #1 seed North Carolina and then #2 Kentucky to qualify.

East Region

Finally, in the East, Michigan State won a matchup of titans against #1 overall seed Duke to advance to Minneapolis. The Spartans won a 68-67 squeaker against Zion Williamson and the Blue Devils to upset the country’s top team and advance.

The post NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four Set appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The NCAA Selection Committee revealed the bracket for the 2019 Men’s Basketball Tournament on Sunday evening.

This 68-team, single elimination tournament will decide the champion of Division 1 NCAA Men’s Basketball for the 2018-19 season.

The Final Four and the championship game will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota in April this season.

Duke is the overall #1 seed in the tournament and faces a bracket in the East Region that includes strong teams such as Michigan State and LSU. Their team, led by Zion Williamson, is the presumptive favorite to win the region and the tournament.

In the West region, Gonzaga is the #1 seed after a 30-5 season. They won’t have an easy go of it, however, with Texas Tech, Florida State, and Michigan standing in the way.

Virginia is the top dog in the South region after an excellent regular season. They won’t have an easy go of it, however, especially if they face off with #2 seed Tennessee. Many expected the Vols to be a #1 seed after a historical year.

Finally, in the Midwest, North Carolina reigns as the #1 seed. We could potentially see an epic showdown between them and #2 seed Kentucky in the Elite Eight if they progress as expected.

March Madness begins with play-in games on Tuesday, March 19.

The post NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Bracket Revealed appeared first on SportzBonanza.

The Associated Press announced on Thursday that Oklahoma Sooners’ quarterback Kyler Murray is the recipient of their annual AP College Football Player of the Year Award. Murray becomes the second straight Sooners’ QB to win the award after current Baker Mayfield received the honors in 2017.

AP Player of the Year@TheKylerMurray

OU's second straight and fifth overall. No other school has had more than two.#OUDNA #BoomerSooner

https://t.co/iPfhyPCbjo pic.twitter.com/PKreIfSmMw

— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) December 6, 2018

Kyler Murray, who was previously named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year for 2018, received 39 first-place votes and ended with a total of 145 points in the voting. Alabama’s QB Tua Tagovailoa finished second with 13 first-place votes and 117 points overall, while the third place went to Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr. who received four first-place votes and had a total of 55 points. The interesting thing is that all three of them are also finalists for Heisman Trophy.

“It’s humbling and an honor to be named AP Player of the Year, to be mentioned in the same realm as a lot of great players, a lot of hall of famers,” – said Murray. “It’s a special deal for me and hopefully I can continue to make my family and teammates proud.“

After serving as a backup to Mayfield in 2017, Kyler Murray won the Oklahoma Sooners’ starting QB job for 2018 in the preseason. During his time as a starter, he completed 216 of his throws out of 306 attempted for 3,674 yards and 37 touchdowns. The 21-year-old also rushed for 853 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Despite the success in college football, Murray won’t play in NFL. Instead, he will play baseball professionally in 2019, after being selected ninth overall by the Oakland Athletics in 2018 MLB Draft.

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