Archives › Nick Fasulo
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Ohio State’s mentality is ‘we now have to play our best basketball’
Mar 12, 2012, 10:43 AM EDT
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INDIANAPOLIS – Coming in to the season, the Ohio State Buckeyes were a clear-cut national championship contender. Then came a minor injury to Jared Sullinger’s foot. Then a road loss to Indiana on New Year’s Eve. Then four more conference losses that removed the Buckeyes from the top five and slowly from all that title…
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INDIANAPOLIS – Exacting revenge on a loss from exactly one week ago, the No. 8 Michigan State Spartans defeated the No. 7 Ohio State Buckeyes, 68-64, to win the Big Ten Championship. Led by Brandon Wood’s 21-points, the Spartans prevailed in a hotly contested game that went back-and-forth for 30 minutes, and then shifted in…
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Ohio State clobbers Michigan, is peaking at the right time
Mar 10, 2012, 6:17 PM EDT
INDIANAPOLIS – Michigan had Trey Burke. Ohio State had Jared Sullinger. The Buckeyes had Aaron Craft, but the Wolverines had no answer inside. In a game that was ostensibly decided early in the first-half, No. 7 Ohio State advanced to their fourth consecutive Big Ten Championship game with a convincing 77-55 victory over their hated…
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INDIANAPOLIS – After a sluggish start that sent Tom Izzo into a tizzy, the No. 8 Michigan State Spartans recovered nicely, earning a 65-52 victory over the No. 14 Wisconsin Badgers. Spotting the Badgers nine points in the first two minutes of the game, the Spartans went on a 20-4 run over a seven minute…
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INDIANAPOLIS – No. 7 Ohio State played to its advantages and got a season-high 30 points from Jared Sullinger in a convincing 88-71 victory over Purdue. The Buckeyes scored 48 points in the paint and 13 points off of offensive rebounds due in large part to Sullinger’s work. Sullinger was efficient, going 12-17 from the…
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INDIANAPOLIS – For better or worse, Trey Burke plays as if he embraces being the goat or the star after any of his team’s games. Finishing with a game-high 30-points, the freshman phenom led the No. 10 Michigan Wolverines to a come-from-behind 73-69 overtime victory against the upset-minded Minnesota Golden Gophers. As the team’s primary…
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INDIANAPOLIS – Needing a victory to stay in contention for a protected four-seed in the NCAA Tournament, Wisconsin looked to its bench for help. What they found was a four-year reserve player who caught fire from beyond the arc, as Rob Wilson dropped a career high 30-points on 11-16 shooting, including seven three pointers, to help…
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INDIANAPOLIS – Following today’s victory over Iowa, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo took time to sound off on the firing of Illinois coach Bruce Weber. “I’m sick about it,” Izzo said. “This morning my wife and I shed a tear. Half of it was for Bruce, the other half was for my profession.” During his…
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INDIANAPOLIS – Playing a defensively deficient Iowa Hawkeyes team, the No 8 Michigan State Spartans cruised to an 92-75 victory in their Big Ten quarterfinal match-up. Posting 55 first-half points, the most against any conference team this season, the Spartans showed that this league can have provide high scoring games that are played at an…
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Bruce Weber’s firing likely to generate a lot of unlikely replacement candidates
Mar 9, 2012, 12:30 PM EDT
INDIANAPOLIS – What started as speculation this morning has turned into confirmed reports. Bruce Weber, coach of the Illinois Fighting Illini for the past nine seasons, has been fired. That shouldn’t surprise you, and neither should the impending rumors and unrealistic replacements that get Illinois fans excited and non-Illinois fans laughing. Already names like Shaka…
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Breaking the bubble divide between big schools, mid-majors
Mar 9, 2012, 12:45 AM EDT
As Selection Sunday looms the ongoing discussion will get louder: Is bubble team X more deserving of an NCAA Tournament bid than bubble team Y? The blind résumé game is a bit played, but when it involves a mid-major and a member of a BCS-conference, the argument can get contentious (and fun to observe for some).…
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Buford burns Michigan St., shows he’s essential to Ohio State’s hopes
Mar 4, 2012, 7:49 PM EDT
William Buford is a really important player for Ohio State. You probably already knew that, but given what we saw today and how this team has sometimes been lost without his production over the past two seasons, it’s something that can not be emphasized enough heading into conference and tournament play. Today, Buford finished with…
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What a start to Fred Hoiberg’s coaching career. While most of the college basketball world was fixated on North Carolina – Duke, the Cyclones clawed their way back from an 11-point second half deficit to down the puzzling ninth-ranked Baylor Bears in a 80-72 shootout, weathering a career night from the Bears Pierre Jackson who…
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Louisville makes changes, results stay the same in loss to Syracuse
Mar 3, 2012, 7:11 PM EDT
If you don’t score, you can’t press. If you miss shots, you leave yourself vulnerable for fast break points at the other end. Today, the No. 2 Syracuse Orange kept the No. 19 Louisville Cardinals all out of sorts, in a low-scoring 58-49 win that saw Rick Pitino’s team unable to ever really play at a…
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When Big East play got underway I was lucky enough to see, in-person, the then undefeated Syracuse Orange play consecutive games. The Orange ran over Providence on a Wednesday, then defeated Marquette three days later in the Carrier Dome. At the top of my pad of paper I carried with me, I kept a running…
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I can see it now: Americans who treat March Madness like the Olympics scratching their heads and banging their remotes. “That Butler team has gotta be somewhere on my television dial.” /fumbles around the living room “Marge, do we get….um…truTV? I can’t find Butler. Where is Butler?” After serving as the National Championship runners-up for…
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Hardaway Jr., Burke are great, but Jordan Morgan is Michigan’s X-factor
Mar 1, 2012, 10:18 PM EDT
Tim Hardaway Jr. finished with 25 points. Trey Burke went 7-13 from the floor. Zach Novak was a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line. Neither of these three players were the Wolverines most important player tonight. While his impact will not be strongly reflected in the box score it’s Michigan’s starting big-man, Jordan Morgan,…
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End of Northwestern’s loss to Ohio St. a lot like John Shurna’s career
Mar 1, 2012, 12:11 AM EDT
The final 3.1 seconds of John Shurna’s career at Welsh-Ryan Arena was a freakishly perfect representation of his four years spent at Northwestern. A program that has never been to the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats have been knocking on the door – a fringe bubble team – for two, maybe even three if you’re generous,…
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If you were reluctant to include South Florida in your field of 68 heading into tonight, an omission now just makes you look silly. Winners of five of their last six – with the only “L” on the road to Syracuse – the Bulls confidence level continues to rise after an impressive 58-52 victory over…
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Let’s play a modified version of blind resume for a moment. Suppose you’re a No. 4 or No. 5 caliber NCAA Tournament team. You’re Wichita State, an upstart mid-major that’s playing their best basketball at the right time. You’re elated that you’ve shot up the dozens of bracketology boards. You’re a real team! A Regional…
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The investigative sports journalist whose recent work has gotten a national championship winning football coach fired and coaxed a former NFL agent to tell the world he paid a number of college football players is back at it again. Twitter and message boards are abuzz over reports that Sports Illustrated’s George Dohrmann will publish a…
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As season comes to close, nothing certain for Ivy favorites Harvard
Feb 28, 2012, 11:00 AM EDT
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. – Coming into the season, the general consensus was that the Ivy League was Harvard’s to lose. With their entire roster returning from a year ago, the Crimson were in the enviable position of boasting continuity and talent – plus a little nudge from Linsanity – to break down the door and earn…
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Iona flaunts offense, proves it’s tournament caliber in BracketBusters win over Nevada
Feb 18, 2012, 7:49 PM EDT
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – As low-scoring affairs proliferate around the country, today’s BracketBusters game between Nevada and Iona gave us something far different. Despite an inconclusive at-large impact, these two offensive-minded teams provided a nice respite from the many slow-paced and low efficiency games we’ve become accustomed to as the Gaels prevailed with a 90-84…
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Determining the coach of the year depends on how you interpret the award
Feb 16, 2012, 12:30 PM EDT
Normally, I couldn’t care less about any national coach of the year award. It’s an honor that usually goes to the guy whose team overachieved, and that team is usually fairly easy to identify. Last season San Diego State’s Steve Fischer took home the Naismith version of the award. To approach it like a TV…
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Following Missouri’s come from behind victory against Kansas Saturday night, one of the most indelible images was of a pair of Tiger players giving students the universal sign for “Do Not Pass Go”. They weren’t telling them to stop celebrating, but rather encourage them not to storm the court. Because as exhilarating as that may be, it would…
