Arkansas, Tulsa and Oregon will join OU in the four-team field in Norman.
NORMAN, Okla. - The Oklahoma softball team (43-12) will be making its 15th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament this Friday as the Sooners were chosen as a No. 10 overall seed and will host a regional in Norman. Arkansas, Tulsa and Oregon will join Oklahoma in the four-team field at the OU Softball Complex this weekend.
The regional (May 16-18) is double-elimination and runs through Sunday at the OU Softball Complex. The winner of the Norman Regional will match up with the winner of the Hempstead Regional between No. 7 Arizona, Hofstra, Long Island and Canisius in the Super Regionals (May 23-25).
“We are so excited for our team and for our fans that we have the opportunity to play in front of our home fans,” head coach Patty Gasso said. “Our team worked hard all year to earn and I’m so proud of them for that. Also, we played every team in our four-team regional earlier this season so we are familiar with them.”
For the second straight year Oklahoma was selected as one of the top 16 seeds in the country. The NCAA began the new format of seeding 16 different teams and placing them at a different regional three years ago.
The Sooners are one of two Big 12 teams that were seeded nationally as Texas A&M was selected as a No. 5 national seed. Within the Norman Regional, Oklahoma is the top seed followed by Arkansas, Tulsa and Oregon rounding out the field as the fourth overall seed.
Oklahoma is slated to play Oregon in opening round action on at 7:30 p.m. (CST) on Friday, May 16. Arkansas will take on Tulsa in its opening game of the tournament at 5 p.m. (CST) on Friday.

soonersports.com

By Brett Hait, bhait@nashvillecitypaper.com
TAMPA, Fla. – The Vanderbilt basketball team arrived in this warm and breezy coastal city Wednesday night ostensibly to win a game on Friday.
Look closer, though, and it becomes clear the Commodores are carrying a banner of deeper significance.
History can be written this month, the kind of history that causes record books to be re-printed and teams to forever be etched into the memories and consciousness of its fans.
This is only the second Commodore to make back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. They are situated at the highest seed, No. 4, the school has received in 15 years.
This is also Vanderbilt’s third tournament appearance in five years. Peruse the sometimes-sparse school record book, and it becomes quickly apparent that such a streak is noteworthy.
In nearly every way, the golden age of Commodore basketball might be in full bloom.
“I think this may very well be the best five-year stretch in Vanderbilt history by the time this season is over,” said former Commodore guard Barry Booker, now a college basketball TV analyst.
Kevin Stallings never had a doubt he could win at Vanderbilt when he accepted the school’s head-coaching position in 1999.
In 30 seasons as a player and coach, his teams have made 25 tournament appearances, including 16 NCAA berths and three Final Fours.
He had been a successful head coach at Illinois State and had been involved in plenty of victories as an assistant at Kansas and Purdue. The same formula, he figured, would bear fruit in Nashville.
In Stallings’ first four seasons, the Commodores failed to make a single NCAA Tournament appearance. The nadir came with an 11-18 record during the 2002-03 season.
Suddenly, a puzzled Stallings wondered how he had gone from living a charmed life at Illinois State, Kansas and Purdue to becoming a whipping boy of many Vanderbilt fans.

nashvillecitypaper.com

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telecom.paper.nl

“All of our work and training is pointed toward the National Championships,” Bono said. “This is why we schedule like we do. We try to qualify as many guys as we can and then try to make some noise at Nationals. We have several guys who get to that All-America level. It is going to take total concentration and focus, but we are certainly capable. We are looking forward to getting on the mat and testing the best wrestlers in the nation.”

gomocs.com

It’s just after 1 a.m. CDT as I’m writing this. Sunrise will officially begin day one of a two-day period that I look forward to every year as a sports fan. While every other round in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament can be just as exciting, it’s the first round that always captivates and amazes us.
It is a round that can either bust a lot of our brackets or put us ahead of whatever pool we may be entering (at least until the second round). It is a round that has us flipping channels or surfing through the web to catch final scores of games we didn’t get to see, particularly afternoon games.
Personally, I won’t have to worry about missing daytime scores tomorrow. I’m on spring break, so this will be the first time ever I am able to watch the first games of the tournament from the comforts of my own home—instead of going to CBS Sportsline during some business or English class.
What do we do while we are watching this? We might be pulling our hair out or calling our friends to whine and complain because our brackets are off to a terrible start. Inversely, we could be calling our friends just to rub in their faces that we’ve gotten almost every game right so far.
However, there is one thing that no sports fan can deny happens during this or any other round during the tournament: Drama.
We eagerly await the unthinkable upsets that will occur over these first couple of days.
The first round has seen its share of upsets over the years. It’s already been 10 years since Bryce Drew lifted Valparaiso to a win at the buzzer against Ole Miss. More recently, who can remember 14 seeds Bucknell and Northwestern State upsetting first-round foes Kansas and Iowa, respectively?

bleacherreport.com

It’s time now to enter your selection in the 2008 TriCitiesSports.com March Madness contest. There are a number of way to enter.
1. BY FAX or BY MAIL - Download the printable .pdf file below or any other bracket file/picture, complete and either FAX [423-245-3203] or MAIL [153 Walton Court - Kingsport, TN 37663].
2. BY E-MAIL as follows:
Note: Contestants will receive one point for each correct pick. The tiebreaker will be as follows:
First Tiebreaker, National Champion.
Second Tiebreaker: Teams to Championship game.
Third Tiebreaker: Teams to Final Four
If still tied, Teams to Final Eight.
If submitting via written e-mail, your picks would look something like this:

tricitiessports.com

If you happen to be a Michigan State fan who bought tickets months ago with the idea of watching your beloved Spartans in Detroit, and now you can’t believe you whipped out all that cash to watch somebody else’s teams … then the NCAA is so, so sorry, but please remember that this tournament isn’t about money, anyway. It’s about academics, of course.
This brings us to the fine group of scholar-athletes who might visit Ford Field next week to further their education and, in the words of William Butler Yeats, “dunk on each other’s butts.”
You still can see some great hoops at Ford Field.
Then again, you might see Wisconsin-Georgetown.
Now, we should point out here that Wisconsin and Georgetown are very good basketball teams. This is part of the problem: They are very good because they stop other teams from doing fun things.
Wisconsin leads the nation in scoring defense. Georgetown leads the nation in field-goal percentage defense.
Wisconsin’s opponents score 54 points a game, and Georgetown’s opponents average 58 — and those opponents are usually trying to speed up the pace. If the Badgers and Hoyas face each other, nobody will be trying to run.
This would continue Wisconsin’s long, storied history of ugly tournament games. It doesn’t matter who coaches Wisconsin — Dick Bennett or Bo Ryan or Barry Alvarez.
Why is this? My theory is that people in Wisconsin don’t care if you think their basketball team plays an ugly style, because it’s their team. They feel the same way about the football team, the only top-25 squad in the country that prides itself on chubby ballcarriers.
After all, did you sit in the cold for all those years cheering for 2-9 football teams? Did you crowd into UW Fieldhouse to watch the Badgers get crushed by Indiana every year? No? Then stop whining.
Besides, the state’s two chief exports are cheese and beer — two reasons to love Wisconsin, in my book, but these are not exactly performance-enhancing drugs.
The other semifinal, Kansas-Clemson, could be the game of the tournament.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The idiocy in that previous sentence is breathtaking. First of all, how does anybody know Kansas will even make the second round? The Jayhawks hold the modern-day NCAA record for Banana Peels Slipped On. Clemson is the No. 5 seed, for the love of God. Who assumes a No. 5 seed will make it to the Sweet 16?)

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When ESPN analyst Jay Bilas was asked about the importance of matchups in the tournament, he said, "It's the whole thing. Who can explain why one team wins all their games but against one opponent? Some teams match up well with other teams and some don't. It's based on style of play and it's always been that way."
The Badgers found out Sunday they are seeded third in the Midwest Regional and will open with 14th-seeded Cal State-Fullerton (24-8), which tied for first in the Big West, then won its conference title as the third seed by beating UC Irvine in the title game. The Titans are making their first NCAA appearance in 30 years.
If UW wins that game, it could face sixth-seeded Southern California (21-11) and heralded freshman O.J. Mayo in the second round.
It's dangerous to look much further down the road than that — remember UW's upset loss as the second seed to seventh-seeded UNLV last year in the second round? — but second-seeded Georgetown (27-5) could be waiting in the Sweet Sixteen and top-seeded Kansas (31-3) in the Elite Eight.
Kelley, who works as an analyst for ESPN, thinks the Badgers have the makings of a tough out in the tournament, thanks to their consistency and style of play under coach Bo Ryan.

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