If you don’t know Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark by now, you just aren’t paying attention.

The reigning National Player of the Year has been dominant on the court again this season, averaging 32.3 points, 8.7 assists, and 7.3 rebounds per game while leading Iowa to a 27-4 record and a top-5 ranking in the country. All of this after she earned unanimous All-American honors while putting up 27.8 points, 8.6 assists, and 7.1 rebounds per game last year.

Oh, and she also led Iowa to last year’s national title game, where the Hawkeyes fell to Angel Reese and LSU. As she continues through her last year at Iowa, she became the fastest NCAA D-1 player to eclipse 3,000 points in just 110 games and would go on to break Kelsey Plum’s old NCAA women’s basketball record for most career points scored. Not satisfied, Clark went on to break the all-time NCAA career scoring record, previously held by Pete Maravich, over the weekend against No. 2 Ohio State on Senior Night. She finished the game with 35 points en route to leading the Hawkeyes to victory in the regular season finale.

Clark put her WNBA aspirations on hold to return for her senior season in Iowa City, and with a year of eligibility remaining due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many wondered if she would return to college for one more year. But the star hooper officially let the world know her intentions of heading to the WNBA after this season on Feb. 29, just days ahead of her final regular season game.

Clark is leaving, but not before she’s been able to take full advantage in the name, image, and likeness (NIL) space through various partnerships and deals with some of the biggest brands out there. She signed on with Excel Sports Management to secure representation as she wades through a bevy of deals off the court.

Let’s break it down.

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Caitlin Clark NIL Market Value

All data via On3.com’s NIL rankings as of March 4, 2023.

Women’s College Basketball NIL rank: 1
Overall NIL rank: 4
Annual Valuation: $3,100,000
10-week high: $3,100,000
10-week low: $910,000
Total followers: 1.3 million (1M on Instagram, 186K on X, 159K on TikTok)

The above monetary figures are via On3’s NIL Valuation, a proprietary algorithm that “establishes the overall NIL market and projected 12-month growth rate by measuring two categories, Brand Value Index and Roster Value Index.”

Notable Caitlin Clark NIL Deals

Gatorade

Having eclipsed the 3,000 point mark, Clark joins an iconic club of elite athletes who serve as an ambassador for the legacy brand. The Iowa standout is the fourth college athlete inked by Gatorade, joining UConn hoops phenom Paige Bueckers, Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders, and Penn State running back Nick Singleton. 

For Clark, the partnership was a natural one. She was selected as the Gatorade High School Player of the Year two times during her pre-college career. However, it’s also more than just bragging rights. Gatorade will make a commitment of $22,000 to the Caitlin Clark Foundation as part of its broader Equity in Sport initiative.

State Farm

After making history during March Madness, Clark made history as State Farm’s first collegiate athlete and the first female on the company’s roster. Clark is in good company, as State Farm also sponsors Patrick Mahomes and Chris Paul.

“Welcoming Caitlin Clark to our team expands and strengthens our ability to positively impact communities, engage with audiences in meaningful ways, and reinforces our commitment to raising the visibility of women in sports. As a fellow Good Neighbor, we can’t wait to drive progress forward together with Caitlin for years to come,” State Farm Chief Marketing Officer Kristyn Cook said in a statement.

Buick

Ahead of Iowa’s run to the national title last season, Buick tapped women’s college basketball’s best players for its “See Her Greatness” campaign. In addition to Clark, Stanford‘s Cameron Brink, South Carolina‘s Aliyah Boston, UConn‘s Azzi Fudd, and UCLA‘s Kiki Rice also partnered with Buick.

Nike

Whenever a major brand seems to target basketball’s elite for an NIL partnership, Clark always seems to be involved. Last year, Nike teamed up with Clark, Bronny James, DJ Wagner, JuJu Watkins, and Haley Jones on long-term deals.

“I grew up watching Nike athletes across all sports play their game,” Clark said. “They have inspired me to work hard and make a difference. I’m humbled to be part of this first Nike basketball class and passionate about inspiring the next.”

Other notable deals: Topps, Iowa Cubs, H&R Block

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The post Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is Cashing In appeared first on Boardroom.

It was a banner year for University of Miami basketball. Literally, if the Canes raise banners for Final Four appearances.

Its men’s basketball team advanced to the Final Four for the first time in school history this year, while its women’s team went all the way to the Elite Eight as a 9 seed. The result is a nice financial boost for the Miami athletic department. The men played in five tournament games, which earned them five distribution units from the NCAA’s Basketball Performance Fund. Each game played means one such unit for a school’s conference, awarded annually for six years.

Last year, each unit was worth $338,887, so expect 2023 units to be a touch higher. Multiply that by five (one for each Miami game) and then by six (one for each year it is paid out), and Miami men’s basketball made $10.1 million for the ACC this season. If the league distributes that equally, Miami can expect a total of $667,774 for its efforts — and that’s before taking into account other ACC teams’ success this year and others over a six-year period.

It’s a nice payday, even for a school in a so-called power conference that has a lucrative TV deal as well.

The Miami women appeared in four tournament games this year. For their efforts, the university will see $0 from the NCAA’s Basketball Performance Fund.

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That’s because the Basketball Performance Fund (which you’ll notice is not called the Men’s Basketball Performance Fund) only pays out based on performance in men’s basketball tournament games. It’s a significant amount, too. In 2023, the NCAA will distribute more than $638 million to its schools — 27% of that tied directly to a conference’s men’s NCAA Tournament performance.

No such fund exists for the women, which Knight Commission CEO Amy Privette Perko believes goes against the very principles on which the NCAA supposedly stands.

“It is inconsistent with the NCAA’s constitutional principle of operating in a gender-equitable way,” she told Boardroom. “The NCAA just needs to put its constitutional principles into practice.”

The Knight Commission is an independent group that focuses on leading transformational change in college athletics. Its mission is to prioritize student-athlete education, health, safety, and success. As a think tank with no formal partnership with the NCAA, the Knight Commission doesn’t have the authority to enact change. It is, however, made up of former university presidents, athletes, and other experts in their field.

To show the commission’s influence, Perko points to the academic component of the NCAA’s revenue distribution. On the commission’s recommendation, the NCAA has added an academic performance unit, coming directly from the money it makes in its men’s basketball TV deal with Turner. Schools can be eligible to receive this unit by meeting one of a series of benchmarks, meant to level the playing field so that the academic rigor or resources available at an institution do not create an unfair disadvantage.

It’s all to say that the Knight Commission can have a major impact on NCAA policy. Yet, here we are, more than 500 days since the NCAA’s External Gender Equity Review (otherwise known as the Kaplan Report) recommended the NCAA deliver distribution units based on women’s basketball postseason performance as well. The NCAA has made no visible progress on that front, and it’s a point of frustration for Perko.

“It didn’t take them long to make a lot of changes to bring the tournament experience up to par,” she said. “So it is discouraging that it has taken them this long.”

And while there hasn’t been much progress to date, there’s reason for hope. The NCAA’s deal with ESPN for its Division I championships is up in 2023-24. The NCAA, however, packages men’s basketball separately, selling tournament rights to Turner for more than a billion dollars a year. The ESPN deal, meanwhile, bundles the women’s tournament with the so-called “Olympic sports.” If sold separately, the Kaplan Report estimated the women’s tournament could be worth between $81 million and $112 million per year. And remember, that report is now two years old. Women’s March Madness has grown significantly since then, breaking ratings and attendance records while selling out ad inventory.

It’s going to be worth a lot more than $81 million.

With that new deal, there seems to be confidence that unit distribution will follow.

“I do think it’s coming,” said Megan Kahn, the VP of Women’s Basketball for the Big Ten. “We’re at a point in time where our game deserves this. I think it’s going to put a lot of pressure on the NCAA to look that direction.”

Until that happens, expect to hear the advocates grow even louder. It was a topic of discussion at the 2022 Women’s Final Four, where Dawn Staley (South Carolina), Tara VanDerveer (Stanford), and Jeff Walz (Louisville) all answered questions about it. This year, it was more of the same.

“The units are pretty big,” Staley told the media at her 2023 pre-Final Four press conference in Dallas. “That’s the thing that’s been weighing us down, meaning it costs a lot to bring all of these teams all around the country in the tournament, and if we can bring millions into our athletic departments, I think it would help on our campuses.”

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder agreed, saying revenue distribution units will incentives schools to invest in women’s basketball.

“Athletic directors are going to invest where they get something back from it,” she told the media. I think at Iowa with our fan base, we’ve gotten something back from women’s basketball. But if ADs knew, ‘Hey, if my team makes it to the NCAA Tournament and I get a little money from that,’ it would help some of them invest, if they’re not completely invested in women’s basketball now.”

There is, however, that part that few really want to acknowledge. For now, the women’s tournament is going to bring in less money than the men’s. While ratings are exploding and attendance is steadily increasing, it won’t compare with the billion-dollar monster that is men’s March Madness. At last year’s Final Four, Walz conceded that distribution units for women’s basketball may not be as big as they are for the men’s — at least not yet.

Perko, however, disagrees. She pointed out that the NCAA does not claim to be a business; it’s a non-profit. Because of that, it doesn’t matter where the money for women’s tournament distribution comes from — the NCAA claims in its constitution that it will treat men’s and women’s sports equally. How much the women bring in vs. the men should not matter.

She sees two possible solutions for the NCAA. The first would be to eliminate athletic performance incentives entirely and to find another way to distribute tournament revenue. The other would be to add a women’s component — and she’s open to options as to what that looks like. Maybe it is just men’s and women’s basketball. Maybe there’s a performance component to every NCAA championship. It doesn’t really matter how the NCAA decides to go about this, the fact remains that as it stands now, the organization is defying its own constitution and not treating the two sports equitably.

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‘It’s discouraging that two distribution cycles will have passed and $330 million will have been distributed, and the board has been told by its own commissioned law firm that it’s inequitable,” she said. “So the Knight Commission’s position is this is an issue that the, the NCAA Division I board of directors should address with much more urgency.”

When Perko says urgency, she is talking about moving even faster than the Kaplan Report recommends. The report suggests phasing in women’s distributions, beginning at 5% of the overall Basketball Performance Fund and increasing by 5% each year until the revenue is made of a 50/50 split.

“The Kaplan report phased it in because they didn’t want to create a budget crunch for people counting on money,” Perko said. “But the way that formula works is, as a school, you don’t know how many teams your conference is going to get in the men’s basketball tournament, so you can’t count on money that hasn’t been rewarded. So the impact of changing it is not that significant because they shouldn’t be counting on money that hasn’t been given to them anyway.”

Perko says this is actually a great opportunity for new NCAA President Charlie Baker. Baker’s new post is often a thankless one, but he can score an easy PR win by making this a priority. And now, with women’s basketball earning more buzz than ever, thanks to mammoth Final Four ratings and even bigger personalities in the sport, the timing is perfect.

Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark will both return to school next year. So will Elizabeth Kitley, Mackenzie Holmes, and Cameron Brink. Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers should enter the season healthy. Next year could, truly, be the most successful season in the history of the sport.

As of now, however, it appears the schools responsible for making that happen won’t see a dime for it. The pressure is on the NCAA to change that.

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Opinion

Sports April 4, 2023

For Women’s Hoops, Angel Reese & Caitlin Clark’s Trash-talking Was Never the Problem

The post Leveling the March Madness Financial Playing Field appeared first on Boardroom.

Take a bow, Angel Reese. The LSU Tigers hoops star deserves as much after putting up yet another double-double with 15 points and 10 boards in her team’s 102-85 victory over Iowa in the finale of the Women’s NCAA Tournament en route to Most Outstanding Player honors.

In most cases in sports, the days following such a championship accomplishment are filled with praise and congratulations. Instead, a large part of the national discourse has been focused on players’ celebrations rather than celebrating the women themselves that put on literally record-breaking performances on both sides.

In the final moments of the game, cameras caught Reese doing the same “you can’t see me” celebration that Iowa star Caitlin Clark did in the Elite Eight against Louisville in the direction of her opponent. She added her own twist on the gesture popularized by G-Unit rapper Tony Yayo and wrestler/actor John Cena by pointing to her ring finger, alluding to the jewelry she just locked up by winning a natty.

My first thought? What a badass, the same thought I had when Clark did the same thing in the Elite Eight against Louisville. Both of these players have been phenomenal all season long and have helped elevate women’s basketball forward in very real ways.

But thanks to social media, the conversation surrounding this brief celebration turned vile.

As anyone who works in sports knows, keyboard warriors are nothing new, so perhaps we shouldn’t be all that surprised. When you have grown men with high-profile presences in media throwing out profanities at a young woman who isn’t even of legal drinking age as if she committed a crime on the court for their millions of Twitter followers to see, however, that’s where we have a problem:

It’s exhausting. It’s unnecessary.

Luckily, being the badass that she is, “Bayou Barbie” doesn’t care what the retrograde haters think. She also couldn’t care less what this author — or any other writer that feels the need to chime in on the matter — thinks of her, and rightfully so.

“I don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit the box that y’all want me to be in. ‘I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto.’ Y’all told me that all year. When other people do it, y’all don’t say nothing. This was for the people that look like me,” Reese said to members of the media after the game.

She doubled down with the sentiment on ESPN the next day with host Malika Andrews.

Talk that talk, Angel.

Honestly, it’s refreshing to see. She has every right to feel the way she feels and say what she wants to say, and if anyone has a problem with it, well, that problem may lie within. Do you know who hasn’t had a problem with it? Caitlin Clark, who got the ESPN treatment with a specific segment discussing her trash-talking ahead of the title game — and that’s because she’s a competitor who understands that if you dish it out, you gotta be able to take it back in return.

“I don’t think Angel should be criticized at all. No matter what way it goes, she should never be criticized for what she did. I compete, she competed,” Clark said to the Worldwide Leader. “It was a super, super fun game. I think that’s what’s going to bring more people to our game.”

This is sports. It doesn’t need a clarifier ahead of it. Men or women, this is supposed to happen when the best of the best put it all on the line on the biggest stage.

Plenty of rabble-rousers out there are trying to turn this into an individual battle between Reese and Clark rather than encouraging healthy competition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure some of it was personal; perhaps Reese’s postgame comment of “I don’t take disrespect lightly” was meant to refer directly to Clark’s waving-off of South Carolina’s Raven Johnson in the Final Four.

But even so, I refuse to give in to that notion and pit these two women against each other when they’re likely on the same page about it. Again, competitors compete, and I’m here for it.

So, all that said, let’s get into it.

I could talk about how there were clear-as-day racial biases here, with pundits and fans alike choosing sides instead of enjoying the two of the best players the sport of basketball has to offer at peak performance. Not to harp too much on two individual professional Twitter instigators, but simply take the words used to describe Angel’s actions above — “classless piece of shit” and “fucking idiot” — and compare them to those used for Clark while doing damn near the same celebration: “Queen of Clapbacks.”

Some observers have comparied the length of each respective celebration to bolster one’s “argument,” but talk about nitpicky. The sentiment is the same, but Reese’s was done amid much higher stakes.

Excuse her extending the championship moment for just a bit, putting one more personal stamp on it.

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This isn’t the first time words during this tournament have carried racial implications, either. When South Carolina, undefeated all season long and the top seed heading into the tournament, fell to the hands of Clark and Iowa in the Final Four, head coach Dawn Staley used her postgame remarks to defend her team.

“We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters,” she said. “This team exemplifies how you need to approach basketball on the court and off the court. And I do think that that’s sometimes brought into the game, and it hurts.”

The “bar fighters” reference may have been in response to Iowa’s coach Lisa Bluder likened offensive rebounding against the Gamecocks to a bar fight, but in reality, Staley may have simply been fed up with the narrative surrounding her team all season long.

I also could address the hypocritical takes out there — and there have been plenty — expecting female hoopers (or female athletes in general) to fall in line and behave like “ladies.” In the wide world of celebrations and taunts, this whole episode should have just been considered just another day on a basketball court; Reese’s clip would get played once on SportsCenter, dudes at the local bar would note how cool it was, and the world would move on. This doesn’t even come close to some of the worst or most egregious trash-talking during a basketball game when compared to male counterparts.

So, why all the hate toward Angel?

Take one of the most disrespectful taunts in basketball for example — the “too short”/”too small” gesture. It’s been done so often in the game that it has become accepted, especially by the men. The same can be said for a staredown after posterizing someone on a dunk, another taunt that occurs regularly. These things happen all the time in the men’s game without any of us batting an eye.

So circling back to my original point: Why are we even talking about this?

Instead of harping on the subject further, I’ll choose to speak on Angel Reese’s and her team’s accomplishments en route to winning a national championship. I choose to focus on the fact that she shows up to the court every single night as her true self, unapologetically so. Or how about we celebrate her breaking a single-season record for double-doubles with 34 on her way to unanimous First Team All-American honors?

Then, there’s Caitlin Clark, who was the best player in the country all season long, landing consensus National Player of the Year honors for her troubles. In case you forgot in all this hoopla, she broke an NCAA Tournament record with 193 total points while putting up Stephen Curry-like daggers on the regular.

Perhaps most importantly, though, Sunday’s championship game was a huge win for women’s college basketball, as LSU and Iowa made TV history by attracting 9.9 million viewers, peaking at 12.6 million. It was the most-watched college event — men’s or women’s — on the ESPN+ streaming platform on top of being the most-viewed women’s college basketball game ever. Oh, and the viewership was up 103% year over year.

For reference, this game boasted higher US viewership than the following events:

• Any MLS game ever
• Any Stanley Cup Finals game since 1973
• The 2023 Orange Bowl and 2023 Sugar Bowl
• Any 2021 NBA Finals game
• The season finale of HBO’s The Last of Us
• The most recent All-Star Games for the MLB, NBA, & NHL.

(Now, imagine if networks started to invest in women’s sports much sooner! But that’s a topic for another day.)

Here are a few more records that fell during Sunday’s title game:

• LSU’s Jasmine Carson scored 16 second-quarter points, breaking the single-period scoring record in a women’s Final Four game. 
• Clark broke the NCAA title game record for 3-pointers with eight.
• The Tigers’ 102 points are the largest point total in any semifinal or national title in tournament history dating back to 1982. Throwing in Iowa’s 85 points, the 187 combined points were the highest-ever total for a national championship game. 
• Iowa’s 14 3-pointers set a record for most team triples in a title game.

To be clear, that list is not exhaustive of all the records that were broken in this game, but it’s a fine place to start given the extent to which all this unhealthy discourse in recent days has distracted from the matter.

So, no more celebration talk from me, thanks — I’m handing out flowers.

Congratulations to Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers, who went through the gauntlet on their way to bringing home a national title to Baton Rouge. And congratulations to Caitlin Clark and Iowa, too, for making a run to the championship that included an upset victory over one of the best teams in recent memory in the previously undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks. While we’re at it, congratulations to Dawn Staley and Co. as well for also doing their part in pushing things forward with a 42-game winning streak that sure inspired challengers nationwide to go harder and do more.

With authentic personalities in Reese, Clark, and Staley leading the way, women’s basketball is in good hands and trending in the right direction.

Those who prefer to ignore even the most impressive sporting achievements in favor of harmful discourse, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. Maybe it’s time for a different hobby.

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The post For Women’s Hoops, Angel Reese & Caitlin Clark’s Trash-talking Was Never the Problem appeared first on Boardroom.

Two teams enter, one team leaves! Get set for the 2023 NCAA men’s national championship with a big SDSU vs. UConn prediction and the latest odds and insights from FanDuel Sportsbook.

The 2023 NCAA Tournament comes to a close on Monday with a national championship matchup between the No. 4 UConn Huskies and No. 5 San Diego State Aztecs. Dan Hurley’s UConn is in search of its title in men’s basketball, while Brian Dutcher’s SDSU aims to hoist the trophy for the first time in program history.

Connecticut took care of business in a 72-59 win over Miami on Saturday behind Adama Sanogo’s great performance (21 points & 10 rebounds). Meanwhile, San Diego State outlasted Florida Atlantic in a 72-71 thriller as Lamont Butler drained a game-winning shot at the buzzer.

So, which team will win it all? Let’s make a UConn vs. San Diego State prediction and roll through the latest odds and betting insights at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Connecticut vs. SDSU Game Info

2022-23 NCAA Tournament National Championship

• Connecticut Huskies (30-8) vs. San Diego State Aztecs (32-6)
• Date: Monday, April 3, 2023
• Time: 9:20 p.m. ET
• Venue: NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas
• US TV Coverage: CBS

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UConn vs. San Diego State Odds & Spread

All college basketball betting lines, odds, and prop bets are via FanDuel Sportsbook.

• Moneyline: UConn: (-320) | SDSU: (+255)
• Spread: UConn: -7.5 (-104) | SDSU: +7.5 (-118)
• Total: 131.5 — Over: (-110) | Under: (-110)

UConn enters this contest as a clear favorite on the moneyline and spread per FanDuel Sportsbook’s odds. This championship clash also features an over/under of 131.5 points, with both sides available at -110 odds.

SDSU vs. Connecticut State Betting Trends

• UConn is 14-1 straight up in its last 15 games as a favorite.
• The total has hit the under in seven of UConn’s last nine games.
• SDSU is 6-1 against the spread (ATS) in its last seven games.
• The total has hit the under in each of San Diego State’s last eight games as an underdog.

UConn vs. San Diego State Prediction & Pick

UConn has been the most dominant team in this year’s tourney as it has won each of its five games by a double-digit margin. The Huskies showcased their versatility on a night where they finally shot poorly from long range by pounding Miami inside with big forwards Sanogo and Alex Karaban.

San Diego State is a clear underdog for a reason, yet the Aztecs keep proving that they should not be underestimated. They trailed for a majority of Saturday’s national semifinal game against FAU before getting a defensive stop with only seconds left. Head coach Brian Dutcher did not call a timeout and Butler sank the jumper.

Almost every game that has involved SDSU this season is a low-scoring showdown. Connecticut proved it can win those types of battle as it held both Gonzaga and Miami to under 60 points each. The Huskies also enter this one ranked eighth in opponent effective field goal percentage (44.6%).

Look for the Huskies to match the Aztec’s defensive intensity and pull away in the second half.

SDSU vs. UCONN FINAL SCORE PREDICTION: UConn 72, San Diego State 62

San Diego State vs. Connecticut Best Bet

This game features the largest spread of any March Madness title game since the 2009 season, when UNC defeated Michigan 89-72 as a 7.5-point favorite. While I think a 17-point win is unlikely here, I do like UConn’s chances of notching one more double-digit win. The Huskies’ balance is too impressive.

It’s been mentioned above how UConn can San Diego State’s strengths on defense. Keep in mind the Huskies outrank the Aztecs in nearly every offensive statistic as well and rank eighth in offensive efficiency. Trust head coach Dan Hurley’s team to finish the season on a 6-0 against the spread run.

CONNECTICUT VS. SDSU BEST BET: UConn Huskies -7.5 (-110)

— Larry Rupp

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The post UConn vs. San Diego State: Are Bettors Backing a National Championship Upset? appeared first on Boardroom.

It wasn’t supposed to happen, but such is the Madness of March! Check out our big SDSU vs. FAU prediction and best bet, plus the latest odds from FanDuel Sportsbook.

The 2023 NCAA Tournament’s men’s Final Four is set. The next round of March Madness features The San Diego State Aztecs going one-on-one with the Florida Atlantic Owls on Saturday, April 1.

In what was a tight matchup, SDSU managed to make it out of the Elite Eight with a 57-56 victory over Creighton. Meanwhile, FAU’s shocking run continued with a 79-76 win against Kansas State, highlighted by Vladislav Goldin’s 14-point, 13-rebound double-double.

So, which side will go home while the other competes for a national title? Get set for Saturday’s game with our best SDSU vs. FAU prediction and the latest odds and insights from FanDuel Sportsbook.

Click here to read Boardroom’s full 2023 NCAA Men’s Final Four futures betting overview.

San Diego State vs. Florida Atlantic Game Info

2022-23 NCAA Tournament Final Four
No. 18 San Diego State Aztecs (31-6)
vs.
No. 25 Florida Atlantic Owls (35-3)
Date: Saturday, April 1, 2023
Time: 6:09 p.m. ET
Venue: NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas
US TV Coverage: CBS

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SDSU vs. FAU Odds & Spread: Final Four 2023

All college basketball betting lines, odds, and prop bets are from FanDuel Sportsbook.

• Moneyline: SDSU: (-134) | FAU: (+112)
• Spread: SDSU: -1.5 (-120) | FAU: +1.5 (-105)
• Total: 131.5 — Over: (-110) | Under: (-110)

San Diego State enters this contest as a slim favorite on the moneyline and spread per FanDuel Sportsbook’s odds. This 6:09 p.m. ET clash also features an over/under of 131.5 points with both sides available at -110 odds.

San Diego State vs. FAU Betting Trends

• San Diego State is 20-16-0 against the spread this year.
• The Aztecs have a record of 17-14 against the spread as 1.5-point favorites or greater.
• Out of 36 SDSU games so far this season, 14 have gone over the total.
• Against the spread, FAU is 25-11-0 this season.
• As 1.5-point underdogs or greater, the Owls are 6-2 against the spread.
• Florida Atlantic has seen 19 of its 36 games go over the point total.

SDSU vs FAU Prediction & Pick: 2023 Final Four

All heartwarming stories must come to an end, and that’ll be the case for FAU this weekend. San Diego State’s defense can shut down most offenses, surrendering just 63.1 PPG (No. 23) on 40.5% shooting (No. 25).

A big reason why Florida Atlantic got by Creighton was by shooting 39.1% from the three-point line. Now, the Owls face the Aztecs, who’ve only given up an average of 3.7 three-pointers on 15.7% shooting over the last three games. They’ve also been averaging 42.0 rebounds and 11.0 takeaways over that stretch, indicating that FAU will be under pressure all night long.

FAU has shocked a lot of people thus far and I won’t be surprised if this is another close game. However, SDSU’s defense is as elite as it gets and won’t break. Look for the Aztecs to keep winning and advance to the National Championship.

FAU vs. SDSU FINAL SCORE PREDICTION: San Diego State 65, Florida Atlantic 63

San Diego State vs. Florida Atlantic Best Bet

San Diego State’s stellar defense means that its games tend to feature fewer points than projected. The under has struck in each of the Aztecs’ last 10 games as well as their nine previous outings as favorites. While not as frequent, Florida Atlantic has also experienced the under in five of its last seven games.

Considering how the under is a combined 13-5 in both teams’ games at neutral sites this season, it’s safe to say that a low-scoring affair is on the way.

SDSU vs. FAU BEST BET: Under 131.5 Points (-110)

— Devon Platana

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The Madness rolls on! Check out our big Miami vs. UConn prediction and best bet, plus the latest odds from FanDuel Sportsbook.

The 2023 NCAA Tournament continues Saturday with a great Final Four matchup between the No. 5 Miami Hurricanes and No. 4 UConn Huskies. Miami men’s basketball is aiming to earn its first-ever NCAA championship game appearance, while a win gets UConn back to their first such matchup since 2014.

Miami pulled off an 88-81 upset win over Texas on Sunday behind Jordan Miller’s standout outing (27 points on 7-7 shooting). Meanwhile, Dan Hurley’s Connecticut squad crushed Gonzaga by a score of 82-54 on Saturday as Jordan Hawkins scored a team-high 20 points.

So, which team will advance with an unforgettable win? Check out our best UConn vs. Miami prediction below, as well as the latest odds and betting insights from

Click here to read Boardroom’s full 2023 NCAA Men’s Final Four futures betting overview.

Connecticut vs. Miami Game Info

2022-23 NCAA Tournament Final Four

No. 10 Connecticut Huskies (29-8)
vs.
No. 16 Miami (FL) Hurricanes (29-7)
Date: Saturday, April 1, 2023
Time: 8:49 p.m. ET
Venue: NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas
US TV Coverage: CBS

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UConn vs. Miami Odds & Spread

All college basketball betting lines, odds and prop bets are from FanDuel Sportsbook.

• Moneyline: UCONN: (-240) | MIAMI: (+195)
• Spread: UCONN: -5.5 (-114) | MIAMI: +5.5 (-106)
• Total: 149.5 — Over: (-110) | Under: (-110)

UConn enters this contest as a moderate favorite on the moneyline and spread per FanDuel Sportsbook’s odds. This Final Four clash also features an over/under of 149.5 points, with both sides available at -110 odds.

Miami vs. Connecticut Betting Trends

• UConn has 25 wins in 37 games against the spread this season.
• As 5.5-point favorites or more, the Huskies are 16-9 against the spread.
• Out of 37 Connecticut’s games so far this season, 20 have hit the over.
• Miami has covered the spread 22 times in 36 games.
• The Hurricanes have an ATS record of 3-0 as 5.5-point underdogs or greater.
• Miami has seen 17 of its 36 games hit the over.

UConn vs. Miami Prediction & Pick

It’s safe to say that both Miami and UConn deserve to battle it out for a spot in the championship. The Hurricanes have beaten three top-four seeds and have not been favored in a game since the first round. Meanwhile, the Huskies have taken down each of their four opponents by an average of 22.5 points.

What stands out for Miami is its ability to adjust. The Hurricanes took down a sizeable Indiana team by outrebounding the Hoosiers by 17. They then beat a defensively gifted Houston team by draining 11 three-pointers and slowed down a fast Texas team with 32 trips to the free-throw line.

UConn has few weaknesses to exploit, though. The Huskies allow an opponent three-point percentage of 29.7% (No. 13 in NCAA) and control the boards by averaging 39.3 rebounds per game (No. 10 in NCAA). They also shoot a reliable 76.0% from the free throw line (No. 37 in NCAA).

This one is going to be close, but I don’t expect UConn’s dominance to end on Saturday night.

MIAMI vs. UCONN FINAL SCORE Prediction: UConn 76, Miami 72

Miami vs. UConn Best Bet

UConn enters this one with the edge in a few statistical categories, but those advantages are not enough to warrant a 5.5-point spread. This is a Miami team that has been winning outright as an underdog all season long and knows how to both play with a considerable lead or fight back from a large deficit.

Miami is 4-1 against the spread (ATS) in its last five games overall, 5-1 ATS in its last six Saturday games away from home and 10-3 ATS in its last 13 games against UConn. Not only that, but five of the last 10 Final Four games have also been decided by fewer than six points. Don’t expect a blowout here.

MIAMI vs. CONNECTICUT BEST BET: Miami Hurricanes +5.5 (-106)

— Larry Rupp

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All eyes were on Caitlin Clark.

The Iowa net-burner locked in Sunday night at March Madness, putting up a 42-point triple-double (!) against Louisville to put Iowa into the Final Four. The intense action set the tone for an exciting Elite Eight that boosted its fair share of storylines into the national spotlight.

If you want to judge all this through NCAA women’s basketball ratings, viewers ultimately tuned in to watch the matchup on ESPN in greater numbers than any NBA game the network has aired throughout the 2022-23 season to date.

2.7 million at its peak, to be exact.

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The figure reflects a 43% bump over last year’s Elite Eight viewership and continues the steady rise in fanfare that the women’s NCAA Tournament has experienced on the Worldwide Leader in recent years.

While women’s sports still represent only 5% of all sports media coverage overall according to a 2021 study from the University of Southern California, its popular ascension is difficult to ignore.

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This year’s Women’s NCAA Tournament has already set new viewership markers as we head into its final weekend. Overall, the 56 games in the books brought in an average of 660,000 viewers, 42% more than last year’s event. As the action gets deeper, fans are locked in. ESPN reports that the Sweet Sixteen netted an average of 1.2 million viewers and over 3.5 billion minutes, a 73% year-over-year boost. UConn-Ohio State set the standard in that round, yielding 2.4 million viewers.

Women’s basketball attendance is experiencing a similar uptick. The four regional finals of the tournament brought in a total of 82,275 fans, eclipsing the 20-year-old record of 73,954 from 2003.

And, reflecting a basic principle of economics — remember those??? — as the demand increases, so too does the price. Tickets heading into this weekend’s women’s Final Four matchups are running three times higher ($323) than those for the men’s games ($99), according to Ticketmaster.

Major companies are keen to cash in on the profit potential of the priority product, too. ESPN announced in the weeks leading into the Final Four that it had fully sold out its television ad inventory. Earlier this year, brands like Ally Bank unveiled a multi-year, multi-million-dollar pledge to boost equal opportunity within women’s sports and its position as the first-ever title sponsor for the ACC women’s tournament, and Under Armour invested in the opportunity to take up its own space and capitalize on the popularity of the women’s tournament.

The growth of the women’s game is not isolated to traditional media, either. Stars like Miami’s Haley and Hanna Cavinder and LSU’s Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson boast some of the biggest social media followings (and the NIL earning potential that comes with it) across all of college athletics regardless of sport.

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As we head into the final weekend of the competition, all eyes are on South Carolina, Iowa, LSU, and Virginia Tech.

Will Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks be able to sustain their perfect season? Will the Hokies convert their first shot at the title?

Off the court, still-more questions percolate, including when top beauty brands give the players who serve as their best unofficial spokeswomen their proper due, or when the women’s tournament’s TV rights will finally be spun out as a standalone product rather than lumped in with several other NCAA championships.

The former will take longer to answer than the latter, but I’ll be among the millions locked in to find out.

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The NCAA technically isn’t a business — under the law, it’s a non-profit — but for not-a-business, there are certainly a lot of business-y elements. The association’s massive media rights contract with CBS/Turner to televise its Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament is about as business-y as it gets.

And the NCAA makes over a billion dollars a year off of it — easily its biggest annual money-maker.

With that in mind, it’s reasonable to overreact to TV ratings (even preemptively) for one round in one year of one tournament. That’s why it’s not surprising to witness the #narrative that’s circulating this week about the 2023 men’s Final Four featuring UConn, Miami, San Diego State, and Florida Atlantic.

With only one traditional men’s basketball powerhouse out of the four — plus two teams from outside the major conferences — skeptics seem to expect a ratings disaster this weekend. After all, casual fans would rather watch Kansas or Duke or Kentucky than the Aztecs and Owls.

Maybe they’re right. Saturday night’s semifinal numbers may reflect only the true diehards, fans of the four teams, and a handful of gambling sickos, leading to much lower ratings than the NCAA has come to expect in the Final Four.

My only question is: Other than a handful of CBS PR folks, who cares?

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It is so painfully obvious that this year’s Final Four is an aberration compared to the usual semifinal field that no one in their right mind would think low ratings this weekend is indicative of anything to come. We are only a year removed from a Final Four that featured Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Villanova. UCLA, Gonzaga, and Baylor were in the Final Four the year before that. Some combination of those seven schools will likely be in the Final Four next year or the year after, no matter what happens this weekend.

The NCAA’s media deal with CBS and Turner is up in 2032, so this isn’t a so-called “contract year” or close to it. There’s no need for the NCAA to fear losing out on a few bucks when it gets back to the negotiating table because of potentially lower numbers this weekend. This also probably won’t affect how much Turner makes next year in ad revenue — or at least, not much.

All told, there are plenty of bigger factors to consider as Turner tries to go for three straight years of over a billion dollars made via advertising. To name a few:

• The state of the economy at the time: Do ad partners have money to shell out?
• The current crop of top teams: Are the most likely 2024 Final Four teams from programs that will draw eyeballs? The answer is almost always yes; 2023 is more likely to be the exception that proves the rule.
• The talent in the sport: Are there individual players fans will want to tune in to watch regardless of which program they’re with? In this NIL era of ours that spurs more players to return to college, it’s likely. Throw in the possibility that a Bronny James might play in March Madness next year and the draw becomes that much stronger.

March Madness will be fine — it always has been and always will be, at least under its current structure. Zoom out a bit and, down the road, the 2023 Final Four may have ended up being a net positive for the sport.

Last year, it was the bluebloods. This year, it’s the mid-majors and the unexpecteds. It all adds to the unpredictability of the greatest postseason tournament in the world. There are so many more Final Four possibilities than even 15 years ago when a 2006 George Mason — led by current Miami coach Jim Larrañaga, no less — was seen as a historic oddity. There’s no 11-seed in this year’s Final Four, but we do have a 9, 6, and 5: three seed lines that have never won the whole thing.

Next year? Maybe it’ll be all bluebloods again. Maybe we’ll get a quartet of upstart surprises. More likely, we’ll see a combination of the two with plenty of intrigue to go around. The ratings will be there, too, even if this year ends up being an anomaly.

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Most heavyweight rematches don’t receive TV top-billing if they follow public beatdowns.

However, as they say, styles make fights.

On Mar. 30, 1991, Coach Mike Krzyzewski faced a familiar foe: the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. Just one year earlier in Colorado, the brash bunch from Nevada had given his Blue Devils a black eye by way of a 103-73 trouncing.

For the hoop historians at home, that 30-point whooping was the biggest blowout in NCAA Championship Game history, a record that still stands today.

Wiping the floor with the private school squad, Coach Jerry Tarkanian’s talented roster ran up the score in front of 17,675 fans, and many more tuned into CBS.

Somehow, by the divine workings of both the basketball gods and network television, Coach K, Christian Laettner, and the rest of the returning starters had to stare down Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, and Greg Anthony as they approached jump ball 360 and some odd days later.

While the rosters remained similar, the storylines and aesthetics couldn’t have been any more different.

UNLV, a Nike-sponsored squad in the midst of an exorbitant winning streak, had the swag, resume, and apparel of a super group signed to Death Row.

Duke on the other hand had short shorts, a soft reputation, and the burden of being embarrassed on live television by the same school two years in a row.

“People forget about how big of an underdog they were against UNLV,” 19nine VP and co-founder Josh Barnett told Boardroom. “Go back and check the line on the game and read articles. Nobody thought they had a shot.”

By defying the odds and beating Vegas — both literally and figuratively — Coach K and Christian upended an astronomical line to win 79-77 off the strength of two clutch Laettner free throws.

In what many consider the greatest college game of all time, Duke turned the tables in that Final Four rematch en route to becoming not just the 1991 national champions but also a national brand that still registers as retail royalty today.

Learn how an unprecedented upset changed the fortunes of Duke Basketball in regard to scale and marketing and why that polarizing squad still sells through retro nostalgia today.

King of the Hill

Going to battle with UNLV in the Hoosier Dome carried a weight that couldn’t be measured in a box score.

Wearing war wounds from the previous season’s shellacking, Coach K entered the Indiana arena still standing in the shadows of his former Army commander, Bobby Knight.

Like Knight, the military man ran a tight ship outfitted by Adidas.

Though the Three Stripes were the toast of college hoops for the late ’70s and early ’80s, the trefoil tag was losing its cache to a Beaverton brand more interested in programs and personalities that could market themselves via highlights, antics, or even controversy.

At the University of Las Vegas Nevada, Jerry Tarkanian took a longstanding relationship with Sonny Vaccaro and a surface-level reverence for NCAA rules to build an uptempo Nike-branded ball club full of high flyers and future first-round picks.

Coming into the 1991 Final Four, the Runnin’ Rebels rocked black Nikes before the Fab Five arrived in Ann Arbor and baggy shorts while Duke still showed full-thigh. Superstar forward Larry Johnson was en route to go No. 1 overall in that year’s NBA Draft with Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony also landing in the lottery.

Coming off the 1990 National Championship thrashing of Duke, UNLV fan gear was hotter than the strip in July.

Conversely, most fashionable fans were not rushing to Eastbay to order a royal Duke sweatshirt or a matching set of shorts.

Simply put, the flashy sheen of Nike-endorsed UNLV was cooler and more contemporary than the Blue Devil bunch it just beat up on.

Coming into the March Madness matchup in 1991, Cameron crewnecks were to be worn in aspirational fashion at ACT prep classes or around the offices of Fortune 500 companies by proud alumni on Casual Friday.

As a brand, Bobby Hurley and his high short style of hoops were not marketable to the masses, especially after being dominated.

However, Hurley had help this time against UNLV. He had a freshman forward by his side.

“The big difference is that they added Grant Hill,” says Barnett. “Grant Hill is the guy who gave them that swagger, that defender on the wing. He ate up Stacey Augmon and when you look back, that’s the difference in the game.”

Hill, the son of Dallas Cowboy running back Calvin Hill, was only 18 years old when playing in his first Big Dance yet a man among boys where skill, size, and speed were concerned.

The freshman phenom with a Fresh Prince flattop was the literal difference in a 32-point swing when considering conquering a team that hadn’t even had a close game all season.

He was also the calling card for making Duke real-life winners and, in turn, a national brand fans both loved and love to hate.

Coming into the 1991-92 season, Duke was No. 1 in the nation. The perpetual underdogs had turned a corner thanks to the wild win over UNLV and finishing the job two days later against Kansas.

Thanks to the heroics of Grant Hill, Duke now had a target on their back.

Soon, they’d also have a new logo on their feet.

Checkmate

Duke started and ended the 1991-92 season ranked No. 1.

While the team was the heavy favorite going into the 1992 Final Four, the previous narratives surrounding aesthetic ethos were only amplified.

No longer the underdog, Coach K and Co. rolled into Minneapolis with Adidas on their backs and a cocky confidence across their faces. The battle-tested team was facing Michigan’s Fab Five: the spiritual successors to Tarkanian’s UNLV team in regard to talent and swagger.

Fans across the country thought they’d seen this movie before by way of the 1990 beatdown.

Boy, were they wrong.

Hill and his teammates absolutely demolished Chris Webber and Co., beating the Fab Five by 20 points in the 1992 National Championship game. It would be the second time Coach K’s club cut down the nets in two years and it’d also be the last time any Blue Devil ball club would be outfitted in stripes.

Coming off back-to-back national titles in Adidas — while beating the two most hip-hop hoop teams in NCAA history — Nike signed Coach K to a 15-year contract worth $375,000 a season. It all came with a $1 million signing bonus plus stock options.

Though the Blue Devils retained their country club image on-court, they were the baddest boys in all of amateur basketball simply because they beat the best. Now with the battery in their back of championship confidence and the marketing machine of Nike, the recruiting trail and fanfare exploded.

Take this for example: When Tupac Shakur went on Video LP to promote his debut solo album and his role in Juice, the artist/actor wore a UNLV beanie and matching Runnin’ Rebels tee.

By 1996? You could catch him in Hollywood rocking an authentic Duke No. 5 jersey made by Nike.

Jeff Capel — the player aligned with the infamous Shakur co-sign — called it the “coolest thing” two decades later and says he still uses the photo as a recruiting tool.

For fans of other programs saying it was a one-off incident or the result of 2Pac losing a bet, the tale of the tape shows otherwise.

In the years that followed, you could catch Puff Daddy donning a Ricky Price replica or Cam’ron rocking a Trajan Langdon tank.

Simply put, the big wins over UNLV and U-M made Duke a team with clout. The mass marketing from Nike and silky uniforms positioned them as the Tommy Hilfiger of hoops gear.

This success with the Swoosh lasted for generations and it’s still going strong. In 2015, fresh off winning his fifth national championship, Coach K extended Duke’s deal with Nike all the way through 2027.

In the midst of March Madness in 2023, it’s still the story of the team’s iconic upset in 1991 that’s driving sportswear sales today.

New Nostalgia

This fall, seven years after Coach K signed the Swoosh extension and 21 years after he upset UNLV, Duke welcomed 17,000 students enrolling in classes.

You don’t have to be a math major to know that none of those freshmen were even alive when Grant Hill helped the Blue Devils get over the hump.

Still, the appetite for fashion from the ’90s and fanfare that spreads far past Durham does numbers. This is all illustrated by a capsule collection celebrating that 1991 squad made by the nostalgia basketball brand 19nine.

“We wanted Duke forever,” Barnett says. “Our in actually came over the summer when we met with the NIL group there.”

Based out of Evansville, Ind. — less than 200 miles away from where the win in the Hoosier Dome took place — Barnett and Co. drove down to Durham to see the land of the most lauded hardwood heroes and illusive apparel.

“They have Laettner’s game-worn jersey on display in Cameron,” 19nine creative director Matt Breivogel told Boardroom. “You better believe I was taking as many photos as possible.”

The photos — both for research and promotion — exemplify the energy associated with Duke’s proud past and bright future.

19nine’s aptly but unlikely Underdog Collection with the Brotherhood came by way of having brand interns paint their faces like Cameron Crazies for storytelling. Photoshoots also showcased Duke’s active roster of athletes currently competing in the NCAA Tournament.

The reaction to players and products positioned moments before any of them were even born was both surprising and telling for the folks at 19nine.

“They love the past,” says Barnett. “The athletes were picking Grant Hill stuff for a retro photoshoot over Paolo! Those guys didn’t want to wear anybody’s stuff that they were about to play against. The nostalgia stuff went crazy. Everybody was grabbing the Hill and Laettner stuff which was hilarious to us.”

For the collection, Breivogel recreated the 1991 game shorts in sublimated fashion with pockets for lifestyle wear. Additionally, they brought out banner tees, practice jerseys, and reprints of famous Final Four shirts.

“The designs are basically what these kids thrift for today,” Barnett says. “So you create this garment that is exactly what they are searching for but you’re mass producing it so that everybody can have it much easier.”

It all aligns with a basketball brand that’s massively larger than its private school enrollment. One that’s exploded based on their winning ways as well as recent All-Star alum like Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, and Kyrie Irving.

For the brands invested in Duke Basketball, the proof is in the pudding.

In only a matter of hours, the 19nine shorts have already sold out. The buzz began when they first teased the partnership last month, creating conversation that was louder and more varying than any of the dozens of programs they produce products for.

“Duke’s different than any school in the sense that if you post anything about Duke? You will get sometimes as much or more hate in the post than love,” says Breivogel. “But no matter what the post will blow up.”

“Duke is small and it’s private,” says Barnett. “Then you have this stigma of being prestigious and preppy. This launch? The stuff that we’re putting out there and getting back is so different than any other school. Some people truly hate Duke but there is a ton of fans out there.”

A ton of fans is not hyperbole both in basketball and in business.

Last year, Duke Basketball reported $33.4 million in revenue — the most of any team in that year’s tournament.

Still, it all dates back to that epic upset against UNLV where the Blue Devils became a bigger brand than any pundit could ever predict.

“You have to go back a ways for Duke to be an underdog,” says Barnett. “1991 wasn’t the start, but it was the culmination.”

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Editor’s Note: Dan Hurley signed a new six-year, $32.1 million deal with the Huskies in June 2023.

It’s been 31 years since a Hurley has appeared in the Final Four.

Back in 1992, Duke dynamo Bobby Hurley had his way with Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers and Jalen Rose’s Fab 5 en route to winning his second straight National Championship under Coach K.

For his heroics, the eldest Hurley earned Most Outstanding Player honors at the 1992 Final Four.

While it was Bobby’s World around Durham and on ESPN, another Hurley was finding his way over at Seton Hall.

Dan Hurley, younger brother to Bobby and son of famed St. Anthony head coach Bob Sr., had just finished his freshman season as a Pirate under P.J. Carlesimo.

Familiar with the weight of leadership, Dan spent five seasons in Newark, rising from backup point guard to standout starter. By his senior season, he was the team leader in assists.

As a player, Dan never made it past the Sweet 16. Once he graduated, Shaheen Holloway stole the show as Pirate point guard, leaving Dan’s dimes in the past.

Dan never played a minute in the NBA, nor did he enjoy the national fanfare associated with his lottery-pick older brother or E:60-profiled pops.

Not until now.

Heading into the 2023 Final Four as UConn Huskies head coach, Hurley has gone from supportive sibling to star of the Dance.

In profiling his rise in the ranks and potential earnings in Storrs, Boardroom breaks down the younger Hurley’s success.

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The Hurley Family Business

In high school hoops circles, few names garner as much respect as Bob Hurley.

Over 39 years coaching St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, Bob Sr. won 26 state and four national championships.

A living legend in his city, the original Coach Hurley won well over 1,000 games, placing the likes of Rodrick Rhodes, Tyshawn Taylor, and Kyle Anderson into the NBA.

While all those accolades impress, Bobby is the most famous figure to come out of St. Anthony.

Jersey City’s chosen son by the time he could drive a car, and nationally known by the age of 18, Bobby Hurley was among the most heralded point guards the tri-state area and ACC had ever seen.

The eldest Hurley son came into the national spotlight in 1989 when he won co-MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Game with Shaquille O’Neal. He did so by beating out the likes of Kenny Anderson, Jim Jackson, and Allan Houston.

More than just a one-hit wonder, Bobby became a two-time national champion at Duke and the all-time NCAA assists leader. As a rookie for the Sacramento Kings, Bobby was a Day 1 starter, averaging just over seven points and six assists per game.

Tragically, an SUV accident just months after his NBA arrival derailed his pro career. Once he recovered, he played limited minutes and was out of the league five years later.

While Bobby’s playing days faded due to injury, Danny’s slipped away due to his own personal struggles. Though a solid starter at Seton Hall, an American playing career was not in the cards. Rather than travel overseas, Danny suited up next to his father as an assistant at St. Anthony immediately after graduating.

He took to the family trade instantly. After a season supporting his pops in high school, Dan left for an assistant coaching job at Rutgers.

Working under Coach Kevin Bannon, Dan helped the program for four seasons before returning to high school.

Well, not just any high school.

From 2001 to 2010, Dan Hurley served as head coach of St. Benedict’s Preparatory School: a team that tangled for top squad in New Jersey with his famous father’s program.

Capable of leading on his own, Dan became the fastest high school coach in the area to reach 200 wins. You could say that coaching was in his blood.

In his time at St. Benedict’s, Dan went an impressive 223-21 and coached the likes of J.R. Smith, Lance Thomas, and Tyler Ennis.

It all set Dan up for the college coaching career he’s enjoying now — one that’s resulted in profitable family reunions.

Campus Climb

In 2010, Dan Hurley was named head coach at Wagner College on Staten Island.

Upon taking the job, he announced an assistant that would join him on the journey: his older brother, Bobby.

At the private liberal arts school, Dan made the sub-.500 bottom feeders into the toast of the Northeast Conference. After two seasons, Dan departed for the head coaching job at the University of Rhode Island.

Though Wagner’s a private school, meaning its salary information is not public, Non-Profit Light lists his successor’s salary at $222,456 a season.

Conversely, Dan’s new gig at Rhode Island upped his profile in conferences and upped his pay to $4 million plus for a six-season deal.

Like Wagner, he brought Bobby along with him, this time as associate head coach. After an underwhelming debut, Bobby took the head coaching job at Buffalo while Dan turned the tide at URI.

By his third season, Dan had the Rams in the second round of the NIT.

That same year, Bobby took the head coaching job at Arizona State, adding even more esteem to the Hurley name.

Early on in Tempe, Bobby was making roughly $1.4 million a season which ranked among the bottom of the Pac-12. Today, Bobby’s salary at ASU is approaching $2.7 million a year.

If it sounds like the Hurley family was winning in both box scores and bank accounts, it’s because they were. The coach’s kids were both creating lucrative careers for themselves in the family field of choice.

While poppa Hurley called it quits in 2017 when St. Anthony shut down, his youngest son was in the midst of back-to-back NCAA Tournament bids at Rhode Island.

The winning ways caught the eyes of suitors in Storrs and at Pittsburgh, with UConn emerging as the best fit for the former Big East guard.

In 2018, Dan took the head coaching job at UConn with a starting salary of $2.75 million. While ESPN reports suggest that Pitt offered an even higher number, the prestige of the Huskies program proves top tier.

Like previous gigs, Dan’s ability to turn the team into winners and exceed expectations quickly paid off.

Like previous Husky head coaches, he has a chance to up the ante on his already sizable salary if he cuts the nets down next Monday.

Net Income

Coming into the Final Four, Dan Hurley leads a program pegged as the odds-on favorite given the current field.

While Dan certainly hopes a championship is in his immediate future, national titles are all over the team’s recent past.

In the last quarter century, UConn has a whopping four national championships — more than any other team in that span.

Two coaches have played a part in that net cutting: Jim Calhoun and Kevin Ollie.

For their efforts, the university cut major checks.

In 1999, Calhoun took home a title on the strength of passionate play from Rip Hamilton, Khalid El-Amin, and Ricky Moore. Months after winning his first title, Calhoun signed a new contract for five years, valued somewhere between $875,000 to $900,000 a season.

Right on schedule, Calhoun won again in 2004 as that first title contract came to a close. He then re-upped for six more seasons in Storrs for a grand sum of $9.1 million, taking his annual salary to $1.51 million a season.

Years later in 2009, Calhoun proved perfect in timing again. The UConn coach signed a new five-year deal for $13 million total, taking his seasonal salary to $2.6 million as he enrolled a freshman class that would go on to appear in two Final Fours and win the 2011 title.

Amid health issues, Calhoun retired in 2012 with three rings and massive money made during his 26 seasons.

Upon his exit, former Husky point guard and then-assistant Kevin Ollie took the reins as head coach.

Shortly after, Ollie won his first and only national title in 2014, setting the stage for a contract renewal for five years ranging somewhere between $2.8 million and $3 million a season. In 2018, Ollie was let go as head coach, which is when Hurley entered the fold.

So, how much will Hurley make if he wins a title similar to his two predecessors?

Under his current contract, Dan Hurley makes $2.9 million per year. For reference, that’s slightly more than the salary of his big brother Bobby at Arizona State, and as CT Insider points out, second only to Huskies women’s coach Geno Auriemma where public employees in the state are concerned.

This season, Hurley has already secured an automatic two-year extension to his deal and a $200,000 bonus, both earned with UConn’s Elite Eight win over Gonzaga.

If UConn wins it all this season, Hurley will make an extra $750,000. If the Huskies cut down the nets, finish in the top ten in both major polls, and his players excel in the classroom, the maximum possible bonus Hurley can earn is an extra $1 million.

So, Hurley is already looking at a new salary of $3.35 million based on recent success, and up to $3.9 million if he hits every mark. Though inflation plays a part, that would be more annually than Calhoun or Ollie ever made in a season. It would also surpass that of Auriemma’s current contract, worth $3 million a season with annual upticks of $100,000.

For a college town that lives to cut nets, best believe the powers that be are ready to cut checks.

If Dan Hurley finds himself at the forefront of the Final Four much like his older brother 31 years prior, he won’t be handed the hardware in a uniform. However, his son Andrew, a junior walk-on at UConn, will.

For a basketball lifer like Dan, it could all serve as a fitting Final Four return for the Hurley family.

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The post Dan Hurley Builds His Own Legacy appeared first on Boardroom.

Less touted than either coast, the Midwest still makes waves when it comes to fashion trends.

From St. Louis adding life to the Air Force 1 to Don C selling throwbacks out of his trunk in Chicago, the area attached to blue-collar cities and countless cornfields sprouts off-kilter style statements known to make noise.

In 1997, the University of Cincinnati created clamor heard nationwide: the debut of Bob Huggins’ squad’s signature Cat Scratch shorts.

Adorned by Kenyon Martin, DerMarr Johnson, Steve Logan, and more, the Bearcats’ uniforms were designed by Jordan Brand and commissioned by the college.

Though the block short style was intended to be exclusive to the five-star studs who went to work at Shoemaker Arena, the bold trunks provided a blueprint for others to follow. Rival schools quickly copied and mass-marketed their own versions, with the Jumpman empire even expanding to an insanely popular inline range.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the Cincy shorts and their retail off-shoots reoriented hoop style in a movement that swept the country. Suddenly, they were gone.

Back now in authentic engineering, Boardroom breaks down the arrival, departure, and return of the Cincinnati Cat Scratch shorts.

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Midwest Swing

Outside of the Fab 5, few college kids from the Midwest could influence how hip-hop style swayed.

In the Fall of 1997, that all changed.

Though Michael Jordan made Chicago cool from Palm Springs to Spain, his professional playing career was winding down. To make sure his influence remained relevant, Nike started the subsidiary Jordan Brand, headed into his Last Dance season.

From Eddie Jones in Los Angeles to Michael Finley in Dallas, MJ signed and aligned with ascending talent that exemplified his ethos in major markets. That strategy trickled down to college where Mike secured stakes in schools renowned for their hoop talent and regional retail.

“We had Cal on the West Coast and St. John’s in New York,” former Jordan Brand VP Gentry Humphrey told Boardroom in 2021. “So geography-wise, Cincinnati made a lot of sense.”

Already longtime friends with Huggins, MJ had his new company cement its future in the Midwest by bringing on a school of the same spirit and team tones associated with his signature line.

While the team would play in sneakers attached to MJ’s image, their uniforms would introduce an aesthetic all its own.

Baring a sleeveless shirt silo, baggy build, and bold block detailing down the obliques and thighs, the redesigned Cincinnati Bearcat uniforms brought out by Brand Jordan were unlike anything college basketball had ever seen.

Rather than shock fans and opponents in their 1997 home opener against Detroit Mercy, Michael unveiled the uniforms and his new company on live daytime television.

Using The Rosie O’Donnell Show as a stage, R&B group BLACKstreet modeled the uniforms soon set to outfit Kenyon and company.

“Jordan Brand always has a little different level of swag that’s attached to it because we epitomize MJ,” Humphrey said. “MJ is not like the guy next door.”

Though Cal and St. John’s also debuted signature styles that day, Cincy earned the buzz thanks to the boldly blocked shorts.

“We sold stuff, man,” Huggins said on The Bearcat Basketball Podcast. “We sold shoes, we sold warmups — we were what everybody wanted to be.”

This sentiment proved true at the time in Bob’s backyard.

“If you hooped in Cincinnati, you had the jersey, both of the shorts, you had all the stuff,” Corporate Got ‘Em owner Matt Tomamichel told Boardroom in 2021. “All the gear was everywhere.”

The Cat Scratch phenomenon started in the Midwest, but before long, it spread to major markets miles away.

“We sold more gear in New York than the Knicks,” Huggins said.

Cat Scratch Fever

From 1997 to 2002, the Cincinnati Bearcats became a trendsetting program thanks to powerful play and daring design.

The team took pride in the uniforms while opponents expressed envy.

“We played Rhode Island,” former Bearcat guard Alex Meacham told Boardroom in 2021. “Cuttino Mobley was like, ‘Yo these are crazy!’ And you know Cuttino was a fashion guy and still is. He just kept looking and looking.”

Soon, the Cincy style was a recruiting edge for top talent that wanted to be the freshest of the fresh. Just as quickly, other schools followed suit.

“Everywhere we’d go, every team would be so jealous of our gear, our uniform, our shoes,” Meacham said. “Guys would say, ‘Man, I shoulda went to Cincinnati…’”

The Jordan Brand backing — one that came with countless kicks and exclusive apparel — spoke to a new generation of hoopers who grew up idolizing Mike. By breaking the mold with the jerseys and shorts, the young subsidiary spoke directly to its targeted talent.

“The first thing that stuck out was those uniforms,” Kansas legend and former Bearcat recruit Keith Langford told Boardroom in 2021. “They were the first ones with the stripes on the side and the cut-off look. It was just so dope.”

The dopeness derived from the Cincinnati Cat Scratch shorts design was singular to the Bearcats at first. While rarity kept the Ohio school cool, mass marketing made the Nike off-shoot a billion-dollar brand.

Thinking on their feet, the designers and execs at Jordan Brand realized they could extrapolate to other inline apparel offerings.

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By the early ’00s, Jordan Brand began producing retail renditions of the famous Cat Scratch shorts sans Bearcat branding in various shades of blues and alternate iterations in red and black.

Not only were the baggy trunks a fan favorite on Eastbay, but the single style was paramount in making massive Jordan Brand shorts a fad for years to come.

Still, even the high-priced, long-legged retail replicas couldn’t touch the Real McCoy.

“My mom is in fashion design and has been her whole life,” Meacham said. “She loved them because they looked great on two levels. When you saw them up close the detail was amazing and if you were sitting up high in the stands at a game, they looked so cool from a distance because of those blocks.”

By the early ’00s, the Cincinnati Cat Scratch shorts were a mainstream hit at malls and in mail-order catalogs.

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Soon, Cincinnati Basketball modernized its design to drop and elongate the blocking as a means of differentiation. Though James White and Jason Maxiell kept the look relevant at retail, the tide was turning behind the scenes.

In the Fall of 2005, Andy Kennedy took over the Bearcat program and Fifth Third took Cincinnati’s arena naming rights. No longer led by Huggins, Jordan Brand broke with Cincinnati. Adidas outfitted the Bearcats by 2007 before the program turned to Under Armour.

For years, the Cat Scratch style remained relegated to deep-dive searches on eBay or unlikely finds on Poshmark.

Now, they’re back for the first time.

Letting Out the Claws

Growing up in Bobby Knight’s Indiana, Josh Barnett bore a love for basketball and the fashion attached to it.

From the candy-striped pants the Hoosiers wore in warmups to the argyle shorts adorned by Jerry Stackhouse at North Carolina, every element of hoop culture in college basketball meant the world to him.

When Barnett decided to start nostalgia basketball apparel company 19nine in 2011, the Midwest native knew licensing rights were the first step when it came to signing schools and telling stories.

With a laundry list of schools set to target, one remained incredibly meaningful, but also elusive.

“We worked hard to get that Cincinnati license,” Barnett, the VP and co-founder of 19nine, told Boardoom. “With all of the schools, we get on the phone and talk about our passion for the program. It’s genuine and it’s real. What we want to do is bring those stories back to life the best we can through products.”

So far, so good.

Over the course of the last decade, Barnett’s been able to bring back the Durasheen shorts worn by the Fab 5 and even the denim jorts Antoine Walker won a National Championship in when hooping for Kentucky. It’s the through-line of March Madness memories and sport style nostalgia that make 19nine a power player in the college apparel game.

Still, a white wale for anyone of his origin and era remained Cincinnati’s Cat Scratch shorts.

“Cincinnati 99-00 is one of the greatest what-if stories,” Barnett said. “Kenyon Martin broke his leg right before the NCAA Tournament. People remember those shorts.”

Reaching an agreement with Martin Ludwig, UC’s Associate Vice President for Trademarks and Licensing, Barnett was able to produce, sell, and tell stories around Cincy hoops in the form of apparel.

Once the rights were secured, 19nine’s Creative Director Matt Breivogel began sourcing original game shorts from the 1999 team to make the retro revival a reality.

“I know Matt went to great lengths to get them perfect,” Barnett said.

That may sound hyperbolic for such a simple, yet striking short. But 19nine took no shortcuts.

“We had to get the blocking on the side of the shorts correct,” Breivogel told Boardroom. “We had to get the embroidery and the butt logo the right size, we got game-used shorts to get everything. Even the folding in the waistband is as close as possible.”

If the attention to detail made the originals a hit, the same energy had to be felt through the 2023 release.

Made more modern by slight tweaks to weight and material, the Legacy remake — an homage to the authentic game short that change college basketball — is back for the first time at 19nine for $115.

Though it’s unlikely the retro return will spark the same long tail legs as the original arrival, the Midwest classic will hit home hardest with locals that still consider Bob Huggins their coach.

“Cincinnati is our most fanatical fan base,” Barnett said. “They’re the craziest and the best.”

It’s all an homage to a moment when amateur basketball in Ohio was changing the style of a sport played and sold all over the world.

“That design was so different for that time,” Meacham said. “In that space, uniforms got very boring. Those uniforms were so far left, but they weren’t so far left that they looked bad. Ours garnered a lot of attention and everyone thought they were slick.”

For a complete Oral History of Cincinnati’s Air Jordan era from Boardroom, click here.

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The post The Legend of the ‘Cat Scratch’ Cincinnati Shorts appeared first on Boardroom.

Be honest: How many men’s Final Four teams did you get right when you filled out your 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket on Selection Sunday?

I’ll buy that you had one. UConn was a trendy pick, Miami won the ACC, and San Diego State won a really good Mountain West Conference. You could have gotten one of them. But did you have more than one of those teams? No. No, you did not.

Yet, here we stand. On Saturday night, the Owls of Florida Atlantic (!) will play SDSU and UConn will face the Canes in the national semifinals in Houston. Between them, the four teams have a combined six Final Four appearances — all from Connecticut. Miami’s Jim Larrañaga is the only head coach left standing with Final Four experience, though he did so with unsung George Mason back in 2006.

So how does one possibly go about deciding odds in this wacky, wild Final Four? You don’t, of course. Instead, you turn to our friends at FanDuel Sportsbook — check out all the latest numbers below.

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Final Four Odds 2023: Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament

All betting odds via FanDuel Sportsbook as of Monday, March 27, 2023.

National Semifinals

• FAU +1.5 (-102)
• San Diego State -1.5 (-120)

• Miami +5.5 (-106)
• UConn -5.5 (114)

To Win Championship:

• UConn: -125
• San Diego State: +360
• Miami: +490
• FAU: +600

@boardroom_ 90 TEAMS in the NCAA Tournament?!? #marchmadness #ncaabasketball #collegebasketball #collegesports #finalfour ♬ original sound – Boardroom

National Championship Exacta

• UConn over San Diego State: +220
• UConn over FAU: +260
• San Diego State over UConn: +550
• FAU over UConn: +750
• Miami over San Diego State: +950
• Miami over FAU: +1000
• San Diego State over Miami: +1100
• FAU over Miami: +1600

Final Four Most Outstanding Player Futures Betting Odds

• Adama Sanogo (UConn): +270
• Jordan Hawkins (UConn): +330
• Isaiah Wong (Miami): +1200
• Darrion Trammell (San Diego State):+1200
• Johnell Davis (FAU): +1400
• Matt Bradley (San Diego State): +1500
• Andre Jackson Jr. (UConn): +1500
• Lamont Butler (San Diego State): +1500
• Jordan Miller (Miami): +1900
• Alijah Martin (FAU): +2100
• Nijel Pack (Miami): +2400
• Vladislav Goldin (FAU): +2600
• Jaedon LeDee (San Diego State): +3400
• Nathan Mensah (San Diego State): +3400
• Norchad Omier (Miami): +4200

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The post Men’s Final Four Odds: Is it UConn vs. the Field to Cut Down the Nets? appeared first on Boardroom.

As a program without an NCAA Tournament win since 2000, St. John’s men’s basketball needs a spark. Two-time national champion and Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Pitino was hired to deliver just that.

“It’s not about when or if. It’s going to happen for St. John’s,” the 70-year-old Pitino said at his introductory press conference Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. Pitino signed a six-year deal on Monday to become the Red Storm’s newest head coach.

Pitino returns to a major conference job for the first time since 2017 when Louisville fired him following an FBI investigation into widespread corruption in college basketball. As the former head coach of the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, the New York City native has led five teams to 23 NCAA Tournament appearances, reached seven Final Fours with three different schools — only John Calipari and C. Vivian Stringer have matched that feat — and won a national championship with Kentucky in 1996 and Louisville in 2013.

In 2018, the NCAA upheld a ruling that Louisville had to vacate its national title, making the Cardinals the first men’s basketball team to do so in the Final Four era. The program also vacated 123 wins between 2011 and 2015 due to the Cardinals program “arranging striptease dances and sex acts for prospects, student-athletes and others.”

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When the university introduced Pitino on Tuesday, 98-year-old coaching legend Lou Carnesecca was in attendance. Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman delivered introductory remarks, praising Carnesecca and welcoming Pitino back to the conference.

“We all know that mediocrity on the hardwood is an unacceptable outcome for you,” Ackerman said, addressing Pitino. “Successful college basketball today requires clear vision, significant resources, sustained effort, an NIL game plan, and inspired leadership at the very top.”

After Louisville fired him, Pitino wasn’t sure if another school would ever hire him. He went to Greece in 2018 to coach the Greek national team and EuroLeague power Panathinaikos. On a trip to Spain, while he prepared to coach against Real Madrid, he met with representatives from Iona. The college not only offered him a lifeline to return to coach in the NYC suburb of New Rochelle, but gave him a contract with no buyout if he wanted to leave for a bigger job. After two NCAA Tournament appearances in three seasons, St. John’s came calling.

“I deserve it because I’ve earned it,” Pitino said. “I’ve never cheated the game. I never gave a player anything he didn’t deserve in life. You don’t get anything for free in this life — you have to earn it, you have to deserve it. You have to earn the respect of your players. And I want you to judge what I do for my players and on the basketball court.”

Citing March Madness upstarts who won tournament games this month in Pittsburgh and Missouri, Pitino said that without question, you can win right away in college hoops. But in quoting Hall of Fame coach Frank McGuire, who played and coached at SJU, Pitino said the biggest key is getting players.

“I was put in the Hall of Fame and I didn’t score one point, didn’t grab one rebound, didn’t have one assist,” he said. “My players put me every step along the way into that elite company. It’s not only strategy, it’s not only motivation, but it’s really getting players that fit your system. I need guys that can shoot the basketball, not fatigue, get after it defensively.”

While Pitino plans to build around 6’11 center Joel Soriano (15.2 PPG, 11.9 RPG) next season, he said he didn’t get great reports on the character of all his teammates. Pitino foresees St. John’s having six to eight new players in the fall.

“A lot of players probably won’t be back on this team because they’re probably not a good fit for me. It’ll be a round peg in a square hole,” Pitino said, taking over a team that went 18-15 last season and lost in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. “It takes a certain type of basketball player to want to play for me. He’s got to be total, over-the-top in love with the game of basketball. And if you’re not, it’s just a bad fit with me. It doesn’t work.”

Assured that he’ll get the resources to build a top-notch facility in Queens, Pitino said he’d work hard to bring in local recruits to help bring St. John’s back to glory.

“St. John’s represents something really special to every New York kid,” he said. “We’ll hit the streets very, very hard in the near future.”

Pitino grew up on 26th Street in Manhattan between Second and Third Avenues. He later moved to Long Island, and called being introduced on Tuesday one of the most special moments of his life, returning home to lead a storied New York City program. He insisted that there’s no real difference between the Red Storm and conference rivals UConn, Marquette, and Xavier.

“We’ve got to get players who are really committed to winning. Then you win. And it’s not going to be difficult. It really is not,” Pitino said. “Has it fallen on tough times? Yes it has. But now we’re ready to fall on great times, because St. John’s is going to be back. I guarantee that.”

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After two rounds of win-or-go-home basketball, who’s the best bet to win the men’s NCAA Tournament? Check out the latest March Madness odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

Perhaps your bracket’s entire Final Four is still alive and kicking. Perhaps you picked Purdue or Kansas or Arizona to win the men’s NCAA Tournament, in which case… well, there’s never a bad time to suspend all knowledge that college basketball exists in order to optimize your self-care routine. Please pause your reading of this article to drink some kombucha while you watch an ASMR video.

Folks, not everyone can win. Even if your bracket is thoroughly busted, however, you can still shuffle the deck and lay a few safe, legal wagers as the most exciting showcase in amateur sports approaches its second weekend — and that’s exactly what we’re here to help with now that the first weekend of the men’s half of March Madness is in the books.

Entering the Sweet 16, check out the latest odds to win the NCAA Tournament and to make the Final Four courtesy of our friends at FanDuel SportsBook.

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March Madness Odds 2023: Men’s NCAA Tournament

Click here to read Boardroom’s overview of FanDuel Sportsbook’s pre-tournament odds for March Madness 2023.

To Win the National Championship

• Alabama: +320 (pre-tournament odds: +800)
• Houston: +400 (+490)
• UCLA: +850 (+1200)
• UConn: +900
• Creighton: +950
• Texas: +1000
• Tennessee: +1100
• Gonzaga: +1200
• Michigan State: +2500
• Kansas State: +3000
• Arkansas: +4000
• San Diego State: +4000
• Xavier: +4500
• Miami: +4800
• FAU: +5000
• Princeton: +15000

@boardroom_ 90 TEAMS in the NCAA Tournament?!? #marchmadness #ncaabasketball #collegebasketball #collegesports #finalfour ♬ original sound – Boardroom

To Win the West Region

• UCLA: +185
• UConn: +185
• Gonzaga: +230
• Arkansas: +600

To Win the South Region

• Alabama: -145
• Creighton: +800
• San Diego State: +650
• Princeton: +2500

To Win the Midwest Region

• Houston: -115
• Texas: +190
• Xavier: +650
• Miami: +700

To Win the East Region

• Tennessee: +120
• Michigan State: +270
• Kansas State: +320
• FAU: +470

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The post Men’s March Madness Odds: Who’s Hottest Entering the Sweet 16? appeared first on Boardroom.

As the second March Madness in the NIL era picks up, athletes and brands are still trying to strike a perfect balance. The NCAA Tournament provides the biggest stage for college basketball players, giving them more publicity than ever before and providing the perfect opportunity for a major brand activation. It’s also the most important time of year for athletes on the court, meaning their focus needs to be almost entirely dedicated to their craft.

Squaring the two isn’t easy.

Caroline Ducharme, a former No. 5 recruit in her class, is doing her best to figure it out. As a guard for the No. 2 seed UConn Huskies, she’s had more than her share of name, image, and likeness monetization opportunities. She’s inked endorsement deals already with Bumble, Moolah Kicks, and Degree, and recently signed on to Great Clips’ Mach Madness campaign.

“My focus in March is March Madness, and so is theirs right now,” Ducharme told Boardroom of working with the salon franchise. “I like when I can post stuff about things that matter to me and it’s not just what I was doing over the weekend.”

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Ducharme’s Huskies captured the 2023 Big East Tournament title on March 6, giving the team a 12-day layoff before their NCAA Tournament opener against Vermont. It was a much-needed rest for an injury-riddled team.

It also gave Ducharme a chance to stay active in the NIL space.

“There’s a time and place for everything. Today is an off day, so it’s a great opportunity to do stuff like this,” she said of her Great Clips campaign. “But then once the tournament starts, that’s my complete focus, and I think people are understanding of that.”

She said that last Wednesday. Come Thursday afternoon, the Huskies entered tournament mode as the other three teams in their pod descended on Storrs. While UConn isn’t the favorite to win the national championship (that distinction belongs overwhelmingly to South Carolina), the Huskies might have more pressure on them than anyone else.

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Every rotation player for Geno Auriemma’s squad but two missed time to injury this year, including star Paige Bueckers and freshman Ice Brady, who both suffered season-ending injuries in the preseason. As a result, UConn had to postpone a game because it didn’t have enough active players to suit up. The team also dropped consecutive contests for the first time in 30 years and lost multiple conference games for the first time in a decade.

Today, however, the Huskies are as healthy as they’ll get as they put their 14-year Final Four streak on the line, with their latest test arriving March 20 in the form of a second-round meeting with seventh-seeded Baylor. To Ducharme, it all means this team is uniquely prepared for what’s to come.

“It does make it easier knowing that you’re not alone and there are four or five other people who are trying to do the same thing you’re doing,” she said. “Everyone’s staying mentally tough and locked in on what we’re doing, and knowing that everyone’s going through something, and everyone’s having a hard time and everyone’s dealing with something outside of basketball. Just [staying] focused on us and [helping] each other through it, I think has been huge.”

Ducharme herself missed six weeks in the heart of the season while in concussion protocol. The 2022-23 Huskies’ top star, Azzi Fudd, is working her way back from a right knee injury. As she leads UConn through the bracket, fans can catch her in a Buick commercial airing throughout the tournament — Fudd posted the ad to her Instagram on Thursday afternoon, around the same time Ducharme posted her Great Clips video.

Don’t expect much more from them on social in the coming days. The Huskies have games to win.

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The post UConn’s Caroline Ducharme Takes Her NIL Talents to March Madness appeared first on Boardroom.

While some college basketball players’ social media feeds are flooded with traditional branded posts in the days leading up to the 2023 NCAA Tournament, Notre Dame star Olivia Miles is instead adding a new job title with her latest NIL deal.

The AP All-American point guard, who will miss the Tournament with a knee injury, is joining Playa Society — the lifestyle brand focused on bridging the gap for women’s sports — as their first college athlete partner and with the title of Director of Growth and Innovation.

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In addition to designing her own limited edition “See No Limits” statement t-shirt — playing off of her mentality and on-court glasses — Miles will assist the brand in building a roster of fellow female college athletes who share the same vision for elevating women’s sports and who can help further establish Playa Society’s “Player-First” brand mission.

“This is not a one-time, come-and-go NIL deal,” Miles told Boardroom. “I have the opportunity to work with Playa Society beyond my t-shirt launch and that is what I’m most excited about. I love being more involved in the company — helping them build and having a say in their future. This is definitely a unique partnership and absolutely different from my other deals.”

Founded by former college and professional basketball player and coach Esther Wallace, Playa Society is an official partner of the WNBA and WNBPA and specializes in unisex apparel that supports gender equality and social justice. Their famous FEMALE ATHLETE t-shirt was front and center the past few years across the WNBA and NWSL as a key statement piece in the gender equality movement in sports.

Miles told Boardroom she’s been a longtime follower of Playa Society, first engaging with the brand via Instagram and then securing this unique NIL partnership and job title through her agent Kailey Edwards of Voltage Management.

“This feels like another full-circle moment for Playa Society, to have Olivia Miles join our team as our first NIL-sponsored athlete during our fifth year in business,” said Wallace, who also serves as CEO and creative director. “We’re all really big fans of Olivia’s game, her on-court energy, confidence, and her overall vibe. But, what’s even better is that we know we have a shared interest in making a big mark on women’s basketball as a whole.”

Perhaps the only college athlete with a job title attached to a NIL deal, Miles is no stranger to “firsts,” as a year ago she became the first freshman in history — man or woman — to record a triple-double in the NCAA Tournament … in her March Madness debut, no less. She added another two this year, already tops in program history.

After an even bigger sophomore campaign where she led Notre Dame (25-5, ACC regular season champions) in rebounds, assists, and steals while ranking second on the team in points, Miles finished as runner-up for ACC Player of the Year and as a finalist for the Dawn Staley Award, celebrating the top guard in the nation.

But as versatile as Miles is on the court, it’s her perspective off of it — and strategic NIL thinking — that separates her from her peers.

“I’m big on building relationships, maintaining and growing those partnerships,” Miles added. “Being a part of a greater cause to push women’s basketball even further is truly special and I cannot wait to get started building with Playa Society.”

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In addition to her knee surgery recovery, Miles plans to spend her offseason adding to her resume even more with multiple sports business internships. She’s focused on using her platform to continue to push the business side of women’s sports forward, starting with her Playa Society position and expanding into other spaces.

“As Director of Growth & Innovation, Olivia will use her expertise to help us build a dynamic roster of additional NIL athletes and bridge the gap for collegiate women’s basketball,” Wallace added, “Much like our first project together which flaunts the statement ‘See No Limits,’ we plan to challenge the status quo and share that confidence with like-minded athletes.”

Playa Society will release Miles’ limited edition “See No Limits” statement t-shirt at a pop-up store in Dallas on April 1 during Women’s Final Four weekend.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with such an amazing group of women as I’ve always admired their mission and commitment to pushing the game forward,” Miles shared. “Everything they drop is so creative and being able to learn and add to the process is something I can’t wait to get started.”

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The post Notre Dame Star Olivia Miles Adds New Title with Playa Society Partnership appeared first on Boardroom.

Using analytics from KenPom, BartTorvik, and numberFire’s nERD formula, let’s identify the most under-seeded teams in the men’s 2023 NCAA Tournament field.

Given that we can be surprised over how certain teams are seeded on Selection Sunday, it’s no surprise that sometimes there are teams that are, perhaps, under-seeded based on how good they truly are.

We have an easy way to determine that here at numberFire: we can compare each team’s nERD score — a metric we use to represent an expected point differential over an average opponent on a neutral court — to the historical average of their given seed.

Simple.

Now, in order to enhance your bracket and betting picks with the most underrated March Madness teams of 2023, here are the 10 squads with the largest gaps between their nERD and the historical seed average for this year’s men’s NCAA Tournament.

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10. Auburn Tigers (9 Seed, Midwest)

• nERD: 11.64
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.28

At 20-12, the Auburn Tigers drew a 9-seed in the Midwest region, but numberFire’s model sees them more as a No. 7 seed.

While you need to win games no matter what, the Tigers were just 4-7 in games decided by five points or fewer. That’s the sixth-worst winning percentage in close games among all 68 tournament teams.

Our model is leaning on them to be able to beat Iowa in their 8-9 matchup in the Midwest.

9. Creighton Bluejays (6 Seed, South)

• nERD: 13.50
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.29

Another team with bad luck in close games is the Creighton Bluejays, who went 3-6 in close games, ranking them fifth by win percentage among tournament squads.

KenPom actually ranks the Bluejays 13th overall thanks to a top-30 offense and defense. They’re 329th in KenPom’s luck rating, and we could see a Sweet 16 run through the North Carolina State Wolfpack and Baylor Bears (or the California-Santa Barbara Gauchos).

8. Gonzaga Bulldogs (3 Seed, West)

• nERD: 15.94
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.37

The Gonzaga Bulldogs rank sixth in numberFire’s power rankings and are eighth at KenPom and seventh at BartTorvik. Despite top-eight marks by the metrics, they’re not a 2 seed but rather a 3 seed.

The Zags are 6-4 against Quad 1 teams but have better underlying efficiency in those games than the record implies.

As a team that always has high hopes in March, the Bulldogs may finally surprise us this year after getting off to a slow start to the season.

7. UCLA Bruins (No. 2 Seed, West)

• nERD: 17.81
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.45

The UCLA Bruins are third or better in the power rankings here at numberFire and over at BartTorvik and KenPom. However, they drew a 2 seed in the West.

The team has all the trends that eventual champions possess but are dealing with injuries to junior guard Jaylen Clark (out for the season) and freshman center Adem Bona (whose status for the tournament remains unclear).

It’s a super-talented squad that can’t be overlooked.

6. Arkansas Razorbacks (No. 8 Seed, West)

• nERD: 12.71
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.51

Let’s go back to the close-game discussion. The Arkansas Razorbacks are 3-5 in five-point games. They’re 4-10 against Quad 1 opponents, too.

Overall, then, Arkansas’ season has been marred by injuries and underperformance. BartTorvik ranks them 11th in the nation in talent rating, which accounts for recruiting ratings and playing volume.

A dangerous team, Arkansas seems to have an edge over another team that isn’t exactly ripping off wins, the Illinois Fighting Illini, in the opening round.

5. Florida Atlantic Owls (No. 9 Seed, East)

• nERD: 12.26
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.90

What’s that? A team that’s actually been good in close games? Yep. The FAU Owls are 9-1 in five-point games, but they’re also 31-3 overall, so it’s natural that they had some good luck in close matchups.

They’re 2-1 in three Quad 1 games, all three of which were on the road.

Ultimately, they’re a bit untested, as a result, but they rank 20th at numberFire, 30th at BartTorvik, and 26th at KenPom.

4. Connecticut Huskies (No. 4 Seed, West)

• nERD: 16.01
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +1.93

Another team that has the makings of a future champion, the Connecticut Huskies have twice been the exception to all the rules when it comes to winning the Big Dance in recent years.

Of their eight losses, four of them were by five points or fewer, and they were actually 0-4 in five-point games. That makes them the only tournament team without a close win all season.

By and large, this is a great team, and it’s surprising to see them as a 4 seed. nERD thinks they should be a 2 seed.

3. Tennessee Volunteers (No. 4 Seed, East)

• nERD: 16.19
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +2.11

Up next, we’ve got another No. 4 seed that’s close to a historical 2-seed. The reason for it is that the Tennessee Volunteers, behind the nation’s best defense, are coming in underrated from an overall efficiency standpoint.

Your offense has to be really bad to waste the country’s top defense, but I will point out that their offense ranks poorly enough that they may not be a great pick to win it all.

In total, they’re 7-7 in Quad 1 games with an adjusted offensive efficiency that would rank them 86th in such matchups. They’re a strong 4 seed but will need to answer questions offensively if they want to beat 67 other teams.

2. West Virginia Mountaineers (No. 9 Seed, South)

• nERD: 12.50
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +2.14

Overall on the season, the West Virginia Mountaineers rate out as an underrated squad, but I will point out that they’re only 5-5 over their past 10 games.

Still, they rank 19th here at numberFire and at BartTorvik; KenPom has them even better (17th).

The record (19-14) doesn’t reflect the underlying data, which tells us this is a top-15 offense and a top-50 defense. nERD has them close to a historical 6 seed.

1. Utah State Aggies (No. 10 Seed, South)

• nERD: 12.98
• nERD vs. Seed Average: +2.51

No list of 2023’s most underrated March Madness teams is complete without the Aggies. The metrics really believe in Utah State, who boast a top-15 adjusted offense in the nation.

The numberFire model ranks them 16th in the nation. KenPom’s got the Aggies 18th overall, while BartTorvik ranks them 25th.

Their nERD score is close to a historical 5-seed (13.28) or 6-seed (12.21). That’s why our algorithm really likes their odds against the Missouri Tigers in the 7-10 matchup in the South region.

— Brandon Gdula

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The post Top Algorithms Reveal the Most Underrated Men’s March Madness Teams of 2023 appeared first on Boardroom.

Julius Pringles, the mustachioed man on the iconic Pringles potato chip can better known as Mr. P, is getting some company on the iconic brand’s packaging this month as part of a limited-edition March Madness name, image, and likeness campaign.

The Pringles March Mustache Collection will see Mr. P joined on cans this month by three men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament participants with some dope ‘staches, Gonzaga‘s Drew Timme, Duke‘s Dariq Whitehead, and Virginia‘s Ben Vander Plas, the company announced Wednesday. The collection honors four different types of mustaches: the Pringle, the horseshoe, the pencil, and the caterpillar. Flavors included in the campaign will be original, cheddar cheese, BBQ, and sour cream and onion.

“My mustache has always been part of my identity and it’s amazing to see the facial fuzz trend catch the attention of one of the most beloved ‘stache’d sporting brands,” Timme said. “I’m pumped to be featured on these new cans with some of my favorite ‘stached opponents. Game on, fellas.” 

Starting Wednesday, March 15 and running through the day after the men’s national championship game on April 4, fans can enter to win the Pringles March Mustache Collection prize by showing off their NCAA Tournament-inspired ‘state by using the #PringlesMarchMustacheEntry hashtag on Instagram. Timme, Whitehead, and Vander Plas will also be interacting with fans throughout March Madness on their own IG accounts as they hope their teams play as well on the court as they maintain their own facial hair.

“Pringles has a deep bench of ingenious flavors and ‘staches of all flavors are having a moment on college basketball courts,” Mauricio Jenkins, Pringles’ US marketing lead, said. “We’re thrilled to celebrate the sensational players whose unique ‘stache flavor has bewitched the hearts of fans everywhere and give fans nationwide a chance to join in the ‘stache fun.” 

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The post Pringles NIL Campaign Celebrates the Mustaches of March Madness appeared first on Boardroom.

The annual tradition returns! Let’s predict the tastiest 5-12 upsets for March Madness 2023 using analytics from the bleeding edge.

Over the years, the 12-5 game has been a go-to spot to find March Madness upsets. That was the case last year as a pair of 12-seeds won in the first round.

Over the last 20 NCAA Tournaments, there have been 33 instances of a No. 12 seed knocking off a No. 5 seed, meaning the 12-seed has won 41.2% of the time in that span. Only three times in the past 20 tourneys has there been a dance without a 12-5 upset.

Everyone wants to nail upset picks — whether you’re betting or you’re in a bracket pool — so let’s go through this year’s 5-12 games and see which are most likely to end in a 12 seed winning, ranking them from least to most probable, according to our projections.

We will be referencing our nERD metric as well as numbers from KenPom and BartTorvik. (nERD measures the number of points we’d expect a team to win by against an average opponent on a neutral court.) We’ll also be using college basketball odds from FanDuel Sportsbook.

Let’s talk 12-5 upsets March Madness style.

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Most Likely 5-12 Upsets at 2023 March Madness

4. Saint Mary’s (5) vs. VCU (12)

SPREAD: Saint Mary’s -3.5 | numberFire Win Odds: VCU 20.2%

Our model likes Saint Mary’s a little more than the early lines do as we give the Gaels a 79.8% chance to prevail over Virginia Commonwealth in the first round.

This is more about Saint Mary’s being really good than anything negative about VCU. Saint Mary’s is under-seeded as a five and has been one of the best teams in the nation all year. We rank them 11th overall. KenPom and BartTorvik slot the Gaels 11th and 9th, respectively.

On KenPom, Saint Mary’s ranks 40th in adjusted offense and 9th in adjusted defense. As I said, they’re really dang good, and they’ve lost just once since January 18th to someone other than Gonzaga — and it was an overtime loss on the road to Loyola Marymount.

VCU is 17th in adjusted defense but an underwhelming 140th in adjusted offense. One thing VCU has going for it in this matchup is that Saint Mary’s plays at a snail’s pace, ranking 359th in adjusted tempo. Fewer possessions leads to an increase in variance, which can aid the underdog.

Plus, oddsmakers are into them, making VCU just a 2.5-point ‘dog (as of early Monday), so while VCU clearly has a chance to pull the upset, our numbers say they’re the least likely 12 seed to win.

3. San Diego State (5) vs. College of Charleston (12)

SPREAD: San Diego State -5.5 | numberFire Win Odds: Charleston 23.8%

This one is very similar to the last one — San Diego State was a bit under-seeded and should be too much for Charleston.

The Aztecs are 14th by nERD, 14th by KenPom and 11th by BartTorvik. They went 27-6 and have an argument to be a 3 or 4 seed. KenPom puts SDSU 10th in defense and 64th in offense. The Aztecs have lost only twice since January 18th, and they just beat a quality Utah State team — one that can bust brackets this year — in the Mountain West Tournament title game.

Charleston went 31-3, so they know how to get it done. But by most metrics, they’re clearly a step or two behind the Aztecs. nERD ranks the Cougars 67th. KenPom (73rd) and BartTorvik (72nd) are a smidge lower on them than we are. KenPom has the Cougars 70th in offense and 75th in defense.

If you’re looking for a reason to back Charleston, pace is it. Charleston sits 29th in adjusted tempo and could make things uncomfortable for a San Diego State squad that is just 252nd in adjusted tempo.

2. Duke (5) vs. Oral Roberts (12)

SPREAD: Duke -6.5 | numberFire Win Odds: Oral Roberts 36.5%

Our numbers see this one quite a bit differently than oddsmakers do. By the 6.5-point spread, this game is the least likely 12-5 upset. But we give Oral Roberts a 36.5% chance to advance, the second-best win odds for a 12 in this season’s first round.

Duke enters the tourney on a heater and is playing as well as anyone in the country. The Blue Devils have won nine in a row, including a run to the ACC Tournament crown, besting Virginia by 10 in the final. KenPom and BartTorvik put Duke 21st overall while we place them 24th. They’re obviously a stout team.

If you want to poke holes in the Blue Devils’ resume, you can nitpick their good fortune in close games. During their current nine-game win streak, Duke won three games that were decided by five or fewer points. They actually lost just two such games this season — although another one of their defeats was a seven-point overtime loss — and rate as the 57th-luckiest team in the nation by KenPom’s Luck rating. Also, it was a down year for the ACC as KenPom has Duke as the lone ACC team in the top 30.

Oral Roberts is on a big-time run, too. The Golden Eagles tore through the Summit Conference with an unbeaten 18-0 record. Their last loss came on January 9th.

Of course, the Summit kind of stinks, but ORU did test themselves out of conference, playing Houston, Saint Mary’s, Utah State, New Mexico (54th by BartTorvik), and Liberty (44th). While Oral Roberts defeated only Liberty from that group, they fell by just eight at Saint Mary’s and shouldn’t be shell-shocked by Duke.

ORU’s calling card is offense. Not only do they rate 23rd by KenPom’s adjusted offense, they push the pace (38th in adjusted tempo) and fire up a ton of threes (16th in three-point attempt rate). That gives them a high ceiling if they’re knocking down shots, and that is something they often do, boasting the 47th-best three-point percentage (36.9%).

1. Miami (5) vs. Drake (12)

SPREAD: Miami -2.5 | numberFire Win Odds: Drake 39.4%

Miami looks like the worst of the five-seeds.

The nERD formula puts Miami just 42nd — nearly 20 spots behind the next-worst five seed. KenPom has the ‘Canes 40th, and BartTorvik sees them as the nation’s 38th-best team. KenPom has Miami behind two teams that didn’t make the tournament (Rutgers and Oklahoma State).

What Miami is elite at is offense, ranking 12th by adjusted offense. They’re not very good on D, though, slotting in 107th in adjusted defense. While a 15-5 ACC record is impressive, the ACC was not as good as it usually is.

Ranking this game as the most likely to end in a 5-12 upset is more about Miami than it is about Drake.

With that said, Drake is a solid team. The Bulldogs have gone 14-1 over the previous 15 games and ended the year playing their best ball in a 26-point beatdown of Bradley in the Missouri Valley Conference title game.

Drake has five wins over teams that ranked inside the BartTorvik top 100 at the time of their matchup, and with a BartTorvik rating of 42nd in defense and 68th in offense, they’re a well-rounded group — one that is more than capable of making a run in this year’s dance.

They can flat-out stroke it, too, nailing 37.3% of their threes this season, the 32nd-best clip, and in Tucker DeVries — a guy who averages 19.0 points per game and shot 38.7% from deep — the Bulldogs have a star who can take over games.

Going by the spread (-2.5) and our model’s win odds (60.6% for Miami), the Hurricanes are fully on upset alert in the first round.

— Austan Kas 

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The post What Are the Most Likely 12 vs. 5 Upsets at the Men’s NCAA Tournament? appeared first on Boardroom.

Get set for the official start of the men’s side of March Madness with our best NCAA First Four predictions and the latest game-by-game odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.

After an exciting couple of weeks of conference tournaments, the college basketball world is ready to turn its attention to perhaps the greatest sporting event of the year: the NCAA Tournament.

With March Madness ready to kick off on Tuesday with 2023’s men’s NCAA First Four, let’s take a look at the four games to be played on March 14 and 15 that will decide two of the 16-seeds and two of the 11-seeds that make the final 64-team field.

To view FanDuel Sportsbook’s complete 2023 Men’s NCAA Tournament odds, click here.

2023 NCAA Tournament Play-in Games

1. No. 16 Southeast Missouri State vs. No. 16 Texas A&M Corpus-Christi

South Region – First Four

Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Time: 6:40 p.m. ET
Venue: UD Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Coverage: truTV
Spread: SEMS: +4.5 (-120) | TAMCC: -4.5 (-102)
Winner advances to face: No. 1 Alabama
Final score prediction: Texas A&M-CC 83, Southeast Missouri State 76
Best bet: Over 155.5 Total Points (-105)

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2. No. 11 Pittsburgh vs. No. 11 Mississippi State

Midwest Region – First Four

Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Time: 9:10 p.m. ET
Venue: UD Arena, Dayton, Ohio
TV coverage: TruTV
Spread: PITT: +1.5 (-106) | MISS: -1.5 (-114)
Winner advances to face: No. 6 Iowa State
Final score prediction: Pittsburgh 71, Mississippi State 65
Best bet: Pitt Panthers ML (+110)

3. No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson vs. No. 16 Texas Southern

East Region – First Four

Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2022
Time: 6:40 p.m. ET
Venue: UD Arena, Dayton, Ohio
TV coverage: truTV
Spread: FD: +2.5 (-120) | TXSO: -2.5 (-102)
Winner advances to face: No. 1 Purdue
Final score prediction: Texas Southern 75, Farleigh Dickinson 70
Best bet: Texas Southern Tigers -2.5 (-102)

4. No. 11 Nevada vs. No. 11 Arizona State

West Region – First Four

Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Time: 9:10 p.m. ET
Venue: UD Arena, Dayton, Ohio
TV coverage: truTV
Spread: NEV: +2.5 (-120) | ASU: -2.5 (-102)
Winner advances to face: No. 6 TCU
Final score prediction: Arizona State 73, Nevada 68
Best bet: Arizona State -2.5 (102)

2023 March Madness Bracket

The bracket can be viewed below, but a printable version can be accessed by scrolling down to the link in the next section. The Duel will update the bracket throughout the tournament following each round.

— David Kaestle

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The post The Madness Begins: Who’s Making it Out of the NCAA Tournament’s First Four? appeared first on Boardroom.

Get ready for March Madness with the latest NCAA women’s basketball tournament championship odds, courtesy of FanDuel SportsBook.

The bracket is set and the field of 68 for the 2023 women’s NCAA Tournament is official. You know what that means: One of the year’s biggest sports betting events is on.

South Carolina is the overwhelming favorite to repeat as national champs, to the point where you can’t even get plus money on picking the Gamecocks to win it all at -165. Stanford and UConn are the odds-on biggest threats to Aliyah Boston and Co. cutting down the nets at +700, with Indiana not far behind at +800. You can even get the field at +120 to win it all if you don’t like South Carolina at -165.

With some help from our friends at FanDuel Sportsbook, here are the latest 2023 women’s March Madness odds:

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2023 Women’s March Madness Odds

National Champion

• South Carolina: -165
• UConn: +700
• Stanford: +700
• Indiana: +800
• Iowa: +2000
• LSU: +3000
• Maryland: +3500
• Utah: +5000
• Notre Dame: +5000
• Virginia Tech: +5000
• Texas: +6500
• Ohio State: +10000

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Stand up and take a bow, NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee. You got through yesterday without the angry mobs, baffled podcasters, and prolonged rants from snubbed coaches.

You mostly got it right. The 1 and 2 seeds are almost exactly as predicted. The only potential snub, Rutgers, lost seven out of its last 10 and has no clear argument for being more deserving than any of the last teams in. You even set up what could be an all-timer at Madison Square Garden in the East Regional should Duke and Kentucky both advance to the Elite Eight.

You’re not perfect — I think you know that. While I won’t waste time quibbling about a seed line here or an unfortunate geographic placement there, I do have one complaint. And it’s something we seem to encounter every year. I’m talking, of course, about the No. 9 seed Florida Atlantic Owls and the complications their resume presents.

Florida Atlantic Owls Tournament Resume

Record: 29-3
NET: 13
KenPom: 26
Quad 1: 2-1 Quad 2: 4-2 Quad 3: 11-0 Quad 4: 12-0
Good wins: at North Texas, vs. UAB
Bad Loss: at Middle Tennessee

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The Problem

The difficulty in seeding a team like Florida Atlantic is simple — every metric, from the most basic (win-loss record) to the nerdiest (KenPom) suggests this is a really, really good team. But the most important criteria — every year — is “who did you beat and who beat you?”

The Owls have one win over a team in the NCAA Tournament field, and that’s the 16-seeded Northern Kentucky Norse. But FAU plays in Conference USA, and with all due respect, the league just isn’t good enough to give the Owls what they need to build a compelling resume. That means that while all logic suggests they should be seeded higher than 9, there aren’t any specific games to point to as evidence.

The NCAA has taken steps to address this issue but clearly has not gone far enough. The good news is the famous Team Sheets that the committee looks at to evaluate each team now include metrics like KenPom, Sagarin, and BPI, which also measure efficiency and should theoretically level the playing field. The NET, which replaced the RPI a few years back, also has efficiency ratings built into its formula.

The committee uses the NET to evaluate the quality of opponents that teams face, letting the rankings guide what constitutes a Quad 1, 2, 3, or 4 game. What it does not do, however, is use the NET to help clarify the quality of that team itself. A NET of 13 would suggest a 4 seed if that were the only criteria. That’s obviously not the case and I’m not saying that’s where FAU should have fallen. But that, with two Quad 1 wins in three opportunities, and no losses outside of the top two quadrants should make them better than a 9 seed.

What it Means for FAU

First, the obvious. As a 9 seed, the Owls have to play a red-hot Memphis team in the first round and, should they advance, No. 1 seed Purdue after that. FanDuel Sportsbook currently has Memphis as a 1.5-point favorite over FAU. If the Owls had been placed on the 7 line, probably closer to where they deserve to be, they’d be first-round favorites over a 10 seed that barely skirted the bubble.

Betting odds are far from the be-all-end-all, and the Owls can certainly beat the Tigers. But for a school like Florida Atlantic, which plays in a non-power conference making pennies off of media rights deals compared to the Power 5, an NCAA Tournament win (or two) can make a big difference. As we detailed ahead of last year’s tournament, one win in the men’s tournament could net a school well over a million dollars over the course of the next few years. By not valuing FAU as it should, the committee has decreased the likelihood of the Owls cashing in.

Now, zoom out. This is one problem with one team in a field of 68. The committee mostly got it right this year — it’s just that there’s an FAU every season and eventually I’d love to see them figure out how to seed them.

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To read Boardroom’s March Madness odds update entering the 2023 Sweet 16, click here.

The bracket is set and the field of 68 for the 2023 men’s NCAA Tournament is official. You know what that means: One of the year’s biggest sports betting events is on.

The fun part about this year? There’s no clear-cut heavy favorite. Sure, Houston has the best odds to go all the way, but at +490, it’s hardly a sure thing, especially with the health of Marcus Sasser in question. No. 1 overall seed Alabama is second at +800, but will the Tide’s off-court distractions catch up with them?

We’ll find out soon enough. For now, with some help from our friends at FanDuel SportsBook, here are the latest odds on the national champion, the Final Four, and the Sweet 16 for the men’s March Madness field.

2023 Men’s March Madness Odds

National Champion

• Houston: +490
• Alabama: +800
• Kansas: +1200
• Purdue: +1200
• UCLA: +1200
• Gonzaga: +1600
• Arizona: +1600
• Marquette: +1600
• Texas: +1600
• Tennessee: +2600
• Baylor: +2600
• UConn: +2600
• Duke: +3100
• Kentucky: +3700

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Final Four

West Region

• Kansas: +330
• UCLA: +340
• Gonzaga: +420
• UConn: +600
• TCU: +850
• Saint Mary’s: +1100

South Region

• Alabama: +190
• Arizona: +360
• Baylor: +550
• Creighton: +800
• Virginia: +1200
• San Diego State: +1500

Midwest Region

• Houston: +120
• Texas: +450
• Xavier: +900
• Texas A&M: +1000
• Indiana: +1200
• Miami: +1600

East Region

• Purdue: +300
• Marquette: +420
• Tennessee: +500
• Kentucky: +850
• Duke: +850
• Kansas State: +900

Sweet 16

• Alabama: -300 yes, +250 no
• Arizona: -225 yes, +180 no
• Baylor: +104 yes, -128 no
• Creighton: +168 yes, -210 no
• Duke: +154 yes, -192 no
• Gonzaga: -144 yes, +118 no
• Houston: -320 yes, +245 no
• Kansas: -225 yes, +180 no
• Kentucky: +160 yes, -200 no
• Marquette: -142 yes, +118 no
• Purdue: -188 yes, +152 no
• Tennessee: -110 yes, -110 no
• UCLA: -250 yes, +198 no
• Xavier: +106 yes, -130 no

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The post Men’s March Madness Odds: Houston Favored to Cut Down the Nets appeared first on Boardroom.

Alabama being the top overall seed in the men’s NCAA Tournament is going to be awkward and uncomfortable, and as long as Brandon Miller is playing, there’s no real way around that.

Last week, a grand jury indicted former Crimson Tide player Darius Miles and Miles’ friend Michael Davis on capital murder charges in the killing of 23-year-old Jamea Jonae Harris. Police interviewed the star freshman forward Miller — the 20-year-old SEC Player of the Year, SEC Rookie of the Year, and a projected top five pick in June’s NBA draft — along with teammate Jaden Bradley, as witnesses in the case. A Tuscaloosa police officer testified that Miller transported the firearm to Miles, which Miles ultimately used in the fatal shooting.

Miller and Bradley, who have not been charged in the case, have continued to play, and the 6’8 superstar Miller scored 23 points to go with 12 rebounds in ‘Bama’s 82-63 blowout of Texas A&M on Sunday to capture the SEC tournament championship. The first game after Miller’s involvement in this case came to light was a Feb. 22 ESPN matchup in Columbia against South Carolina. Gamecock fans chanted “lock him up,” which didn’t deter Miller in a 41-point performance including the game-winning bucket in overtime.

For that game, ESPN brought in veteran reporter Coley Harvey, who the network sent to Cincinnati to cover the Damar Hamlin story back in January, to detail the goings on within the Alabama program.

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Alabama head coach Nate Oats hasn’t helped matters. He apologized last month after describing Miller’s situation as being in the “wrong spot at the wrong time.” Not long after that, Oats took responsibility for a pregame starting lineup routine in which teammate Adam Cottrell patted down Miller, appearing to check him for weapons.

“We addressed it as a team,” Oats said. “As soon as I brought it up to them, they immediately understood how it could be interpreted. We all felt awful about it. They explained to me, it’s like when TSA checks you before you get on a plane. Now Brandon is cleared for takeoff. We as the adults in the room should have been more sensitive to how it could have been interpreted. I dropped the ball. We’ve addressed it. I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

During Sunday’s selection show on CBS, Alabama’s introduction as the tournament’s top overall seed got uncomfortable really quickly.

As long as Alabama remains alive in the tournament — and the Tide have the second-best odds to win the national championship at +800 on FanDuel SportsBook — studio hosts, analysts, reporters, and players are going to have to awkwardly dance around a serious legal matter every time the team takes the court.

CBS/Turner’s top broadcast team of Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill, and Tracy Wolfson will be the first that has to address the situation on the tournament stage. They’ll be on the call Thursday at 2:45 p.m. ET on CBS in Birmingham as the Crimson Tide take on the winner of Tuesday’s play-in game between Southeast Missouri State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. The eyes of the nation will be on that crew to not just to watch Brandon Miller and Alabama on the court, but to see how they handle the delicate situation of one of the country’s top players directly involved in a capital murder case.

Let’s just say it won’t be the easiest subject matter to discuss.

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Using formulas from numberFire, KenPom, and BartTorvik, let’s identify four March Madness Cinderella teams for the algorithmically inclined.

Part of what makes the NCAA Tournament so special is just how unpredictable it is.

We saw that play out last year when we got an Elite 8 matchup between 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s and eighth-seeded North Carolina — anyone can beat anyone on a given day.

Last year, five teams seeded eighth or worse made it to the Sweet 16, with three getting to the Elite 8 and one — UNC — going all the way to the title game. Two seasons ago, four double-digit seeds made it to the Elite 8, with one — UCLA — advancing to the Final Four.

So, which Cinderella teams could make some noise this season?

Using our nERD metric and numbers from both KenPom and BartTorvik — as well as college basketball odds from FanDuel Sportsbook — let’s take a look at four potential March Madness Cinderella teams who could wreak havoc on this year’s tournament.

(NOTE: nERD indicates expected point differential over an average opponent on a neutral floor.)

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Analytics-powered March Madness Cinderella Teams for 2023

Florida Atlantic (9 Seed, East Region)

• +112 underdog vs. Memphis in Round of 64 at FanDuel Sportsbook

Florida Atlantic is used to winning — they went 31-3 this year — and they have the tools to make some noise in this season’s big dance.

Our model is really high on the 9th-seeded Owls, ranking them 20th in the country. KenPom and BartTorvik aren’t quite as bullish but still view FAU pretty favorably, slotting the Owls 26th and 30th, respectively.

The problem for FAU is that they got a rough draw. In the first round, they’ll see Memphis and are a 2.5-point underdog. If the Owls get past the Tigers, they’ll almost surely come up against Purdue in the second round. That’s a brutal opening two games.

What FAU has going for it — other than being flat-out good and ranking in the top four in both adjusted offense (32nd) and adjusted defense (36th), per KenPom — is that they jack up a lot of threes, which makes them dangerous. Florida Atlantic’s three-point attempt rate is 43.9%, the 39th-highest clip in the nation. And they don’t just take a lot of threes, they make a high percentage of them — 37.2% (35th-best).

Florida Atlantic will need to bring their A-game to survive the first weekend, but if the Owls are hitting from deep, they can be one of the surprise teams of the tournament.

Boise State (10 Seed, West Region)

• +108 underdog vs. Northwestern in Round of 64

Purely from their team-based statistical profile, Boise State checks some boxes — the most notable of which is that the Broncos boast a top-shelf defense, ranking 14th by KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency.

Defense has been the driving force for Boise State en route to a 23-9 season. Things could’ve been even better for them as they lost two overtime games as well as a pair of other games by two points apiece. They rank 31st on KenPom, 30th by nERD, and 31st on BartTorvik.

In addition to their ability to guard, Boise State plays at a slow pace (219th by adjusted tempo), and fewer possessions means an increased chance for variance — something that should come in handy if they’re a sizable ‘dog in a game.

They’re barely an underdog in the first round, with their clash against seventh-seeded Northwestern priced as basically a pick’em (as of Sunday night). The Wildcats had a great year en route to a second-place finish in the Big Ten but rank just 42nd on KenPom, 35th on BartTorvik, and 38th by nERD — behind Boise State in all three.

UCLA would be a very difficult foe in the second round, but if we’re looking for a reason to believe in a possible Boise State upset over the Bruins, we can cling to UCLA’s slow pace (230th). The Broncos may be able to hang around in a low-possession affair. Plus, UCLA will be without Jaylen Clark, the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.

West Virginia (9 Seed, South Region)

• -130 favorite vs. Maryland in Round of 64

When I think of March Madness Cinderella teams, my mind doesn’t go to an established program like West Virginia, but going by seeding, they are a Cinderella for 2023.

By our numbers, the Mountaineers are one of the more under-seeded teams in the field. We rank ninth-seeded West Virginia as the 19th-best team in the country. KenPom has them 17th while BartTorvik is right in line with our model, putting WVU 19th.

The reason for the discrepancy in how the advanced metrics see WVU and how the committee saw them comes down to close losses — results that can be heavily dependent on luck. And by KenPom’s Luck rating, the Mountaineers check in 299th, making them one of the nation’s unluckiest teams (fifth-unluckiest squad in the tourney).

While West Virginia is fully capable of making a run, the committee put them in a tough spot. In the first round, the Mountaineers will play a Maryland squad that ranks 22nd on KenPom and 28th by nERD. It’s a very strong 8/9 game. If they win that, WVU will likely run into Alabama, the big dance’s overall top seed.

But West Virginia has shown it can play with the country’s best, and it did just that at the tail end of the campaign. Prior to being thumped by Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament, the Mountaineers closed the regular season with a two-point loss at Kansas followed by wins over Iowa State and Kansas State.

The Mountaineers are 2.5-point favorites over Maryland and can give Bama a game in the second round.

Utah State (10 Seed, South Region)

• -110 pick ’em vs. Misssouri in Round of 64

Much like West Virginia, Utah State is just better than its seed implies.

We rank the Aggies 16th overall. KenPom (18th) and BartTorvik (25th) also have them as a top-25 team.

While Utah State is no slouch on D (64th by KenPom), they really shine on offense, coming in 14th in adjusted offensive efficiency. They get up plenty of threes, ranking 57th nationally in 3-point attempt rate (42.6%), and they do a nice job getting to the line, finishing the regular season 69th in free throw attempt rate. (35.0%). That’s a good recipe for success, and they had a lot of it this season.

The Aggies went 23-8, and three of their losses were to a really good San Diego State team, with two of those defeats coming by two and five points. Utah State had three other losses by five or fewer points.

The 10th-seeded Aggies are 2.5-point favorites in the first round versus Missouri, a side Utah State ranks ahead of by all of nERD, KenPom, and BartTorvik. They’d probably tangle with Arizona in the second round, and although the Wildcats are an elite bunch on offense (No. 4 by KenPom), they aren’t quite as tough on D (41st). Overall, ‘Zona ranks just seven spots in front of Utah State by nERD.

— Austan Kas

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The post Which Cinderella Teams Are Analytics Nerds Backing to Destroy Your NCAA Tournament Bracket? appeared first on Boardroom.

The old town road to college basketball’s men’s Final Four leads to Houston, where Lil Nas X will star and headline the list of performers at the 2023 NCAA March Madness Music Festival from March 31 to April 2, WBD Sports announced Wednesday.

Other tacts taking the stage at H-Town’s Discovery Park include Grammy Award winners Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, and Little Big Town, as well as Grammy Award nominees Mickey Guyton and Maggie Rogers. Lil Nas X, a two-time Grammy winner in 2020 who’s nominated for Song Of The Year and Best Collaboration at the 2023 iHeart Radio Music Awards for his “Industry Baby” featuring Jack Harlow, will perform April 1 alongside Rogers at Move By Coca-Cola. The others perform April 2 at the Capital One JamFest.

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The NCAA March Madness Music Festival is an extension of the NCAA’s Corporate Champions and Partners marketing program. It’s a collaboration between Warner Bros. Discovery Sports and CBS Sports as part of an NCAA agreement. Last year’s performers in New Orleans included Khalid, The Kid Laroi, BIA, Imagine Dragons, and Macklemore.

Free registration to see Lil Nas X at Move Coca-Cola is now open, while Capital One debit and credit cardholders (excluding private label cards) will get early access to the CapitalOne JamFest from March 8 at 10 a.m. eastern through March 10 at 10 a.m. eastern while supplies last.

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At long last, welcome to college basketball season. The games tip off for real on Monday, and while the slate isn’t exactly loaded thanks to the Champions Classic getting bumped to the second week of the year, there is plenty of intrigue around this season. Gonzaga and South Carolina are the betting favorites to win the men’s and women’s national championships, respectively, but they’re far from the only contenders. 

More importantly for fans, there are plenty of storylines off the court that will shape how college basketball continues to evolve.

As the 2022-23 season begins, let’s explore the biggest and best of them.

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Impending NCAA Tournament Expansion

Thanks to the NCAA’s recent efforts to atone for the disastrous inequities witnessed at the 2021 NCAA Tournaments, it’s safe to assume that if the men expand their own March Madness field, then the women will do the same — like it or not. And if you’re against further expansion as most fans tend to be, at least take solace in knowing that it means increased opportunities for more men and women each year to play on the sport’s biggest stage. 

The 2023 NCAA Tournaments are locked at 68 teams, so don’t worry about anything changing in time for March, but there’s a real chance the field is bigger in 2024 or 2025. It doesn’t sound like we’re going to get a 96-team field anytime soon, but don’t be surprised if the First Four becomes the First Eight and the fields are 76 teams each.

Why? Well, people like to say football drives the bus in college sports, but that’s not entirely true; 85% of the NCAA’s annual revenue comes from March Madness, so more springtime basketball inventory means more revenue for the NCAA. Oh, and it makes the coaches happy — a good way to increase your job security on the sidelines is to make the NCAA Tournament. More at-large spots means it gets a little bit easier to do just that.

Continuity in the Men’s Game

A fortunate byproduct of the NIL era is that we are going to see more roster continuity in men’s college basketball. Players like Gonzaga’s Drew Timme, who in the past may have gone to the NBA Draft after a year like he had in 2021-22, are back with an opportunity to make (quite literally) hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The obvious benefit is that keeping more talent in school makes the college game better. It also makes it easier for the so-called casual fan to follow the game. In the past, men’s college basketball hasn’t featured teams with clear on-court identities in the season’s opening weeks, as the true superstars don’t often emerge until around January.

Well, now we know. CBS Sports published its list of the top 101 players in college basketball this year and the top 10 are all upperclassmen, with Timme and Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe leading the way.

Some other returning stars to watch: Armando Bacot at North Carolina, Marcus Sasser at Houston, Trayce Jackson-Davis at Indiana, and Jaime Jaquez at UCLA.

The Women’s Game has More Contenders than Ever

For the better part of the past decade, the pool of contending teams in women’s basketball has slowly grown. This year, South Carolina is the clear-cut national championship favorite, but there are probably a dozen teams that have real Final Four potential — and if you can make it to the Final Four, who knows what can happen? Stanford and Tennessee are both expected to be factors, as always, and though UConn lost Paige Bueckers for the season, would anyone really be surprised if they were major factors in the end? 

But there are some less traditional names joining the fray this year. Vic Schaefer has his best team since he came to Texas in 2020, and that’s saying a lot — the Longhorns are coming off back-to-back Elite Eight seasons. Iowa also has a potential Final Four team with Player of the Year candidate Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano. Louisville will be back in the mix as well, along with a resurgent Notre Dame and a sneaky-good Iowa State.

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The IARP Fallout

One of the biggest storylines on the men’s side this offseason was the drama (or lack thereof) around the Independent Accountability Resolution Process board that reviewed NCAA infractions cases from Memphis and Louisville. After literally years of review, both programs got off essentially unscathed despite facing Level I violations (the big, bad kind).

Even though Louisville doesn’t figure to be competitive this year and Memphis projects as an also-ran in the AAC, this has some broader implications. We’re still awaiting a rule on Kansas’s own case, and the Jayhawks have already suspended head coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend for the first four games of the season as a preemptive measure. Jayhawk fans should feel a little more at ease after seeing the Louisville and Memphis resolutions, however, and for the Cardinals in particular, the NCAA infractions case is no longer looming over them on the recruiting trail. Kenny Payne’s job just got much easier when it comes to bringing in talent.

Slightly unrelated: The process has been so long and drawn out that the IARP will dissolve when it is done with its current slate of cases.

The Women’s Regionals

This year, instead of the typical four regional sites, the final 16 teams will go to one of two locations for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight: Greenville, South Carolina and Seattle. The hope is this will create better game environments by consolidating eight fanbases in cities likely to have at least a semi-local team.

Greenville will, of course, be a hotbed for South Carolina fans, and if Oregon makes it to the tournament, you can count on the committee sending the Ducks out west. Stanford, which isn’t exactly local but also isn’t TOO far, will be as well. The question becomes whether other fanbases will travel a longer distance than usual — UConn fans are used to playing their regionals in Connecticut or, at farthest, Albany. Will they go to South Carolina? Louisville and Notre Dame were typically locks for the midwest; same question to those fanbases.

As I wrote after last season, I’m willing to give a chance to any idea to increase visibility and excitement around the women’s game. Let’s wait and see what happens here.

The Balance of Power in Men’s Hoops

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Last year, we got our first look at North Carolina in a post-Roy Williams era, and Hubert Davis weathered a rocky regular season to take the Tar Heels all the way to the national title game. This year, we get to see if Jon Scheyer at Duke and Kyle Neptune at Villanova can have similar success in their first years following the departure of a program legend (Mike Krzyzewski and Jay Wright, respectively). 

So far, Scheyer has shown no signs of letting Duke fall from the top of the sport. The Blue Devils enroll the No. 1 recruiting class in the country, led by Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively. For 2023, Scheyer already has four of the top 16 recruits currently committed, per ESPN’s rankings.

At Villanova, Neptune has a team with a real shot at winning the Big East. The Wildcats probably won’t be as dominant this year as they were during the latter part of the Wright Era, but that’s not Neptune’s fault. The team has had some turnover from last year’s crew that made the Final Four, and an injury to stud freshman Cam Whitmore isn’t helping matters. Neptune told Boardroom that Whitmore is one of the most talented players on the team and was “unbelievable” in practice this fall. Don’t be surprised if Villanova makes the second weekend once again.

One More Under-the-radar Storyline: Keep an Eye on the WAC Tournament

This isn’t going to get much attention, but is something worth keeping an eye on. The Western Athletic Conference, which operates entirely off the national radar with schools like Grand Canyon and Abilene Christian in tow, is going to use advanced metrics to help seed its men’s conference tournament. The idea is to minimize some of the randomness around one individual game result and really favor its best teams. While the wild unpredictability of March Madness is part of what makes it fun, one-bid leagues desperately want their best teams to win their conference tournaments and will go to great lengths to help them out — just look at the WCC, where Gonzaga is essentially guaranteed a double-bye to the conference semifinals every year. If those small schools get their best teams in, it increases their odds of winning an NCAA Tournament game or two, which would result in far higher payouts to the league. If this works out well for the WAC, other conferences might follow suit.

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The post The Off-the-court Intrigue Shaping College Basketball in 2022-23 appeared first on Boardroom.

The NCAA Tournament has been the time for Caleb Love to shine — both figuratively and literally.

Over the course of North Carolina’s March Madness run, the St. Louis-bred combo guard has hit shots and broken necks by playing every game in the immortalized Air Jordan 11.

First featured on the feet of Michael Jordan in the 1995 NBA Playoffs, the patent leather sneakers designed by Tinker Hatfield helped MJ and the Bulls go 72-10 in the 1995-96 regular season. The stretch was capped with a fourth title that started Chicago’s second three-peat.

The legacy of the sneaker could be rooted in another generation’s championship moment if Love leads the underdog Heels to an NCAA title — UNC’s first in five years — over the No. 1-seeded Kansas Jayhawks on Monday night.

Since arriving at retail in October 1995, the Air Jordan 11 has been a fixture in fashion thanks to its iconic design and rich nostalgia.

“I always felt like the best shoes are the ones that work on and off the court,” former Jordan Brand vice president Gentry Humphrey told Boardroom last December. “You’ve got generations that have grown to fall in love with that shoe. The fever today is probably hotter because of sheer numbers.”

While the shoe has dominated high school hallways and holiday shopping for the better part of three decades, it’s remained somewhat of a cultural constant on the hallowed hardwood of Chapel Hill.

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Nike’s New Chapter

When a young Mike Jordan arrived on campus at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1981, his favorite basketball player was Magic Johnson, and his shoe of choice was Adidas.

Despite Jordan’s Three Stripes fanfare, Dean Smith and his basketball program were sponsored by Converse, then considered the gold standard in performance hoops.

Throughout his three seasons as a starting shooting guard at North Carolina, Jordan and his teammates wore Converse sneakers — most notably the Pro Leather. After declaring for the 1984 NBA Draft, Jordan and his agent David Falk took meetings with an array of athletic suppliers, selecting Beaverton-based Nike as the winning bidder.

In MJ’s first season with the Swoosh, he’d become a signature athlete by way of the Air Jordan 1: an absolutely game-changing model for the brand, the athlete, and the industry.

While Nike and Mike paid homage to Chapel Hill with a “UNC” themed take on the Air Jordan 1 in the mid-80s, the Tar Heel hoop squad remained in Converse for the course of the decade. Though Jordan returned to his home state to play pickup ball and participate in alumni games in painted PEs of his new signature shoes, the school and its superstar remained relatively untied when it came to footwear for years at end.

Finally in 1993, the Tar Heels cut down the nets at the national championship that spring for the first time since MJ won it all in ’82. By defeating Michigan’s famed Fab 5, Dean Smith’s squad was once again the toast of college hoops.

With powder blue popularity on the rise, Nike signed the school to a four-year, $4.7 million endorsement deal.

For consumers and college athletes alike, the stars had finally aligned.

To celebrate, Foot Locker shot a print campaign with MJ dressed in the new Nike North Carolina authentic uniforms, complete with matching Air Jordan 9s.

“That advertisement was the first time I remember having to have a pair of Jordans,” Caleb Cattivera, the historian behind the Goodbirger, NiceKicks and NiceKicksVault Instagram pages, told Boardroom on Monday. “Seeing Mike in something other than a Chicago Bulls jersey was mind blowing as a kid.”

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In that era, Nike began producing Air Jordans in powder blue for the first time since Mike’s introductory model, with the Air Jordan X soon following.

Additionally, North Carolina claimed a renowned recruiting class in 1993, headlined by Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace. Throughout the ’90s, Nike uniforms accented in argyle would cover the best players in the nation — providing hot real estate for matching Mikes on their feet.

While plenty of Carolina blue Air Jordans turned heads and sold by the bunches, a particular pair still strikes a chord with the college and its feverish fanbase.

On February 1, 1996, Nike released the Air Jordan 11 “Columbia” — an homage to MJ’s alma mater on his surging signature shoe. However, a few famous student-athletes scored their Air Jordan 11s before the rest of the world.

North Carolina junior Jeff McInnis and freshman forward Antwan Jamison received their pairs days prior, breaking them out at home in a nationally televised win over Duke. Jamison, who had won Mr. Basketball for the state of North Carolina as a high school senior just months prior, was suddenly #TeamEarly when it came to kicks simply due to his school.

Adored by a high school-aged Kobe Bryant and professional scorer Nick Anderson, the “Columbia” 11s were still singular to UNC. Honoring his roots, Michael Jordan even won the 1996 NBA All-Star Game MVP in the “Columbia” 11s just weeks after the Heels donned them over Duke.

By this point, the patent leather sneakers were now privy to the public on college and pro basketball’s biggest stages. Though the shoes speak to numerous narratives regarding the history of hoops, they remain relevant in the context of Chapel Hill in any era.

This proved particularly true years later as one decade ended and another millennium began.

Over the course of North Carolina’s first Nike contract, Michael would build his own empire with the birth of Jordan Brand: a subsidiary under the Swoosh made in the image of Mike. New signature shoes, team takes, and performance apparel released around the world while the Air Jordan 11 returned to the archives.

In the summer of 1998, Michael Jordan retired from the game of basketball for the second time — focusing not on baseball, but business.

By the following fall, the Jumpman logo would start appearing on North Carolina apparel to include the team’s game shorts.

Around the same time, retro releases from Jordan Brand began rolling out with the return of the Air Jordan 4 and Air Jordan 5. Though some purists paid full price for what were essentially “old shoes,” the tide turned on retros in October 2000, when the “Concord” Air Jordan 11 re-released for the first time.

“When the 4 and the 5 retroed prior, they sat on shelves where I lived,” Cattivera recalled. “But when those Jordan 11s started dropping? That was the first time people were saying, ‘I have to get these.'”

People that had to get them included the 2000-01 North Carolina Tar Heels roster.

Newly minted in Jordan Brand jerseys, the perks of playing at Mike’s alma mater, and now for his company, came in the way of “Concord” 11s for the whole team. While some players kept their pairs on ice, only reserved for off-court stunting, numerous starters and rotation members made a statement on the hardwood.

Famously, 2000 ACC Rookie of the Year Joseph Forte spent much of his explosive sophomore season playing in the patent leather classic — commonly matched on court by the likes of Jason Capel, Brian Morrison, Brendan Haywood, and Julius Peppers. Just like Jamison and McInnis made the “Columbia” 11s their own in ’96, the new class of Tar Heels had their own run of highlights in the infamous “Concord” 11 retros.

“The first thing that comes to my mind is Dick Vitale going nuts yelling, ‘Curry to Peppers!'” Cattivera said, smiling.

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For the better part of the 2000s, North Carolina continued to reign as a national power — winning it all in 2006 and ’09.

Throughout the aughts, Jordan Brand leveraged the Tar Heels’ winning ways as a platform to promote team models and new signatures from the flagship franchise. In 2008, the college crafted a new Nike contract that paid the school an average of $1.83 million a year. A decade later in 2018, the two parties would sign another 10-year extension worth an $6.27 million per year, as Forbes reported in December 2018.

This was big business for both Jordan Brand and UNC.

However, all the money in the world couldn’t compete with an innate appetite for nostalgia.

By the 2010s, recruits that came up watching Jamison and Forte flourish in Air Jordan 11s were ready to rock retros, with one swingman proving the poster boy and another combo guard playing the role of successor.

Back to School

Theo Pinson grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, just 50 miles away from Chapel Hill. By his senior season of high school, Pinson proved himself as a McDonald’s All-American in 2014, signing with Roy Williams and the powder blue ballers he watched throughout his youth.

After arriving in Air Jordan 10s — a model made famous by Jerry Stackhouse and Raymond Felton in Chapel Hill — Pinson pivoted to Air Jordan 11s shortly into his freshmen season. Over the course of his college career, Pinson played in “Cool Grey,” “Legend Blue” (the copyright-corrected new name for “Columbia”), and MJ-honoring “Win Like ’82” Air Jordan 11s.

In 2017, Pinson won it all while wearing the “Cool Grey” 11s — a retro release last launched in 2010 at that time.

Even as a pro, Pinson plays exclusively in Air Jordan 11s. He has remained faithful to the patent leather favorite with the Brooklyn Nets (2018-20), New York Knicks (’20-’21), and now, the Dallas Mavericks.

The North Carolina Tar Heels are back in the national championship game for the first time since Pinson cut down the nets. Carrying on the tradition is Love, taking Air Jordan 11 endorsement to new heights in the era of NIL.

Love, perhaps the hottest star of the 2022 NCAA Tournament, is making the most out of NIL by scoring sponsorships and paid posts from the likes of Outback Steakhouse. This iconic run has served as a sizzle reel for Love as NBA teams evaluate his talent at the next level and brands look to leverage his growing audience of eyeballs.

Thanks to NIL income and Jordan Brand school sponsorship, Love has played the entire 2021-22 season exclusively in Air Jordan 11 retro releases ranging as far back as 2013 launches. In the Sweet 16 against UCLA — a fellow Jordan Brand school — Love even went as far as to switch colors of his AJ11s at half.

Since signing on with Nike in 1993 and becoming a Jordan Brand program in ’99, North Carolina has played an ongoing role in keeping the Air Jordan 11 relevant. This year alone, Love has laced the same “Concord” and “Columbia” colorways popularized by his predecessors, while adding energy to 2010s sleepers such as the “Gamma Blue” and “Ultimate Gift of Flight” styles.

Long gone are the days of Carolina clad in Converse, a brand which Nike now owns, setting the stage for more royalties and retro releases for Mike. Now and forever, it appears the Air Jordan 11 is here to stay in Chapel Hill, continuing to shine in its most memorable home.

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The post UNC’s Air Jordan Patent Leather Legacy appeared first on Boardroom.

No two men’s basketball programs are forever linked quite like Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Acknowledged as the biggest and best rivalry in college hoops and one of the most spirited in all of sports, the sheer number of highlights, superstars, and championship trophies this ACC rivalry has produced is staggering

And on Saturday, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils will play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. In the Final Four, no less.

Is it the single most anticipated college basketball game ever? Well, it’s so big that country music star Eric Church cancelled a tour date so he could head to New Orleans and watch his beloved Heels in what could be the final game of Blue Devils head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching career.

There’s never a shortage of narratives when these programs meet, but this latest iteration is just on a different level. With that in mind, Boardroom is here to take a look at the history and personalities that have animated this super-heated rivalry between schools located just nine miles apart.

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The UNC-Duke Tale of The Tape

• All-time series: UNC leads 142-115
• First meeting: January 24, 1920

Final Four appearances

Duke: 17
UNC: 21

National Championships

Duke: 5 (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015)
UNC: 6 (1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, 2017)

All-Americans

Duke: 32

• Notables: Christian Laettner (3x), JJ Redick (3x), Shane Battier (2x), Grant Hill (2x), Jay Williams (2x), Zion Williamson

UNC: 32

• Notables: Tyler Hansbrough (4x), Michael Jordan (2x), Antawn Jamison (2x), Vince Carter, Kenny Smith, Rasheed Wallace

Duke-UNC Coaching History

For 42 years, Coach K has been a mainstay in the Tobacco Road rivalry. Carolina enjoyed a legendary 36-year coaching run from the late Dean Smith, but Krzyzewski is the single most enduring figure in the rivalry.

In the 25 years since Dean Smith retired, the Heels have had four different coaches. Roy Williams won three national titles before his own retirement in 2021. He was preceded in Chapel Hill by Matt Doherty and Bill Guthridge, who each lasted just three seasons. Current head coach Hubert Davis is, like Williams, a Carolina alum — and he one-upped his predecessor by making the Final Four in his very first season at the helm.

But this weekend, and ultimately, this college basketball season, is about Coach K.

He is the most mystical figure this side of UCLA legend John Wooden and is more than worth the adorationhe’s been showered with since first announcing this was his final year. He’s now reached his 13th Final Four and will coach his 101st NCAA Tournament game Saturday. Over 100 of his players made it to at least one Final Four.

Krzyzewski is a model of head coaching excellence that goes beyond just college basketball, or basketball in general. “It’s been earned. It has not been given. It’s been earned,” longtime Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo — a Basketball Hall of Famer in his own right — said of Krzyzewski.

Memorable Games From the Duke-UNC Rivalry

The Tar Heels don’t care much for all the Blue Devil pageantry at play; in this case, the finest form of respect is disrespect, and they’d like nothing more than to crash the Coach K party just as they did on March 5 as Krzyzewski marked his final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Ninety-six of Krzyzewski’s former players attended the game. UNC didn’t just score an upset victory; they did it handily by a 94-81 final score.

That got us thinking about some of the other all-time great Duke-Carolina contests. Here are a few highlights:

Feb. 28, 1981: Coach K had taken the top job at Duke nearly a year before. In his second appearance in the rivalry, he beat Dean Smith’s Heels 66-65 in overtime. Senior Gene Banks brought Cameron to a frenzy, making both the basket to send the game into OT and the ultimate game-winner. The Chapel Hill boys officially had a new adversary down the road.

Mar. 10, 1984: Duke defeated No. 1 UNC 77-75 on the road in phenom guard Michael Jordan’s last ACC conference game. MJ led a furious comeback that fell just short.

Feb. 4, 2004: In an overtime thriller, UNC’s Rashad McCants hit a game-tying three in overtime with 15 seconds to go. Duke’s Chris Duhon then proceeded to dribble the entire length of the court to make a beautiful reverse layup with little time left, securing an 86-84 win for the Blue Devils. It was then UNC head coach Roy Williams’ first game in the rivalry at the Tar Heel helm. Consider it initiation rites.

March 6, 2005: One of the beautiful things about the Duke-UNC rivalry is that their second regular season matchup is always the last conference game for both teams. In this game, the Heels had a chance to win their first conference title since 1993. Duke held a nine-point lead with three minutes to go, but Carolina turned up the defense during crunch time, and point guard Raymond Felton tapped his own free throw miss to teammate Marvin Williams, who converted a three-point play to give UNC a 75-73 lead. A three by Duke’s JJ Redick went begging and the Heels captured the ACC crown on Senior Night in the Smith Center.

Legendary Performances

No rivalry is without its legendary moments. Here are a few choice cuts throughout the years:

1995: UNC’s Jerry Stackhouse received a pass on the break and blew by Duke’s Cherokee Parks and threw down a thunderous reverse dunk on two defenders:

1995: In that same year–in that same game, actually –Duke’s Jason Capel hit a half-court running buzzer-beater to send the game into double overtime. UNC did win 102-100, but the fact two of the more memorable plays in this rivalry’s history happened in the same game speaks to the extra-special place it has in the basketball canon.

2007: Duke’s Gerald Henderson Jr attempted to make a defensive play at the rim against UNC’s All-American big man Tyler Hansbrough. Henderson’s elbow viciously struck Hansbrough’s nose, bloodying his face so badly that his pristine Heels uniform became stained with it. Years later, Hansbrough hasn’t forgotten. “I still want to get him back one day,” he told the ACC Network

2019: Duke’s Zion Williamson exploded onto the college basketball scene. And in the opening minute of his first game in the Tobacco Road rivalry, Zion’s shoe actually exploded after he went to make a move on the court. He missed the rest of the game and the teams’ second regular season meeting, but notched 31 points and 11 rebounds in the ACC Tournament against UNC to help Duke earn a No. 1 seed at March Madness that year.

Duke and North Carolina. As big a rivalry as it gets with the highest stakes the rivalry has ever seen. Potentially Coach K’s last game. A chance to play for a national championship. Whatever the result, this will be yet another legendary chapter in this tale of two bitter interstate rivals.

Watch the Final Four Saturday, with coverage starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on TBS. Duke and UNC will play roughly half an hour after Villanova and Kansas ends; approximately 8:45 p.m. ET.

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The post The Duke-UNC Basketball Rivalry Through The Years appeared first on Boardroom.

The thing about Cinderella stories is that the clock eventually does strike midnight.

That happened on Sunday when the St. Peter’s Peacocks saw their miracle NCAA Tournament run end at the hands of blue blood North Carolina in the Elite Eight. The 69-49 regional final loss was a stunning end to arguably the greatest underdog story in college basketball history.

Over the last two weeks, the Peacocks became:

• The 10th No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2 seed (the tournament’s 1-to-16 seeding format began in 1985)
• The third 15 seed ever to reach the Sweet 16
• The highest-seeded team ever to reach the Elite Eight (previous: 12 seed)
• The first team from New Jersey to reach the Sweet 16 since Seton Hall in 2000 (coincidentally, current St. Peter’s coach Shaheen Holloway led that Pirates team)
• The first team from New Jersey to reach the Elite Eight since Seton Hall in 1991

But this run was about so much more than cool milestones. It made a real difference in the St. Peter’s athletic department, the university as a whole, and in the pockets of bettors and sportsbooks alike.

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The St. Peter’s NCAA Tournament Payout

By playing in four games’ worth of March Madness, the Peacocks earned four NCAA Tournament distribution units for the MAAC. While we don’t know exactly how much that is worth, one unit is estimated at $338,887 for this year, so the MAAC will receive around $338,887 x 4, or $1,355,548, as a tournament payout for each of the next six years (in addition to whatever other MAAC schools do in March over a rolling six-year period). Given that there are 11 schools in the conference, this run alone will give each school in the league $123,231.64 a year for the next six years. Doesn’t seem like much to you? Check out this thread about the Peacocks’ athletic facility:

If you want further context, SI reports that St. Peter’s’ operating expenses for men’s basketball totaled $257,871 in 2019. Their athletic department will now get an annual check until 2028 for almost half that, solely as a result of the last two weeks.

Marketing Value

After the Peacocks beat Murray State to reach the Sweet 16, Apex Marketing Group reported that the school had already received $71 million worth of publicity in March Madness. As The Action Network points out, that’s almost 10 times the department’s entire annual athletics budget, and that’s before you factor in their win over Purdue on Friday and another nationally televised game on Sunday.

As of Sunday, that number jumped to over $130 million. If you’re wondering, that’s 3.5 times the university’s entire endowment.

But that number is still theoretical. It will be a while before we know the total value of the Peacocks’ run, but we’ve seen some initial returns. Between their win over Kentucky and the day before the Sweet 16, the department sold $19,000 worth of merchandise through the athletics team store — a number that the university says could take almost a year to hit normally.

Then there’s Homefield, the wildly popular vintage college apparel site, which has been selling St. Peter’s shirts and joggers for one week. In that time, the company tells Boardroom, it has sold over 2,000 officially licensed St. Peter’s products, far outpacing sales for any other team in that span.

NIL Impact

Not only did the university’s visibility skyrocket during the run, but the St. Peter’s players directly benefited. There is no more obvious example than the mustachioed Doug Edert, who burst onto the scene with 20 points off the bench vs. Kentucky. Before the tournament started, he had around 3,000 followers on Instagram. Today, he has more than 40,000.

Since that Kentucky game, Edert has signed a deal with Buffalo Wild Wings and teamed up with Barstool for his line of Dougie Buckets apparel.

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Edert isn’t alone, either. His teammate Daryl Banks inked a social justice-motivated deal with Dove, aimed at breaking the stereotypes that surround Black men.

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Fighting the Odds

It’s no secret that sportsbooks dodged a bullet with the Peacocks’ loss to North Carolina. As the tournament progressed, St. Peter’s became an increasingly popular pick from sports bettors. When the tournament started, FanDuel Sportsbook gave St. Peter’s +50000 odds to win the national championship. By the time the Elite Eight rolled around, that had dropped to +3500. And in the regional final against the Tar Heels, most bettors were actually riding with the Peacocks — both straight up and against the spread.

When you look at just the Elite Eight game by itself, FanDuel reports that:

• 75% of spread bettors took St. Peter’s (+8.5), accounting for 55% of the game’s total handle
• 89% of moneyline bettors took the Peacocks, which made up 73% of handle.

So now the sportsbooks can breathe a sigh of relief as they make their modest payouts to the cowards who went with UNC (and Kansas over Miami, for that matter). With a blue-blood-heavy Final Four ahead, Duke is now the favorite to cut down the nets in Coach K’s final season.

Until next year, Cinderella.

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The post St. Peter’s: The Big Numbers Behind Their Historic Strut to the Elite Eight appeared first on Boardroom.

From Rock Chalk Jayhawk to the St. Peter’s Peacocks, get ready for the conclusion of the men’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 with FanDuel Sportsbook.

The NCAA Tournament rolls on with the Sweet 16 continuing at 7:09 pm ET on Friday night.

Filling out a bracket is the main attraction for most sports fans this time of year, but the fun doesn’t have to stop there. It’s also the perfect opportunity to place some bets at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Which games should draw our attention? Let’s find out.

Please note that lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. Please check here to make sure you’re seeing the most updated information.

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(3) Purdue Boilermakers vs. (15) St. Peter’s Peacocks

Let’s face it, it’s more than likely that their Cinderella run comes to an end on Friday, but that doesn’t mean the St. Peter’s Peacocks are about to go quietly.

The Purdue Boilermakers have the top adjusted offense in the country, per BartTorvik, so it isn’t shocking to see them as 12.5-point favorites over a 15 seed. There’s no question that the Peacocks will have their hands full.

But St. Peter’s rates as the nation’s 31st-best adjusted defense, and it’s not like they played scrub offenses to get this far, besting Kentucky (No. 6 in adjusted offense) and Murray State (43rd). The Peacocks’ defensive prowess includes the fourth-best defensive effective field goal percentage (eFG%), too.

They could also be peaking at just the right time. Since a bad loss to Siena in February, St. Peter’s has now won nine games in a row and ranks fourth nationally in adjusted defense over that stretch. Sure, most of those victories came against lesser MAAC opponents, but as this tournament has shown, we probably shouldn’t underestimate this team’s defensive play.

It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Peacocks, though, as they aren’t nearly as proficient offensively. They sit outside the top 200 in adjusted offense this season, and even during their win streak, they’ve just barely cracked the top 150.

Luckily for them, the Boilermakers are far from elite defensively, ranking 82nd in adjusted D. In fact, out of all Sweet 16 teams, Purdue has the second-worst adjusted defense behind only the Miami Hurricanes.

Going one step further, the Boilermakers infrequently force turnovers (346th in defensive turnover rate), which is great news for a Peacocks offense that often struggles to take care of the ball.

Both teams also rank outside the top 240 in adjusted tempo, and a slower-paced game also lends itself to St. Peter’s avoiding a large deficit.

The numberFire model is a big fan of taking the Peacocks and the points and sees them covering at a 64.55% clip.

(1) Kansas Jayhawks vs. (4) Providence Friars

Perhaps the most over-seeded team in the entire tournament, you can be forgiven if didn’t have the Providence Friars making it this far in your brackets. But it’s one thing to get past double-digit seeds like South Dakota State and Richmond; it’s another thing to knock out the 1-seed in your region.

The Kansas Jayhawks are a top-five college basketball team, per KenPom and BartTorvik, whereas the Friars don’t crack the top 30 on either site. That performance gap has FanDuel Sportsbook pegging the Jayhawks as 7.5-point favorites, and there’s reason to think they can beat that number.

Kansas is the superior team on both offense and defense. They’re No. 5 in adjusted offensive efficiency and 23rd in adjusted defensive efficiency this season, per BartTorvik, while Providence is top 30 and top 60, respectively, in said metrics. To put things into perspective, the Friars are actually bottom-five in both categories among Sweet 16 teams.

While Providence allowed fewer than 60 points in each of their tourney wins, they’ve actually been 101st in adjusted defense over their last 10 games as well.

This spread feels about right — it’s not like the Friars are a bad team — but the Jayhawks rate as the better squad pretty much across the board and should be able to cover in a relatively comfortable win.

(10) Miami Hurricanes vs. (11) Iowa State Cyclones

This is a clash of polar opposites. The Iowa State Cyclones have a stifling adjusted defense (fifth), while Miami boasts a top-20 adjusted offense (18th).

However, they’re also opposites in a less flattering way. Among Sweet 16 teams, the Cyclones own the second-worst remaining adjusted offense (170th), and the Hurricanes have the worst adjusted defense (120th). They’re double-digit seeds for a reason.

Overall, it shakes out to both teams being top 50 on KenPom and BartTorvik, separated by just a handful of spots.

With the teams so evenly matched, the Hurricanes come away as mere 2.5-point favorites. But it’s Miami’s recent play that suggests that they’re the pick.

According to BartTorvik, the Hurricanes have played like a top-20 team over their last 10 games. Iowa State is 60th over that span, which is easily the worst mark among all Sweet 16 teams.

Most notably, Miami has played better defensively (59th in adjusted defense), while Iowa State’s offensive woes have remained unchanged (182nd in adjusted offense).

In fact, it’s hard to find reasons to have any confidence in the Cyclones’ ability to score. For the season, they’re 203rd in eFG%, 294th in turnover rate, 253th in free throw rate, and 262nd in three-point percentage.

The Hurricanes are also coming off an impressive 18-point win over Auburn, the 13th-best team on KenPom. On the other hand, the Cyclones failed to reach 60 points in close wins over LSU and Wisconsin, and the Badgers were the worst 3-seed in the tournament by far.

The Hurricanes are a team trending upward, and it’s hard to see an Iowa State offense stuck in neutral being able to score enough to win. I like Miami to cover the slight spread.

— Kenyatta Storin

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The post March Madness Betting Guide: Sweet 16 Friday appeared first on Boardroom.

On the court, the winners and losers are clear. The invention of the scoreboard made that the case long ago. But in advertising, the brands that have performed the best in March Madness are a little less obvious.

Elevate Sports Ventures and Hive Analytics released a whistle-to-whistle brand exposure study on Wednesday, determining which companies generated the most money in exposure during the men’s and women’s games themselves rather than just the commercials. Through the first two rounds, March Madness has generated more than $165 million in equivalent media value, as determined by Hive’s AI-powered media intelligence platform.

“Most digital signage in arenas is allocated to brands for a fixed duration. However, brands get the most value from the subset of that exposure which is visible to the larger audience watching the event at home, which can often vary across brands based on gameplay,” said Dan Calpin, Hive – Enterprise AI’s president. “The ability to measure this exposure in near real-time, especially during a season or multi-week event like March Madness, creates an opportunity to better align exposure with where brands get value.” 

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Some topline findings from the study, which measured data through Sunday (so it did not include the second day of the women’s Second Round):

• In the men’s and women’s games, sponsors with signage on the basket stanchions won the week — Spalding had more than 18 hours of men’s tournament screen time and seven hours of women’s tournament screen time. State Farm dominated women’s screen time on the stanchions with more than 20 hours of screen time. NCAA corporate champions Capital One, AT&T, Buick and Coca-Cola also fared well, along with Degree deodorant.
  

• Nike outfitted 69 of the 134 tournament teams, but it was its Jordan Brand imprint that will have an outsized impact moving forward. Though Jumpman outfitted just 9% of the men’s field of 68, four of those teams advanced to the Sweet 16. In the men’s tourney, Adidas lost four of its 13 teams in the First Four and another five in the first round. Under Armour lost nine of its 14 teams in the first round.
  

• While viewership levels in men’s games were higher than the women’s games, making per-minute exposure more valuable to brands, women’s tournament games averaged 89 minutes of total brand exposure. That was nearly 20% more than the average men’s game.
• On the commercial side, 40 companies aired national TV spots, with 22 exclusively airing during men’s games and 12 exclusive to the women’s tourney. NCAA corporate champions and partners aired the most ads across the board , but after them, GEICO, Gatorade, State Farm and Progressive did the most. Brands unique to the men’s tournament included Lowe’s, GMC, Corona, and Samsung, while brands unique to the women’s games included McDonald’s, Dodge, Skittles, USAA, and Walmart.

The post March Madness: Who’s Winning the Battle of the Brands? appeared first on Boardroom.

After an exciting first weekend of the 2022 men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, including several upsets by double-digits seeded teams, March Madness is in full swing.

On the men’s side, there are four double-digit seeds left in the Sweet 16. 15 seed St. Peter’s shocked the world by upsetting 2 seed Kentucky in the First Round, and the Peacocks are slated to take on 3 seed Purdue in the East Region semifinals. In the Midwest, 11 seed Iowa and 10 seed Miami are set for a Sweet 16 matchup, and 11 seed Michigan has 2 seed Villanova in the South Region. That is all without mentioning that 8 seed North Carolina knocked off top-seeded, reigning champion Baylor in the Second Round.

March Madness is the only way to describe how the tournament has unfolded so far. We use the term often, but what is its origin story?

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Let’s go to Chicago in 1939 — the year of the first NCAA Tournament.

But we’re not going to the college ranks. Our March Madness journey begins in the mind of an Illinois High School Association official named Henry V. Porter.

Porter, a teacher and basketball coach, wrote an article for the IHSA’s magazine titled “March Madness.” In it, he said:

“A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.”

He also penned a poem titled “Basketball Ides of March,” containing the couplet, “The Madness of March is running. The winged feet fly, the ball sails high. And field goal hunters are gunning.”

March Madness was kept within Illinois’ state borders for decades, and then, the IHSA began licensing the official term in the 1970s. Porter, who was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960, passed away in 1975.

Over the course of the next few years, Brent Musburger — then a reporter at CBS — started to describe the NCAA Tournament as March Madness, and the term began to spread. This went on every year until the 1990s.

In March 1996, the IHSA sued the NCAA to block the entity’s corporate partner GTE from using “March Madness” as a descriptor to market a college basketball CD-ROM game.

Dave Fry, IHSA’s executive director at the time, told the Chicago Tribune in May of that year:

“Call me a naive country-boy educator, but I thought if I owned the trademark to something, I owned the right to it. But that apparently is not quite so, which is pretty frustrating.”

The IHSA and the NCAA reached a compromise, as described by trademark attorney Josh Gerben of Gerben Intellectual Property:

In short, the two sides reached a settlement to share the trademark through their joint March Madness Association LLC, which licensed the term to both the NCAA and IHSA.

That carried on peacefully until the NCAA gained full ownership in 2012.

Up until 2022, the NCAA used March Madness to market the men’s tournament only, despite the organization legally being allowed to use it for the women as well. Last year, the NCAA told the Wall Street Journal that the committee in charge of the women’s tournament chose not to use March Madness, before admitting this was a lie and that the NCAA had denied the committee’s request to use it.

To no one’s surprise, one of the recommendations that the now-famous Kaplan Report made was for the women to be allowed to use March Madness branding. Shortly after, that change was officially made, and in 2022, the women’s tournament has lived up to that name every bit as much as the men’s tournament has.

The madness will continue when Sweet 16 action tips off on the men’s side onThursday. The women’s Sweet 16 starts on Friday.