Ready Or Not, The Annual Race Toward March Madness Has Begun

March Madness gets its start with a few days left in February.

Conference tournaments start Tuesday, when the Northeast and Ohio Valley open postseason play. None of the tournaments end until the calendar flips, though, as the Ohio Valley, Big South and Trans-America all conclude on March 1 with the winners earning the leagues’ automatic bids into the field of 64.

ESPN will show those three championship games on March 1, and will add 18 more title games over the next week. In all, the cable sports network will have 49 games from March 1-9 on either ESPN or ESPN2 as part of its 12th “Championship Week.”

For the real fanatics, the two networks will have 33 games from Wednesday through Saturday, including 14 straight hours on both Wednesday and Thursday.

700 club

Richard “Doc” Sauers, in his 41st season as coach at New York State University at Albany, became the 10th coach in college basketball history to win 700 games when the Great Danes beat Bridgeport 89-71 on Feb. 8.

The 66-year-old Sauers and Jim Phelan of Mount St. Mary’s are the only active coaches with 40 or more seasons at the same school. During Sauers’ tenure, Albany has had only one losing season, 1995-96, the school’s first year in Division II.

The leader on the all-division career list is Adolph Rupp, who won 876 games in 41 seasons. North Carolina’s Dean Smith is second with 869 in his 36th season.

Bee list

Clair Bee, who coached his last college game in 1951, has moved back to the top of winningest coaches list.

Bee had a 412-87 record in 21 seasons at Rider and Long Island University, a winning percentage of .826. That had been good enough for second place on the list, behind Jerry Tarkanian.

Tarkanian’s career record stands at 664-143 after his 17-10 start at Fresno State this season, a percentage of .823, .006 off what it was at the start of the season.

Rupp (876-190, .822) and John Wooden of UCLA (664-162, .804) are the only coaches with more than 10 years at a Division I school over the .800 mark.

Neat nickname

The Lafayette Journal and Courier recently asked readers for suggestions for a nickname for Purdue freshman Brian Cardinal, who has already endeared himself to Boilermakers fans with his relentless attitude and a total disregard for his body.

There were more than 260 responses, and the one selected by the newspaper was “Citizen Pain,” submitted by Zac Laugheed, a seventh-grade basketball player at Klondike Middle School.

Other names considered for the 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward included “Fall Guy,” “Rawhide” and “The Janitor.”

Cardinal is the third-leading scorer for the Boilermakers at 11.5, the second-leading rebounder and he leads the team in steals.

“If there’s a newcomer award in the league, he ought to get it,” Purdue coach Gene Keady said. “I’m just happy the way he’s competed and happy he’s stayed healthy … as much as he’s on the floor.”

Even-steven

Monday night, Akron and Kent will meet for the 100th time in a series that began in the 1915-16 season. Kent has a 50-49 advantage.