CNET: March Madness: Google Unveils Its Brackets, New Search Improvements. “It’s March, and that means one thing: college basketball. In that spirit, Google filled out brackets for the men’s and women’s 2022 NCAA Tournaments based on which teams people across the country are searching for.”
Sports Illustrated: ACC Adjusts COVID Policy Forfeiture Rule. “The league’s athletic directors unanimously voted Wednesday to adjust the forfeiture rule from the policy, effective immediately. Moving forward, if an ACC game among winter sport programs – including basketball – cannot be played due to COVID-19 issues with either team, it will be rescheduled, or declared a no contest if it cannot be rescheduled.”
CBS Sports: College basketball hit hard by COVID-19 cancellations: Memphis, UCLA among schools on pause due to outbreaks. “The latest significant news came Saturday morning when, less than 80 minutes before tip time, Memphis announced its game in Nashville vs. No. 18 Tennessee was off due to COVID protocols in Memphis’ program. The news followed the high-profile cancellations of Kentucky vs. Ohio State and North Carolina vs. UCLA in Saturday’s CBS Sports Classic.”
CNET: March Madness 2021: Start time, schedule, how to watch and what you need to know. “The pandemic caused last year’s NCAA tournament to be canceled but college basketball’s premier event has returned for 2021, albeit with a few changes to account for COVID-19. Typically the early rounds are scattered across the country in different ‘regions,’ but this year the 67 men’s games will all take place in Indiana with the bulk of the action happening in Indianapolis.”
University of Maryland: Lefty’s Legacy Saved in Digital Collections!. “As we continue to celebrate the 100th Season of the Men’s Basketball, devoted Terp fans reminisce on the many standout players and coaches who have come and gone through this program. Over the years, University of Maryland basketball footage has poured in from the athletic department and the private collections of former Terps, and University Archives is excited to announce that we have digitized and preserved footage from the recently inducted Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, Coach Lefty Driesell!”
Terrapin Tales: Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History!. “Today, as we celebrate the beginning of the 100th season of men’s basketball at UMD, the University Archives embarks on one of its most ambitious initiatives EVER—a project that will digitize and make publicly accessible over 5,000 hours of UMD Basketball footage. This project will cost $500,000, and we will need the support of many fans to preserve this important history.”
WRAL: Search NCSU records submitted to the FBI . “As part of an investigation into potential corruption in college basketball, U.S. attorneys with the Department of Justice subpoenaed North Carolina State University officials on Jan. 17 for a trove of documents related to the recruitment and enrollment of former player Dennis Smith Jr. The university on Aug. 16, 2018, began publicly releasing documents submitted to federal investigators in response to a public records request by WRAL News and other news organizations.”
CNET: Google’s March Madness AI contest offers $100,000 in prizes. “Prizes can be useful incentives. They encourage people to take on challenges, say flying across the Atlantic Ocean or developing a self-driving car or finding large prime numbers. Now, Google has a great big incentive that will get almost the entirety of the country interested: $100,000 in prizes for computer scientists who write the best AI software to predict the outcome of the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament.”
The Verge: Facebook will begin live-streaming college basketball games. “Facebook is steadily building out content to get viewers to watch things on its site. Back in May, the company streamed several MLB games, and now it’s following up on that with live streams of college basketball, via Engadget. To do that, Facebook is partnering with Stadium, a sports live-streaming site, in order to stream 47 college basketball games through Facebook Watch.”
