Want some advice in making your NCAA tournament choices? Sports Headliners asked for insight from Jim Dutcher, former Gophers coach and Big Ten TV analyst.
Dutcher predicts No. 1 seeds Kansas and Syracuse will make the Final Four and be joined by No. 2 seeds West Virginia and Villanova. Then Kansas will defeat Syracuse and West Virginia beats Villanova in the semi-finals. The Jayhawks then win the national championship against the Mountaineers.
The Jayhawks, the nation’s No. 1 team in the polls, combine consistency with talent. “They just seem to play at a constant level,” Dutcher said.
Dutcher’s advice to everyday bracketologists is do your homework before making tournament predictions. On the to-do list is studying styles of play, how teams are playing as of late and who is injured. Without research, Dutcher said, picking winners is a “crap shoot.”
Dutcher thinks Texas, ranked No. 1 earlier in the season, could be a tournament sleeper. The Longhorns, who defeated coach Tubby Smith’s Gophers in the NCAA tournament last year, are a No. 8 seed in the East but they’re talented. “Texas could be dangerous,” Dutcher said. …
A Timberwolves spokesman said research with season ticket holders showed that patrons were concerned about the value received from their tickets. A problem is single game purchasers receive aggressive discounts, but now the franchise has a campaign for 2010-2011 season tickets offering savings of up to 50 percent.
In the first two weeks of the “Run with the Pack” campaign, the Timberwolves have sold more new, lower-level season tickets, 625, than all of last year. (These are tickets for the full schedule, not partial plans). The campaign runs through March and is for both new season tickets and renewals.