ARLINGTON, Texas – From the moment where Kansas led Michigan by 11 points with 3:47 remaining in regulation, Elijah Johnson had committed four turnovers, including a senseless 10-second violation. He missed two of his three shots, clanked the front end of a critical one-and-one and watched as the Jayhawks' express run toward a national championship collapsed in a heap.

Now it was overtime, Michigan up by two and despite the entire ordeal, Bill Self wanted the ball in the hands of the tough senior out of Las Vegas. Self wanted him to go to the rim, go force another overtime, go save KU from one of the most painful losses imaginable here in the Sweet 16.

Johnson got his shoulders past his defender, got open space and enough of a lane to the basket that Michigan's Jordan Morgan felt it was unlikely he could block the lay-up. Instead, Johnson hesitated as he flew through the air, eventually needing to turn mid-flight and throw a desperation pass out to the perimeter

Read More »from Michigan displays poise of late-March regular; Kansas, Elijah Johnson crumble down stretch

Trey Burke looks to do what the Fab Five couldn't -- win a national championship. (USA Today Sports)

OAKDALE, La. – The last (and only) point guard to lead the University of Michigan to a national championship sits behind the high fences and razor wire of the federal correctional institution here, a joyless expanse of turf carved out of the woods in the rural flatlands of central Louisiana.

Rumeal Robinson will spend this weekend, like every weekend these days, in the humble Rapides 1 housing unit, watching college hoops on TV.

Some 360 miles northwest of here, a little more than five hours by car if you avoid the speed traps outside Glenmora, the current Michigan point guard, who like his predecessor is a bit over 6 feet, tough and talented, has gotten the Wolverines to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for the first time in nearly two decades, eyes on potential glory, mindful of past ones.

Trey Burke will spend this weekend, or at least Friday night, in the opulent confines of Cowboys Stadium, playing college hoops on TV.

"Trey Burke," says Rumeal Robinson, "is a

Read More »from Michigan star Trey Burke pays high regard to Rumeal Robinson, who'll be watching from prison

David Shaw stands in front of his team before they take the field to play UCLA. (Getty)

PALO ALTO, Calif. – When David Shaw and his assistant coaches go out in search of football recruits capable of playing for Stanford, the list of necessary attributes is long.

Superior academics are mandatory for admission and success at the elite university. Great athletic ability, strength and speed are a necessity to play for the reigning Pac-12 champions. Character, leadership and motivation are highly valued intangibles. 

And then there is something unique Stanford coaches evaluate when meeting with a prospect, something that few would think predicts football success.

"Vocabulary," Shaw said.

Vocabulary? 

"Yes, you look for vocabulary," he said. "Can this kid express himself in a way that befits a Stanford man?

"Does that correlate to football? I say, yes, absolutely. [We seek] a young man that has the confidence to stand up in front of you and express himself as opposed to what a lot of young kids do today – they don't give you eye contact, they kind of mumble

Read More »from David Shaw building Stanford into a perennial power with unconventional recruiting mandate

Jerry Sandusky’s halting, rasping, decrepit voice seeped out from a Pennsylvania prison via NBC’s "Today Show" and it was about as pointless and pathetic as you might imagine.

Only approximately one minute of sound was played from phone conversations recorded between Sandusky and John Ziegler, a filmmaker and former radio show host who says he is working to clear the name of Sandusky’s former boss, Penn State coach Joe Paterno, even as the Paterno family itself slammed the interview and made it apparent they are not fans of Ziegler.

Jerry Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys during a 15-year span. (AP Photo)The brief audio clips were Sandusky’s first statements since being convicted in June 2012 of 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. He’s currently serving 30-to-60 years in Greene State Prison in the state’s southwest corner.

Ziegler says he conducted three and a half hours of interviews with the Nittany Lions' former defensive coordinator. Sandusky has turned down all media requests for comment since being found guilty. He

Read More »from Jerry Sandusky prison interview clips are as pointless as they are creepy

Eight Presidents of the United States. Forty-seven Nobel Prize winners. Forty-seven more Pulitzer Prize recipients.

And one NCAA tournament victory.Jeremy Lin celebrates after the win. (Courtesy: Jeremy Lin's Twitter page)

Harvard, that bastion of Supreme Court justices, captains of industry and high school valedictorians, continued its rise in men's basketball with a historic 68-62 victory over New Mexico on Thursday in Salt Lake City.

"YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!," tweeted Harvard alum and current Houston Rockets guard Jeremy Lin. "HARVARD winssss!!! hahahahhah I told you"

If there was anything surprising about the game, it was the Crimson's domination throughout most of the contest, riding hot 3-point shooting and a strong defensive effort to control the contest.

The Crimson, appearing in just their fourth NCAA tournament ever, will face Arizona on Saturday in the round of 32.

[Yahoo! Sports fan shop: Buy gear commemorating Harvard's historic win]

"I'm extremely proud," said coach Tommy Amaker on CBS after the win. "They had to

Read More »from Harvard stamps its brand on March Madness

When Dana Altman and his Oregon Ducks gathered last Sunday to watch the NCAA tournament selection show, they were stunned when a 12 appeared next to their name.

They had 26 victories and just won the Pac-12 tournament, yet all they got was a 12 seed? Is that how far the perception of their conference had fallen?

Oregon's Johnathan Loyd passes the ball to Arsalan Kazemi vs.Oklahoma State's Michael Cobbins. (USA TODAY Sports)With the Pac-12 ranking sixth nationally in RPI and producing just three Sweet 16 teams across the last four NCAA tournaments, this may have been a cold dose of reality. The conference was going to need to make people believe in it again.

"We downplayed it," Altman said Thursday, "because we weren't going to change it. There was nothing we could do about it. We've just got to go play."

Play the Ducks did, beating fifth-seeded Oklahoma State handedly, 68-55. They were hardly the only show of force from the league, either. Arizona dusted Belmont 81-64. And Cal emerged victorious, 64-61, over UNLV, of the Mountain West conference that

Read More »from Picked-on Pac-12 goes 3-0 in NCAA tournament

A couple of months back, Mike DeWine, the attorney general of Ohio, was going through the case his special prosecutors were building over rape allegations involving high school football players in Steubenville, an old mill town along the eastern border of the state.

The case – which resulted in convictions Sunday of Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old West Virginia girl after a night of partying last August – was fairly clear.

Judge Thomas Lipps granted immunity to three eyewitnesses who could still face charges. (AP Photo) What DeWine also saw though, were myriad unresolved issues surrounding the case, including reasonable questions coming from the people of Steubenville.

Where did underage kids get the alcohol? Were others involved in some way? Was there a resistance by local authorities to investigate a case involving players from the high-profile Steubenville High Big Red football program?

"The further we got into it, I said, ‘We need a separate investigation,'" DeWine told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday.

So DeWine called

Read More »from Ohio attorney general wants more answers regarding Steubenville rape case

The looming possibility that on June 1 a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Northern California could grant the potentially earth-shattering lawsuit of O'Bannon v. NCAA class-action status has left college athletic administrators concerned.

What started four years ago as a simple, if big-dreaming, lawsuit – former UCLA basketball great Ed O'Bannon suing over the NCAA's continued use of his likeness, long after his 1996 graduation, in a video game – has snowballed into a legal challenge of college sports' entire economic model.

The NCAA kept earning money off Ed O'Bannon long after he stopped playing for UCLA. Here on the eve of the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament, there isn't anyone in college athletics that isn't taking it seriously. One day soon, maybe even by 2015, the players themselves could be getting a share of the billion-dollar revenue, a once-unthinkable development.

The O'Bannon side is seeking a 50/50 split. The NCAA wants to keep it 100/0 and has expressed no interest in negotiating. Billions of dollars hang in the balance.

Last

Read More »from O'Bannon case against NCAA sheds light on big-time athletic departments' fuzzy math