Bacari Alexander placed Pringles chips on the shoulders of each Michigan starter (via YouTube)

ATLANTA — On Easter morning, a few hours before Michigan's Elite Eight matchup with Florida last Sunday, assistant coach Bacari Alexander approached student manager Jamie Peretzman with an unusual request.

Alexander urgently needed a can of Pringles potato chips.

"I didn't really know how many places would be open Easter Sunday, but I found this shady corner store that happened to be open," Peretzman said. "I wasn't sure what he needed it for, but I brought a can of Pringles back to the locker room."

The purpose of the shopping trip became clearer just before tipoff when Alexander took out the can during his pregame speech and placed a single Pringle on the left shoulder of each Michigan starter. The message was for Michigan to play with a chip on its shoulder, something the Wolverines clearly took to heart in jumping to a 23-5 lead before Florida even knew what happened.

[Also: Kevin Ware T-shirt debacle exemplifies why NCAA's business model is under attack]

"I came up with the idea because I saw one of the managers in the lobby eating chips, and I had an 'aha' moment," Alexander said.  "I thought to myself, if we're going to have any success against Florida, we're going to have to play with a chip on our shoulder, so what a great, corny way to drive that point home."

If Michigan players got a chuckle out of Alexander's speech, they certainly weren't caught by surprise. The assistant coach has used an array of props to emphasize certain pregame messages in the Wolverines locker room.

Read More »from Funny pregame speeches from Bacari Alexander help keep Michigan loose

Wichita State players celebrate beating Ohio State last Saturday (Getty Images)

ATLANTA — The first time Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall noticed his team getting a little too full of itself, the Shockers had reeled off four straight late-January wins to crack the top 15 in the polls.

In the locker room before the Shockers hosted Indiana State on Jan. 29, Marshall brought his players together, urged them to refocus and and punctuated his speech by asking them, "Are you satisfied?" Wichita State players bellowed "no" in unison ... and then delivered a lackluster performance in a 13-point loss to the Sycamores.

"We took it for granted and we got popped the next game," guard Fred VanVleet said. "We're keeping that in mind now and trying not to get too high on our success."

The Wichita State staff has reintroduced that message during the postseason, this time with far more success. Marshall has asked his team that question in the locker room after all four of its NCAA tournament victories and after sloppy moments in practice – pretty much any time he sees a chance complacency might set in.

"Anytime he sees something he doesn't like, he'll pretty much say, "Are you satisfied?" senior guard Demetric Williams said. "'Are you going to start not caring just because you guys are happy to be here?' I think he's going to keep saying it until we hold the trophy up. As long as we have another game, we're going to keep saying that."

[Y! Sports Radio: Joe Theismann 'felt so bad' for Kevin Ware]

It would be understandable if a Wichita State team of castoffs and overlooked recruits was just happy to become the fifth team seeded ninth or higher to make a Final Four, but the ninth-seeded Shockers insist that's not the case.

Read More »from They’re happy to be at the Final Four, but Wichita State players insist they’re not ‘satisfied’

Making jokes about Kevin Ware's gruesome leg injury last Sunday still falls under the "too soon" category. But writing Kevin Ware jokes for the Louisville forward to read on television? Well, his participation in the gallows humor makes it OK and it's exactly what David Letterman and his staff did for Thursday night's edition of the "Late Show" on CBS.

So how did Ware do in reading off the "top 10 things going through Kevin Ware's mind when he broke his leg?." Well, he still seems a bit shellshocked over all the attention his broken leg is garnering and his appearance via remote produced its usual bit of awkward delay moments with Dave. (That's something most of Dave's out-of-studio guests run into.)

[Related: NCAA tried to let Adidas cash in on injury]

But all in all, we think we did pretty well for a guy whose name was unknown to 99.9 percent of Americans one week ago. Maybe laughter really can be the best medicine.

Here's the transcribed top 10, complete with a few good lines and the prerequisite stinkers.

Read More »from Kevin Ware reads top 10 on David Letterman

(AP)As we head into Final Four weekend, four possibilities remain for Monday's title game.

Of those, Louisville-Michigan is the matchup that was most often selected on Yahoo! Sports' Fantasy Tourney Pick'em. A lot of people also picked Louisville-Syracuse, which makes sense, given that the Cardinals entered the bracket as the top overall seed.

As for brackets that predicted No. 9-seed Wichita State to be playing in the tourney's final game? Well, there's not that many. In fact, there are less than 100 combined entries that predicted Wichita State would be playing either Michigan or Syracuse.

Here's the breakdown of all four possible Monday matchups:

1. Louisville-Michigan: 40,718 brackets (1.3 percent of 3 million+ entries)
2. Louisville-Syracuse: 31,046 brackets (1.0)
3. Wichita State-Michigan: 51 brackets (0.0016)
4. Wichita State-Syracuse: 39 brackets (0.0013)

Did you pick any of these matchups before the tourney started three weeks ago?

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Read More »from A lot of people picked a Louisville-Michigan final, but Wichita State-Syracuse? Yeah, not so much

The fallout from a disturbing video of basketball practice at Rutgers University continued Friday as Tim Pernetti resigned as the school's athletic director.

Pernetti, who was integral in Rutgers' move to the Big 10, is out of a job some 24 hours after he fired Mike Rice, the head basketball coach who is the central figure of a video in which he shoves players, hurls basketballs at them and berates them with gay slurs.

Last November, Pernetti received a copy of the video and after an investigation decided in December to suspend Rice for three games, fined him $50,000 and ordered him to attend anger management classes.

"Accountability is a vital element of the Rutgers athletics family," Pernetti said at the time, "and it is imperative our head coaches act and lead in a responsible manner."

Tim Pernetti (Getty Images) The pressure for more of a reaction boiled over Tuesday when ESPN's 'Outside the Lines' aired portions of the 30-minute video. In it, Rice can be seen throwing basketballs at a player's head,

Read More »from Tim Pernetti out as Rutgers athletic director

Doug Anderson's mesmerizing final jam wasn't merely the highlight of Thursday night's college slam dunk contest.

The high-flying University of Detroit guard probably eclipsed any of the dunks in the lackluster NBA contest a couple months ago too.

Having already thrown down a reverse slam, a windmill and a between-the-legs dunk in the earlier rounds, Anderson saved his most jaw-dropping material for his final attempt. He hit a between-the-legs 360 slam on his first try, easily outclassing the rest of his competition and immediately setting social media abuzz.

Anderson was probably an unknown to most viewers, but the Detroit senior's above-the-rim finishes have been a staple of Horizon League games for years. This follow dunk from back in November was vicious. So were a couple of his slams against Syracuse in mid-December. And more recently, he almost tore the rim right off the glass in a victory over Cleveland State in February.

Anderson donned a championship belt after Thursday's contest, a deserving honor for college basketball's king of dunkers.

He might not have enough of an all-around game to make an NBA roster, but some team should sign him for a 10-day contract in mid-February. He'd be a tremendous addition to any NBA roster for all-star weekend.

Read More »from Doug Anderson claims college slam dunk title with jaw-dropping between-the-legs 360

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott (AP)

If Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott initially believed the Ed Rush controversy wouldn't have a long shelf life, the sustained outcry of the past few days have proven that was a miscalculation.

As a result, the saga reached is inevitable outcome Thursday night when the Pac-12 and its coordinator of officiating parted ways.

“My first and highest concerns have always been the integrity of the game of basketball and the honor of the craft of officiating," Rush said in a statement announcing his resignation. "While I am proud of what we have accomplished, my decision to resign reflects my strong desire to see the Pac-12 officiating program continue to grow and thrive."

The resignation of Rush comes three days after a CBSSports.com report revealed he told a group of referees during the Pac-12 tournament they would be rewarded with $5,000 or a trip to Cancun if they ejected Arizona coach Sean Miller or assessed him a technical foul. Scott initially backed Rush and insisted the comments were an inappropriate joke that none of the referees took seriously, but the fan and media response of the past few days has shown why it doesn't matter if what was said was in jest or not.

As I wrote Monday night, all that matters is Rush's comments create the perception that a particular coach or school is being treated differently than anyone else. In a post-Tim Donaghy world, referees cannot even joke about giving preferential treatment to one side or the other because the credibility of the game instantly comes into question.

Fans are already passionate enough to allege bias against their teams when a call doesn't go their way. Had Rush kept his job, Arizona fans would have screamed that their team was being cheated every time a call went in favor of their opponents and opposing fans would have accused the league of over-correcting every time the Wildcats got a call.

Read More »from Pac-12 coordinator of officiating Ed Rush resigns amid calls for his firing

(USA Today Sports Images)

New Mexico made a big splash and national news six years ago when it hired former Indiana star Steve Alford from Iowa. They didn't know it at the time, but they also hired Alford's successor with the move.

When Alford left the Lobos a week ago to take over at UCLA, school leaders decided keeping much of what Alford built at The Pit intact was best for the program this time around instead of trying to lure another rising star to Albuquerque.

They hired Craig Neal, Alford's associate head coach for the past six seasons, to try to build on the most successful era in the program's history. Neal, who earned the nickname 'Noodles' during his high school career in Indiana because of his skinny frame, had spent the previous nine years working for Alford at Iowa and New Mexico. He has been a part of 155 wins and a handful of Mountain West Conference championships at New Mexico.

Read More »from New Mexico valued continuity in hiring Craig ‘Noodles’ Neal to succeed Steve Alford