This week on the Daly Dose, it is now April and that might mean something different to you depending where you live. We also update the Daly Dose March Madness bracket standings!
We are also handing out some winners and losers from the 2024 NCAA Tournament! We look at some of the best and worst in what has been a very exciting and unpredictable tournament, and one Big Ten team actually lands on our list as both a winner and a loser.
Then, we preview the Final Four and make our prediction for who will advance to the finals. Can the Purdue Boilermakers continue their revenge tour after last year’s disappointment in the first round? Can North Carolina State keep their wild postseason alive? Will the Connecticut Huskies continue to dominate? Can the surprising Alabama Crimson Tide keep proving everyone wrong?
Finally our Daly Dose Top 5 is counting down the college basketball basketball coaches with the most NCAA Tournament wins that have never won a National Championship!
This week on the Daly Dose YouTube video, we are also handing out some winners and losers from the 2024 NCAA Tournament! We look at some of the best and worst in what has been a very exciting and unpredictable tournament, and one Big Ten team actually lands on our list as both a winner and a loser!
(Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Iowa Hawkeyes advanced to the Final Four last night by beating the defending National Champion LSU Tigers 94-87 and Caitlin Clark put on a show.
Clark scored 41 points on 13/29 shooting from the field and knocked down nine three pointers, including a few from the parking lot.
Of course, this has been a season full of record breaking performances by the senior guard.
Clark set an NCAA single-season record for 3-pointers this year, not to mention also becoming the all-time NCAA Division I men’s and women’s scoring leader, with an incredible 3,859 points.
Yet for all of the amazing play and performances in her illustrious career, we actually saw some unique history set on Saturday in the Hawkeyes Elite 8 game.
Iowa rolled to an easy 89-68 win over Colorado, but it was late in the 4th quarter when more history was made.
With only 5:30 remaining in the 4th quarter, and Iowa up 81-57, Clark was whistled for her third foul.
That wasn’t the story.
The story was about the behavior of the star player after the call was made.
Instead of gesturing wildly to the officials or the crowd, or even cursing at fans in the stands, Clark calmly nodded and walked away.
It was an unbelievable moment in what has been an amazing career.
For sports fans around the world, many will always remember where they were when Caitlin Clark broke the scoring record.
Many more will remember this amazing feat.
The day that Caitlin Clark didn’t complain about an obvious call will be remembered for years to come.
Then, we are breaking down each of the games coming up this week in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 and making our predictions for who will be advancing to the next round. We also take a brief look forward to the Elite Eight and try to surmise who might be making it to the Final Four!
Finally, our Daly Dose Top 5 is counting down five college basketball players that had incredible shooting performances in March Madness that you may have forgotten!
The Women’s NCAA Tournament seems to be trending in a very specific direction, and we wonder if it is good for the future of the game.
Then, we turn our attention to the NBA and NHL regular seasons which are nearly at the end. What should be be looking at as we head into the postseason?
Finally, with an NCAA Tournament that was so full of surprises, our Daly Dose Top 5 is counting down the lowest Final Four seed averages of all time!
It was a wild 2023 NCAA Tournament with so many surprises and upsets, but in the end it was the Connecticut Huskies dominating the San Diego State Aztecs 76-59.
For the first time in the history of the Daly Dose bracket challenge, not a single entry actually picked the correct winner.
Yet, at the end…one single bracket stood above them all.
With an impressive point total of 790 points, the winner of the 2023 Daly Dose ESPN NCAA Men’s Tournament Challenge…SRDaly25!
That’s right folks….SON OF DALY DOSE wins the bracket challenge! We will be getting him a Daly Dose t-shirt and see if he would like to join the podcast to discuss his amazing bracket.
Congrats and thanks to everyone that participated!
Then, March Madness has been highly entertaining, and we are handing out some winners and losers from what has been a completely unpredictable tournament.
This week on the Daly Dose YouTube video, we are back from a short break and we have been watching a TON of college basketball…sort of. We also reveal the leaders of our Daly Dose March Madness Tournament challenge!
Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2022 NBAE (Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images)
After watching the success of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, the NBA is formulating a plan to attempt to copy some of the strategies from the college game.
Speaking on Monday, commissioner Adam Silver said that watching March Madness had served as a bit of an inspiration to the NBA league office.
“We were watching the television ratings last week, and then we were watching a few of the games, and it occurred to me that the college game might be on to something.Their players’ approach to the game is so different. They actually play games, and they actually give effort. I did also notice that they spend far less time complaining at the officials, but that’s probably a little too ambitious for our players.” Silver stated.
The numbers don’t lie. Early returns from the television viewership confirm what Silver is saying. An average of 9.3 million viewers watched the first round NCAA Tournament games. When #16 Fairleigh Dickinson was in the midst of upsetting #1 Purdue, over 11-and-a-half million eyeballs were watching. Remember that many of these games take place during the week, and during the work day. They aren’t always in prime time.
Compare that to last year’s NBA Playoffs, where the first round brought in an average of just 3.7 million viewers.
“This is a learning process.” Silver continued. “We are starting to realize that when most of our superstars sit out every other game, it tends to be poor for viewership. When players choose not to play, or just don’t play hard, then fans become disgruntled. When they see their favorite players asking for courtside fans heckling them to be removed, they start to feel an “us against them” sort of mentality. If fans are paying top dollar for tickets, they want to see stars, and they want to be able to voice their opinions.”
This is now Silver’s 10th season on the job as NBA Commissioner, and his tenure has been a very mixed bag. Silver was praised early for his handling of the Los Angeles Clippers ownership situation, but he has also been criticized for his lenient stances on player conduct. And while the league has grown internationally, and has pursued the growth of the WNBA and the NBA Developmental League, the numbers in the United States are unquestionably declining.
In Silver’s first season on the job, a lackluster NBA Finals series between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder garnered an audience of 16.1 million viewers per game.
Last year’s intriguing Boston Celtics vs. Golden State Warriors NBA Finals brought a meager 6.6 television share per game.
Silver knows that something needs to change.
Will he begin to place requirements upon healthy players to participate, and steer away from their now popular trend of load management? Might Silver begin to actually try to sort out the poor officiating, and the negative interactions between his players and fans in the crowd?
“I have considered that. And time will tell, but I was thinking of maybe having more concerts before games, or maybe a midseason tournament. That should fix everything.” he confirmed.
This week on the Daly Dose, our thoughts are with all those affected by the terrible tragedy at the University of Virginia. We also look at the latest CFB Playoff rankings, and some of the scenarios that could be coming.
The NFL had a wild weekend as we no longer have any undefeated teams remaining, and that makes one team extremely happy. We discuss some of the surprises that we continue to see every week.
The league also announced that they will be honoring the late great John Madden, but we bet they will manage to screw it up, and Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving is once again doing dumb things, but we have noticed some odd things about some of his critics.
Then we dive into the 2022-2023 College Basketball season! Who are the top teams? Who are some of the top players? We take a brief look at each of the major conferences, and discuss who the top contenders will be and which teams should be dancing in March. We even give you a few lesser known programs that could end up being Cinderellas!
Finally, if your favorite NFL team is off to a slow start, our Daly Dose Top 5 will give you some reason to keep the faith!
Welcome to Daly Dose Sports- Your dose of sports and sarcasm. 