In Online Traffic, It's Truly Madness

The 11th-seeded team upsets No. 1 seed Kansas 71-61

(AP) - Jamie Skeen scored 26 points and 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth is crashing the Final Four after the upset of the NCAA tournament, shocking No. 1 seed Kansas 71-61 today. So doubtful were the Rams of even making the tournament that they didn't watch the selection show. Two weeks later, they're Houston-bound after an incredible takedown of the last No. 1 seed. More»

Famed political, baseball analyst winds up picking all the 1-seeds

(NEWSER) - Nate Silver is a famed political number-cruncher, and was once a revered baseball statistician. So when he goes to fill out his March Madness bracket, he doesn’t just pick whichever names sound good. Instead, the New York Times writer has analyzed data from all the tournament games dating back to 2003 and used it to create a computer prediction model, which takes into account four sets of computer rankings, the tournament seeds, and the AP preseason rankings. More»

CBS re-ups with new 14-year contract

(NEWSER) - March Madness will be just a wee bit madder next year, expanding from 65 teams to 68, the NCAA announced today. Essentially there will be three extra early “play-in” games, ESPN explains. There had been talk of expanding the tournament to as many as 96 teams and engulfing the NIT, but the committee unanimously passed the 68-team proposal instead. More»

Tournament-ending video montage disappoints

(NEWSER) - CBS dropped the ball on the most eagerly awaited part of its NCAA basketball tournament coverage, critics agree. Hiring Jennifer Hudson—who isn't even a CBS recording artist—to sing "One Shining Moment" was one thing, but turning the wildly popular annual highlight montage into a Jennifer Hudson video was quite another. Some reactions:

• Hudson "made a total of five appearances of varying lengths during this thing. What could we have seen in that time?" wonders Chris Littmann of the Sporting News , who proceeds to list a whole bunch.

Retired Indiana Pacer Clark Kellogg of CBS lets down his guard

(NEWSER) - CBS basketball analyst Clark Kellogg knows pressure—he played for Ohio State and the Indiana Pacers before moving to the TV studio—but he appears to have let his guard down on the White House court. In a game of H-O-R-S-E—renamed P-O-T-U-S, a common abbreviation of "president of the United States"—President Obama falls behind early. "I'm not going to be humiliated on national television," he says lightly. Then things take a turn. More»