It could be an elevator, a hallway or a corridor this weekend at one of the Final Fours, the men’s in Arizona or the women’s in Cleveland. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, has a team in each, so doubtless he will be at both. Len Perna, meanwhile, has an idea, and if he sees Sankey he may do everything in his power to get a minute.

At most, Sankey will smile politely, nod and keep the conversation short. For now, the chances of Sankey and his conference wanting any part of Perna’s idea are about as good as the SEC giving up football as a varsity sport.

Because that’s essentially what it would be doing here.

The notion of a college football “Super League” has been percolating for a while, and one idea finally went public on Wednesday, when The Athletic reported that a number of power brokers, including the presidents at Syracuse and West Virginia and Perna, the CEO of TurnkeyZRG, were pushing for a 70-team permanent group, employing athletes as players, making its own rules and leaving non-football sports to the existing conferences, as is.

Publicly, the reaction among SEC power brokers was crickets: Sankey and the presidents at…

As college basketball players head to NCAA Tournament arenas on their team buses, many will slip on headphones, zone out to a song and absorb the vibes. Coaches also sometimes take a small moment from poring over last-minute scouting reports to escape to a melody filtering through their airpods.

These soundtracks, perhaps subconsciously, serve an objective, too. Music can settle our nerves — or pump us up. A specific banger can provide a dose of confidence. A sentimental song might remind us of our grand purpose. “Music is the shorthand of emotion,” Leo Tolstoy once wrote.

So as March Madness gets underway, The Athletic wondered what these tournament-bound stars will be listening to before they compete in some of the most important games in their lives. We asked women’s and men’s tournament players and coaches to share their pre-game playlists. Players’ tastes ranged from Nicki Minaj to Veeze to even Elvis Presley. Coaches ranged from Gospel to AC/DC.

You won’t achieve the same jump shot as these athletes by listening to their hype music, but these playlists will get you ready (from your couch) for tip-off.

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Women’s NCAA Tournament players’ mixtapes

JuJu Watkins

Guard | No. 1 USC

The brightest freshman in women’s basketball, Watkins has taken the Trojans to new…

The full NCAA Tournament bracket has been released with UConn leading the way as No. 1 overall.

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

March Madness is upon us.

Well, technically it began during a wild conference tournament season ahead of the NCAA Tournament. But now, we get the really good stuff. The Cinderellas. The players you hadn’t heard of before this week who are now household names. The buzzer-beaters. Ultimately, though, we all want to know who will be cutting down the nets in April. And so we present: the top 16 national title contenders in our NCAA Tournament Power Rankings.

We will update this ranking after every round and until the Final Four begins. If top-seeded teams fall, others will take their place. If some lower-seeded teams look stronger than expected, they’ll move up the list.

Who’s on top to start? Of course it’s Connecticut. Here’s a look at where things stand as we enter Thursday’s first round:

Looking for the chalkiest region in the first round of the NCAA Tournament? Our model thinks it’s likely to be the East. Only two of six Bracket Breaker games have an upset chance of greater than 10 percent, and no team has more than a 28 percent chance of springing an upset.

Below is a game-by-game analysis of every first-round matchup with Bracket Breaker implications in the East. We’ve already examined the Midwest and the West and will break down the South on Wednesday and every potential second-round matchup. To qualify as a Bracket Breaker game, opponents need to be separated by at least five seeds (which is why we don’t cover the 8/9 or 7/10 games). Our analysis adjusts teams’ basic strengths according to how closely they statistically resemble favorites and underdogs from past tournaments and, where appropriate, by style matchups. We can’t tell you how to bet — that depends on how richly your pool rewards deep upsets and your tolerance for risk. But if you’re interested in how our model works, check out this piece.

And now, onto the upsets!

More Bracket Breakers: Men’s Top 10 Upsets | Midwest Region Preview | West Region Preview | Women’s Top 10 Upsets

Odds are from BetMGM. For more Underdogs, listen to Peter and Jordan’s podcast. For all our…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Since Florida repeated as national champs in 2007, no defending champion has advanced past the Sweet 16. That ends this year.

 

Connecticut is the most complete team in college basketball, and it’s going to end that streak and repeat as national champions. That was my pre-bracket prediction and I’m sticking with it, but the selection committee really has me uneasy about that prediction. The Huskies received no favors as the top overall seed. You could argue that UConn has the toughest path to Phoenix as any of the top seeds. Iowa State has the best defense in college basketball. Illinois has one of the best offenses and was a team pre-bracket that I was pretty sure I would push through to the Final Four, and Auburn is the candidate to be this season’s UConn.

My other pre-bracket rule: Fade the Big 12. The league is the most physical in the country and its teams, outside of Iowa State, are entering the NCAA Tournament bruised and battered. And if you look through the all-conference teams in the Big 12, the talent is not comparable to past years. There aren’t a lot of pros, and the…

The Athletic has live coverage of Selection Sunday and the Women’s NCAA Tournament bracket reveal

The final full day of conference tournaments has come and gone, and wow, what a jam-packed slate. We ultimately came away without any upsets that would put a potential at-large bid in question, but we witnessed some great games and competition.

For the first time since 2002, Kent State is headed to the NCAA Tournament. California Baptist, in Year 6 as a Division I program, earned its first ticket to the Big Dance. Norfolk State matched last season’s win total and tied its program DI record with 26 wins this season after punching its ticket to the tournament as well, back for a second straight year. Fairfield won its 31st game of the season, outlasting Niagara in one of the most frenetic games of the past few weeks to secure its trip to March Madness.

Get your women’s March Madness printable bracket

In the most anticipated game of the day, Princeton won the Ivy League championship comfortably, likely denying the possibility of the Ivy as a two-bid conference.

So on Selection Sunday, as we dive into our final Bracket Watch, a quick thank you for following along. We have a wealth of tournament coverage coming as the brackets are revealed (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) on the selection show. You…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

The past week in basketball has brought an ungodly amount of upsets, including the upheaval of the top 10 this past weekend. The Pac-12 is doing everything in its power to fight, claw and scrap and make the final season of play as memorable as possible. The ACC is about as predictable as a random number generator.

With the reveal of the latest Top 16 from the selection committee on Thursday, we continue to gain more clarity for the top tournament seeds, while simultaneously dropping the floor as we lower the ceiling.

The number of games to make a splash on your resume dwindles; some teams are done playing and awaiting their conference tournament. So much of this time of year is a waiting game, hoping the chips fall your way as another team runs into a 2-3 matchup zone it wasn’t ready for.

What teams stand out throughout our Bubble Watch, causing eyebrows to raise for their current exploits or questions that arise due to late-season lulls?

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ACC

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Power conferences understandably dominate discussion, particularly Bubble Watch talk, this time of year. All the teams fighting in the middle, yearning for resume-supplementing wins, provide some of the most notable matchups and storylines.

However, it’s worth pausing and noting some of the more under-the-radar seasons in the country, especially the programs that we are trending toward hearing about in March. I can think of few teams more deserving of that mention than Marshall.

The Thundering Herd are 20-6, a standout record on its own but even more notable when recognizing this is the first time since the 2016 season they have eclipsed the 20-win mark and just the second time since they left the Southern Conference in 1997. This is West Virginia native Kim Caldwell’s first season at the helm in Huntington. She led her alma mater, DII Glenville State, for seven seasons, including a national championship in 2022. In her first foray as a head coach at the highest level of collegiate basketball, something special is brewing.

Find it your local newspaper #WeAreMarshall

Collegiate soccer has long played a significant role in the women’s game, developing generations of players who have gone on to become top professionals, international stars, and influential coaches and executives. But as pro leagues evolve and the economics of the college game change, so too does its role in the wider ecosystem of the sport.

On Friday, the showpiece event of the college soccer season commences when Florida State faces Clemson (6 p.m. ET), and Brigham Young faces Stanford (8:30 p.m. ET) in the 2023 Women’s College Cup in Cary, North Carolina. The final will be played on Monday (6 p.m. ET; all matches on ESPNU and ESPN+). But the NCAA tournament began with 64 teams ranging from long-established powerhouses of the game with well-stocked trophy cabinets to upstart programs at varying stages of contention. Over the coming weeks, The Athletic will tell the stories of several teams in each category, so stay tuned.

But first, we’re taking a look at the NCAA players who could soon make the leap to the NWSL through the league’s college draft. The draft will be held on Jan. 12 of next year and players don’t have to register for the draft until Jan. 8, so the draft pool is still very much up in the air. However, what follows is an early attempt at putting…

Most SEC teams are a few weeks into spring practice, and Auburn has its A-game this week. The future scheduling format is closer to being announced (presumably) and the SEC just claimed its second consecutive NCAA women’s basketball title. So, it’s a good time for an SEC mailbag: Post your submissions below and selected ones will be answered later this week. Fire away!