Michigan

March Madness picks: Predictions, schedule, odds, lines for South region; Michigan trying to avoid 5-vs.-12 upset

Published

12 months ago

March 19, 2025

March Madness picks: Predictions, schedule, odds, lines for South region; Michigan trying to avoid 5-vs.-12 upset

The stat was making the rounds after Auburn didn’t make the championship game of the SEC tournament: No team has lost three of its past four games before the NCAA tournament and won a national championship.

And yet, Auburn still was a somewhat surprising pick as the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament.

Auburn stumbled late in a very tough league, which might open things up for the other teams in the South region. Auburn will open the tournament against Alabama State, which took down St. Francis 70-68 on a thrilling final-second layup off a tipped full-court pass in the First Four at Dayton on Tuesday. (We’re also waiting to see if San Diego State or North Carolina play Ole Miss on Friday, as well), but here are the rest of the picks for the first round in the South, with all the odds from BetMGM:

Midwest region picks | East region picks | West region picks

(All times Eastern.)

No. 8 Louisville (-2.5) over No. 9 Creighton, 12:15 p.m. Thursday

The first game of the first round Thursday is a good one. Louisville seems very under-seeded, but that’s part of playing in a bad ACC. Still, since Dec. 14 the Cardinals are 21-2 and one of the losses came to Duke in the ACC tournament. Creighton has been a very good team too, and 7-foot-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner will be a problem for the Cardinals. But I won’t hold it against Louisville that the ACC was down. The Cards advance.

No. 1 Auburn (-31.5) over No. 16 Alabama State, 2:50 p.m. Thursday

Alabama State thrilled us with a great NCAA tournament opener, with a last-second shot to win it. But this isn’t the type of 16 seed that can scare a 1 seed. Alabama State doesn’t have any strength that will keep it in a game against an Auburn team looking to quiet critics who wondered how it got the No. 1 overall seed after losing three of their last four.

[Full NCAA tournament bracket revealed | Printable bracket]

No. 13 Yale (+7.5) over No. 4 Texas A&M, 7:25 p.m. Thursday

Yale has become the Ivy’s best program, and this season it dominated the league. Yale was 16-1 after Dec. 22. Texas A&M is a good team, but it lives off offensive rebounding (the best offensive rebounding percentage in the nation), and yet Yale is pretty good on the defensive boards. The Ivy League has been pretty good in the first round of the NCAA tournament, going 10-4 against the spread in the first round since 2009 (per Matt Eisenberg’s Tournament Guide). Texas A&M could make a run into the second weekend, but this one isn’t going to be easy.

Vladislav Goldin helped lead the Michigan Wolverines to a Big Ten tournament championship. (Photo by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images)

No. 5 Michigan (-2.5) over No. 12 UC San Diego, 10 p.m. Thursday

Ah, the 5 vs. 12 game. We all know by now this is where upsets come from, and UC San Diego is a dangerous 12 seed. KenPom.com had San Diego as the 36th best team in the sport, which is rarified air for a Big West school. That’s just one spot below UConn, the reigning champs. San Diego does everything well, and it shoots (and hits) a lot of 3s. The problem is UCSD’s size. It doesn’t have a regular who is taller than 6-8. Michigan is the rare team with two 7-footers, Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf. If UCSD hits a ton of 3s this could be a fun upset, but this was a really unfortunate matchup for a strong mid-major.

[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem is back: Enter for a shot to win up to $50K]

No. 14 Lipscomb (+14.5) over No. 3 Iowa State, 1:30 p.m. Friday

Iowa State looked like it could be a Final Four contender, but the last month was a little rough. Injuries affected the Cyclones. It appears Tamin Lipsey (10.8 ppg) will return from injury, but Keshon Gilbert (13.4 ppg) is out for the season via the Des Moines Register. That lowers the Cyclones’ ceiling. Lipscomb has a lot of shooters, which is what you want from a big underdog. If Lipscomb can knock down some of the many 3s it’s going to take, this one could be interesting late.

No. 11 North Carolina (-1.5) over No. 6 Ole Miss, 4:05 p.m. Friday

Most years, a team that wins in the First Four also wins a first-round game. This isn’t just an overreaction to UNC’s dominant win over San Diego State; the Tar Heels match up pretty well with Ole Miss. UNC didn’t deserve an at-large spot but that never meant it couldn’t get hot and win multiple games.

No. 7 Marquette (-3.5) over No. 10 New Mexico, 7:25 p.m. Friday

If you like guard play, this will be a fun matchup. Marquette’s Kam Jones is one of the best players in the country, a Bob Cousy Award finalist for the trophy that goes to the nation’s best point guard. New Mexico’s Donovan Dent and his 20.6 points per game should get more respect for postseason honors. Marquette won just five of its last 12 games, but there weren’t any bad losses. This isn’t an easy pick between two similar but flawed teams. Marquette might be happy to not see a Big East foe.

No. 15 Bryant (+17.5) over No. 2 Michigan State, 10 p.m. Friday

Michigan State had a tremendous season. The Spartans were good to bettors too, posting a 22-10-1 mark against the spread via Action Network, one of the best marks in the sport. MSU won’t shoot many 3s, won’t shoot them well, but can score inside and rebound it well. Bryant is one of the few 15 seeds that actually has some decent size. It has the sixth-tallest team in college basketball, according to KenPom.com. The Bulldogs didn’t play a tough schedule and against the two best teams they played, St. John’s and Grand Canyon, they lost by 22 and 46, respectively. There’s no upset concern here, but Bryant might not be a total pushover.

Source link

Click to comment

Michigan

2 Smoothie King employees fired for refusing to serve customer in Trump hoodie

Published

2 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

2 Smoothie King employees fired for refusing to serve customer in Trump hoodie

Two employees who refused to serve a man and his wife because he was wearing a hoodie with President Trump’s name on it were fired after a video of the heated encounter went viral.

Erika Lindemyer and her husband, Jake, were forced out of a Smoothie King franchise location in Ann Arbor, Michigan, following a fiery clash with two young female workers on Sunday.

The employees claimed they didn’t “feel comfortable” serving the couple because of Jake’s pro-Trump hoodie, as captured by Erika in a viral video.

Jake and Erika fired back at the pair and insisted that they were being “discriminated” against based on their “political views.”

“We were just wanting a smoothie and you literally looked at us and I asked you if everything was OK and you said ‘We don’t feel comfortable serving you’ because of my husband’s hoodie. That is discrimination,” Erika spat.

“Okay, well, have a great day,” the first employee said.

“That is illegal,” Erika tried to insist again.

“I said Trump discriminates [against] us,” another employee chimed in.

“Okay, well that has nothing to do with us getting a smoothie!” Erika guffawed.

“OK, well that’s who you support though, that’s who you love,” the first employee chided.

“What’s embarrassing is that we’re American citizens and I wanted to get a smoothie,” Erika huffed.

The second employee noted that they “have a right to refuse service” and directed the couple to the exit.

“You asked a question and [the other employee] gave you an answer. Have a great day. Have a great day. The door’s right there,” the second worker said.

Erika threatened to call the police while storming out, but it’s unclear if she did.

In a separate video shared Monday, one of the workers joked that she might’ve “accidentally started a race war” and called on the public to help remove Erika’s video.

“I am a minor and she recorded me without my permission. The people in the comments are all white and they’re all being hella racist, guys, please help me get this video taken down,” she implored.

Smoothie King confirmed that the girls involved in the viral confrontation “are no longer with the business” as of Monday.

“As a brand, Smoothie King is committed to ensuring our stores are a place free of discrimination of any kind, where every guest and team member is treated with care and respect,” the company wrote on X.

The owner of the Ann Arbor franchise location will also enforce “mandatory retraining for all employees that outlines our guest experience standards.”

In early December, a woman who worked at a Target in California was berated by a customer for wearing a Charlie Kirk “Freedom” T-shirt.

When the employee insisted she was allowed to wear the red shirt, the irate customer accused her of supporting “a racist.”

The medical center where the agitated customer worked was bombarded with upwards of 6,000 “profanity-laced” phone calls after online sleuths doxxed her personal information.

Source link

Michigan

Opportunity knocks for Michigan’s guards with L.J. Cason out

Published

14 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Opportunity knocks for Michigan’s guards with L.J. Cason out

Ann Arbor — The Wolverines won the outright Big Ten regular-season title with two games to go, but it came at a great cost.

L.J. Cason, Michigan’s backup point guard and a key piece of the rotation, tore his right ACL in the championship-clinching win at Illinois. Just like that, Cason’s season was over and Michigan was hit with a brutal blow.

But when adversity strikes, opportunity knocks. While the team won’t be the same without Cason, coach Dusty May believes Michigan has backcourt pieces who can step up and make up for the loss.

“This is a great opportunity for Roddy (Gayle Jr.), Trey (McKenney) and Nimari (Burnett) to play more, and those guys are really good players,” May said Monday. “Our rotation has been nine and nine, I think, is too deep. It’s playing too many guys, if you want to optimize everyone. But we felt like we had nine guys that deserved to play, that gave us a different element.

“We look at this as another challenge, but it’s also an opportunity for guys to play a little bit more, to play longer periods, to play through a mistake, to play a little bit different role. We do feel like these guys are a lot better than they were earlier this year, so we’re prepared to handle whatever comes at us.”

May said he doesn’t know exactly when Cason tore his ACL, and neither does Cason. The sophomore guard fell to the court and got up favoring his right leg on two separate occasions against Illinois.

The first instance came in the final minute of the first half, when Cason tipped a long rebound ahead and chased it down to start a fast break. After he grabbed the ball in the air and bounced it backward between his legs to a trailing teammate, Cason went down. He got up hobbling, was subbed out and went back to the locker room.

Cason briefly checked back in during the second half and scored a driving layup a minute into his shift. But on Michigan’s next possession, he fell down after trying to score through contact and got up limping again. Shortly after that, Cason motioned to the Michigan bench to be taken out of the game and he exited for good.

“At halftime, the training staff came and said basically he’s passed all of his jump test. He just did the bike. He says he’s 100% ready to go. I was surprised, because I was expecting him to be out,” May said. “I said, ‘What about the test?’ They said both of his knees are loose, so it’s hard. We don’t feel that anything is torn.

“He comes back in. He lands funny again. … It’s unfortunate for him because he was playing so well. When an ACL pops on a noncontact injury, you’re like, ‘Man, what could we have done different?’ When it happens on a funny, quirky play, usually those are the ones that aren’t preventable.”

May added it hasn’t been determined yet when Cason will undergo surgery. Given the typical recovery timeline for a torn ACL ranges anywhere from nine to 12 months, May said Cason redshirting next season is a possibility that’s “on the table.”

“That’s certainly been discussed as well, and then that impacts the recruiting decision-making,” May said. “But right now, we’re still trying to figure out when he’s going to have it. What’s the timeline? Does it make sense to go ahead and sit out next year? … We haven’t made any definitive decisions, because all the information is so inconclusive.”

Moving forward, the plan isn’t to have just one guy replace Cason, who averaged 8.4 points and 2.4 assists in 18.6 minutes per game, shot 40.2% from 3-point range and served as a facilitator when starting point guard Elliot Cadeau wasn’t on the court. It’ll be a by-committee approach.

That said, Cason’s absence is certainly going to put much more on Cadeau’s shoulders. The Wolverines can ill afford to have Cadeau commit unnecessary fouls and miss long stretches at a time. Without Cason, Cadeau is the one guard who can break down opposing defenses off the dribble and create for others.

“This will force Elliot to be much more solid with his defensive decision-making when it comes to fouling,” May said. “He doesn’t have that insurance policy anymore named L.J. behind him, because L.J. came in and carried the load several games for our group. That’s not there anymore.”

While Burnett, Gayle and McKenney haven’t had to be facilitators in their roles this season, May expressed confidence all three can take on minutes with the ball in their hands and initiate the offense.

Even beyond the guards, May noted the team has “other capable weapons” who can serve as triggers on offense depending on the matchup, like forwards Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. and big man Aday Mara.

Add it all together, May feels the Wolverines can find a way to absorb the blow, fill the void and forge ahead with Cason sidelined.

“We have enough to overcome what L.J. brought to the team,” May said. “I don’t know if he’s the best backup point guard in the country, but I can’t think of one that’s better. We’re losing a lot, but once again, we’re not going to sit here and look at it from that angle.

“This is an opportunity for all these other guys to do a little bit more, and they’re more than capable. It’s on us to find the right rotations and situations. Without a doubt, we have a lot of confidence in our roster.”

jhawkins@detroitnews.com

@jamesbhawkins

Source link

Michigan

Michigan State Police patrol car damaged in hit-and-run on Lodge Freeway in Detroit

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Michigan State Police patrol car damaged in hit-and-run on Lodge Freeway in Detroit

Nick Lentz

Updated on: March 1, 2026 / 11:08 PM EST
/ CBS Detroit

The Michigan State Police is looking for the driver of a Jeep that the agency said hit one of its patrol cars on Lodge Freeway in Detroit Sunday night.

According to officials, the incident happened at 7:50 p.m. on the northbound side of the freeway near Shaefer Highway. The agency said a trooper was investigating a crash and had the patrol car parked on the right shoulder of the freeway with its emergency lights on when it was rear-ended by the Jeep.

“The impact forced the patrol car to strike the concrete wall on the right shoulder,” according to the agency.

A damaged Michigan State Police patrol car on the side of Lodge Freeway in Detroit on March 1, 2026, after it was hit by a Jeep.

Michigan State Police

The Jeep then went across three lanes of the freeway and hit a median wall, officials said. The driver, identified by law enforcement as a 29-year-old Detroit woman, left the vehicle and fled the scene.

Michigan State Police First Lieutenant Mike Shaw said that while the trooper was evaluated and cleared at the scene by medical personnel, he was still taken to the hospital as a precaution.

In:

Source link