NCAA Basketball Scores and Brackets Updates

NCAA Basketball Scores and Brackets Updates

The NCAA Basketball Tournament 2011 bracket scores have been updated for Friday with several key victories amid shocking top seed losses.  Louisville has been ousted from the tourney but several other squads like Pittsburgh and Kentucky made it on.

Clemson used the momentum from winning a play-in game over UAB on Tuesday to take a double-digit first half lead over West Virginia, but in the end the Mountaineers had fresher legs down the stretch and pulled away for an 84-76 victory in the 2011 NCAA basketball tournament.  Clemson was playing their second game in just over 36 hours, but West Virginia was the team that looked sluggish early on, falling behind by ten points with just over three minutes remaining the first half.  West Virginia went on a run from there to tie the game at the half and opened up a large second half lead behind five players in double figures.  Darryl Bryant led the Mountaineers with 19 points, Kevin Jones added 17, and Joe Mazzulla had 12 points and seven assists. Andre Young led the Tigers’ upset bid with 22 points, while Demontez Stitt added 16 points.

The Mountaineers advance to face Kentucky who scored a last second victory over Princeton on a layup by freshman Brandon Knight.  Knight had not made a basket yet in the game as he handled the ball with the game clock winding down, but he drove the lane for the biggest basket of his young career, giving Kentucky the 59-57 victory.  Knight wasn’t the only Wildcat freshman who struggled against the Princeton defense, as classmates Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb combined for just 17 points.  Kentucky’s upperclassmen picked up the slack with junior Darius Miller leading the team in scoring with 17 points, and senior Josh Harrellson contributing 15 points and ten rebounds.  Dan Mavraides led Princeton with 14 points as the Tigers stayed within striking distance throughout the game and managed to tie the score on a basket by Mavraides with 36 seconds.  Douglas Davis added 13 points for Princeton.


Morehead State rode tough inside play and clutch outside shooting to a shocking 62-61 upset of Louisville.  In a showdown between two Kentucky schools with very different traditions, thirteen seed Morehead State never backed down against its more well-known opponent and pulled off the biggest upset of the early tournament on a three-pointer by Demonte Harper in the final seconds.  Kenneth Faried, the NCAA’s all-time leading rebound finished with 12 points and 17 rebounds, while Terrance Hill had 23 points and eight rebounds.  Faried also registered the biggest defensive play of the game, blocking Mike Marra’s desperation shot at the buzzer.  Chris Smith led Louisville with 17 points, but he was the only Cardinal to crack double figures.  Louisville was limited by point guard Peyton Siva’s foul trouble and leading scorer Preston Knowles’ foot injury that knocked him out of the game with eight minutes to play.  That set the stage for Morehead State’s late rally, finalized by Harper’s pull up three-pointer from the top of the key.

Morehead State wasn’t the only team pulling off an upset in the first round, as Richmond scored a 69-66 knockout of fifth seed Vanderbilt.  While Morehead State’s victory was a true surprise, Richmond was a trendy upset pick after winning seven straight games including the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship.  The Spiders delivered behind a game high 25 points from Kevin Anderson.  Vanderbilt got 21 points each from Festus Ezeli and John Jenkins, but only 24 points from the rest of their roster.  The Commodores had a nine point second half lead before Anderson got hot from outside, hitting three consecutive three-pointers as part of a 12-0 Richmond run.  Justin Harper had 13 points for Richmond and Francis-Cedric Martel added 12.

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iPhone 5 Will Have NFC

iPhone 5 Will Have NFC

Countering a British news report published Monday, Forbes magazine on Friday said Apple's next-generation iPhone will indeed support near-field communication (NFC) technology, a mobile standard that lets users pay with their smartphones.

"From what I hear, it is possible the iPhone 5 will include NFC. An entrepreneur who is working on a top-secret NFC product told me today that he believes the iPhone 5 will have NFC and cited a friend who works at Apple as a reliable source for the information," writes Elizabeth Woyke. "To further bolster his statement, the entrepreneur said that manufacturers of NFC readers – whom he has been talking to for his own product – also expect the iPhone 5 to have NFC."

The latest secondhand rumor contradicts a report from UK's The Independent, which claimed Apple decided against including NFC because of the lack of a clear standard in the industry.

That hasn't stopped rivals Google and Research in Motion from tackling NFC. Google is reportedly testing the service in New York and San Francisco over the next few months. In November, Google chief Eric Schmidt showed off an unannounced Android phone running "Gingerbread" that included an NFC chip. The following month, Google unveiled the Nexus S, the first smartphone to feature Android 2.3 "Gingerbread." NFC was a big new feature in the Nexus S; the phone comes with a demo app that collects NFC tags and shows you the results.

At Mobile World Congress in February, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said most new BlackBerry devices his year will include NFC. Nokia has showed off an NFC concept phone years ago but hasn't made one commercially available yet.

Carriers are also trying to get in the lucrative mobile payment business. Last November, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon launched an NFC-based national mobile payment network called Isis.

With NFC in the iPhone, meanwhile, Apple could link mobile payments via iTunes.

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Japanese Yen Drops as Sell-Off Continues

Japanese Yen Drops as Sell-Off Continues

A wave of coordinated intervention by the world's financial powers sent the Japanese yen plunging Friday after the G-7 agreed to take steps to curb the Japanese currency's post-earthquake surge.

The US dollar traded at 81.41 yen at 7:00am Eastern Time, compared to 79.14 yen shortly before the G-7 announcement in early Asian trading hours.

Most of the dollar's jump came in the wake of the announcement in Asia, with the Bank of Japan stepping in aggressively to sell the yen versus the dollar. European central banks also joined in.

In a statement, the UK's Treasury said that the Bank of England intervened in the foreign currency markets "to give effect to the G-7 finance ministers' communique."

A spokeswoman for Germany's Bundesbank confirmed that the institution was also participating in the intervention. Traders said action was seen by the Bank of France and the European Central Bank (ECB). Spokespersons for the Bank of France and ECB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The yen was sharply lower versus all major rivals Friday. The euro traded at 114.74 yen, up from 110.93 yen, while the British pound climbed to 131.17 yen from 127.69 yen.

The Australian dollar, which was hit hard as the yen rose in the aftermath of the quake, jumped to 80.66 yen from 77.55 yen, and the Swiss franc surged to 90.18 yen from 88.08 yen.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, traded at 75.891, compared to 75.992 in late North American trading Thursday.

The yen hit a record high against the dollar early Thursday in Asia, raising speculation of intervention as Japan struggled to cope with the aftermath of last week's massive earthquake and tsunami.

The yen's surge was seen as particularly unwelcome because the nation was expected to rely on its export sector to help dig out of the economic hole left by the earthquake, tsunami and still-unresolved nuclear crisis.

Traders tied the yen's surge to a number of factors, including expectations of large-scale repatriation of overseas investments, the unwinding of yen-funded carry trades and the Japanese currency's traditional status as a safe haven during turmoil and uncertainty.

Further intervention was likely over the course of the day, with the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada expected to join in selling the yen as North American trading activity gets underway.

The dollar's rebound against the yen Friday put the pair back just below the trading level seen before the earthquake struck.

The weakening yen boosted Japan's exporters Friday, causing the Nikkei Stock Average to jump 2.7 percent to 9,206.75 at close of Tokyo trading. However, it still ended the week with losses of more than 10 percent.

News of the intervention had a knock-on effect for the rest of the region, with Sydney rising 1.67 percent, or 77.42 points, to 4,716 at market close. Hong Kong was up 0.07 percent at market close, while Shanghai added 0.33 percent.

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Japan Raises Nuclear Severity Level

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