The road to San Antonio begins in Seattle

The brackets are set for the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, and in their first-ever trip to the Big Dance, Portland State is starting local.

The Vikings begin the tournament in Seattle as the No. 15 seed in the Sacramento Region, and are set to face No. 2 Texas A&M at 5:06 p.m. on Saturday at UW's Bank of America Arena. The game will be televised on ESPN2.

Portland State (18–14) is making its first appearance in the NCAA Division I Tournament after earning the Big Sky Conference's automatic bid with Saturday's win over Montana State in the championship game of the conference tournament.

This year marks the fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament for Texas A&M (25–7). They won the Big 12 Conference Tournament for the second time in three years with a win over Oklahoma on Sunday.

A printable PDF of the complete tournament seeding is available here.

Women clinch Big Sky title

PSU defeats Montana State in Big Sky Championship

The Portland State women’s basketball team is the newly crowned champion of the Big Sky Conference.

The Vikings defeated Montana State, 62–58, yesterday in Cheney, Wash., to win their first-ever Big Sky title, and with it the conference’s automatic berth in the NCAA Women’s Tournament.

Saturday saw several firsts. In addition to setting up PSU’s first NCAA Tournament appearance, it was the first time in Big Sky history that two quarterfinalists met in the championship game, and as the No. 5 seed, the Vikings became the lowest seeded team to ever win the conference tournament.

Photo courtesy Portland State Athletics Department

 

“We did it the hard way, but we did it,” head coach Sherri Murrell said in a television interview after the game.

Not only will her team be competing in the NCAA Division I Tournament for the first time, but this will also mark Murrell’s first time in the Big Dance.

“To be a part of history is something very special. It means a lot to the players who have battled hard,” she said. “It took me 20 years of my career to do it, so I’m pretty happy.”

Senior guard Claire Faucher, the Tournament MVP, broke the conference and school records in both three-pointers attempted and three-pointers made when she shot 8 for 16 from behind the arc.

Let the postseason begin

The Portland State men's basketball team just began their quarterfinal game of the Big Sky Tournament against Montana State, and there are three ways to catch the postseason action. The game can be followed via live stats, audio or video.

Will PSU make it to the semifinals? Follow the game to find out.

Portland State, BABIP and ISO

by James MacKenzie
Vanguard staff

A quick introduction: I'm James MacKenzie and I write for the sports section in the Vanguard. This is what I hope to be the first in a running series of posts that will analyze the Portland State softball team through sabermetric analysis, a field in which softball is sorely lacking.

Sabermetrics are so absent from softball, that when you type it into Google it asks, "did you mean: football sabermetrics?" Which is a pity, because really, doesn't softball in all of its similarity to baseball, deserve to be picked apart, scrutinized and analyzed with every stupid number one can throw at it in the same way that baseball is? I would answer that it does and that's the aim here. 

I would, however, like to add the caveat that since sabermetrics are absent from softball in most available statistical archives, I have derived most of the statistics used here from my own work provided by the raw statistics available at goviks.com. That being said, I'd like to say that I am an amateur statistician at best and as always when you read things on the internet, take it with a grain a salt.

Through twelve games, it's safe to say that Portland State's offensive production has been nothing short of putrid. The raw slash line of .212/.290/.260 is rough, as is the .550 OPS it amounts too. Portland State ranks second to last in batting average and slugging in the Pacific Coast Softball Conference ahead of only Santa Clara and ranks third to last in on-base percentage. Quite simply, the Vikings aren't hitting.

Vikings football names D-line coach

The Portland State Athletics Department announced today that Legi Suiaunoa will join the PSU football team. Including the addition of Suiaunoa, first-year head coach Nigel Burton has now added 10 assistants to his staff.

A complete breakdown of the coaching roster and the press release in its entirety is included after the jump.

Death reported at Olympic Games

The opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics has not yet taken place, and the BBC reports there has already been a death at the games.

Nodar Kumaritashvili, a 21-year old member of the Georgian luge team, died today during a training run at Whistler Sliding Centre in Vancouver, Canada. Apparently he crashed his sled during one of the turns and hit an unpadded steel pole.

The Olympic Games officially begin tonight, and competition in the men's luge is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Whether that schedule will be affected has not been determined.

Riding in style

Feel like taking a quaint bike ride this Saturday? Why not join dozens of others at the Skidmore Fountain at 11 a.m. for the First annual Tweed Ride. The ten mile ride will have a few planned stops, including sipping tea, and ending with a picnic with your fellow riders. Lets just hope for some sun!

–Wendy Shortman