| March 26 |
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1944 — St. John’s, coached by Joe Lapchick, cruises by DePaul 47-39 to become the first back-to-back winner of the National Invitation Tournament.
1946 — Hank Iba’s Oklahoma A&M Aggies beat North Carolina 43-40 for their second straight NCAA men’s basketball title. Bob Kurland scores 23 points, including the first two dunks in NCAA tournament history.
1949 — Alex Groza leads Kentucky to a 46-36 victory over Oklahoma State for the NCAA championship.
1952 — Kansas’ Clyde Lovelette scores 33 points to lead the Jayhawks to a 80-63 win over St. John’s for the NCAA basketball title.
1972 — The Los Angeles Lakers beat Seattle 124-98 to finish the season at 69-13, the best record in NBA history, until the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls finish at 72-10.
1973 — Bill Walton scores 44 points to help UCLA win its record seventh NCAA basketball championship with an 87-66 triumph over Memphis State.
1974 — George Foreman knocks out Ken Norton in the second round in Caracas, Venezuela, to retain the world heavyweight title.
1974 — Rick Barry of the Golden State Warriors scores 64 points in a 143-120 victory over Portland.
1987 — Southern Mississippi defeats La Salle 84-80 in the championship of the 50th NIT.
1992 — Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is sentenced to six years in prison for rape.
1995 — Nanci Bowen wins the Dinah Shore, her first LPGA victory, by one stroke over Susie Redman.
1996 — Mario Lemieux scores five goals and two assists in his first head-to-head competition against Wayne Gretzky in more than three years to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to an 8-4 victory over the St. Louis Blues.
2002 — Utah’s John Stockton turns 40, to become the 10th player in NBA history to play at that age. Stockton scores 20 points in the Jazz’s 109-105 victory over Houston.
2004 — Ian Crocker closes out his career at Texas by setting a world record in the 100-meter butterfly at the NCAA men’s swimming and diving championships, winning the event for the fourth straight year. Crocker wins in 49.07 seconds, joining Mark Spitz and Pablo Morales as the only swimmers to win the butterfly four times in NCAA championships history.
2005 — In the NCAA men’s basketball regional finals, Louisville and Illinois make tremendous comebacks to force overtime and advance. Louisville, trailing by 20 to a West Virginia, complete an amazing come-from-behind 93-85 win. Illinois, trailing by 15 with just four minutes to play, went on a dazzling 20-5 run to send Arizona to a crushing 90-89 defeat.
2006 — George Mason stuns No. 1 seed Connecticut 86-84 in overtime to become the first No. 11 seed to reach the men’s Final Four since LSU in 1986.
2009 — Evan Lysacek becomes the first American in 13 years to win the World Figure Skating Championship thanks to a spectacular free skate.
2010 — Gilbert Arenas is sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house for bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room. District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin also adds a litany of conditions associated with the sentence — two years of probation, a $5,000 fine and 400 hours of community service.
2011 — Victoire Pisa, one of three horses from Japan running in the Dubai World Cup, delivered some rare good news to the country by winning the $10 million Dubai World Cup. The winner edged another Japanese horse, Transcend, at the wire by a half length in the world’s richest horse race. Fans of Victoire Pisa were in tears as the national anthem played. Many of the Japanese teams wore black polo shirts with the word “hope” on the sleeve alongside Japan’s flag. On the back was the March 11 date of the earthquake and tsunami.
2011 — Shelvin Mack scores 27 points, including five in overtime, as Butler returns to the Final Four with a 74-71 victory over Florida in the Southeast regional. Kemba Walker scores 20 points, freshman Jeremy Lamb adds 19 as Connecticut beats Arizona 65-63 to win the West regional.
2012 — Jaime Alas scores in stoppage time and El Salvador forges a 3-3 tie that ousts the United States from Olympic qualifying. The Americans miss the Olympics for the second time since 1976.
| March 27 |
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1939 — Oregon beats Ohio State 46-33 in the NCAA’s first national basketball tournament.
1942 — Joe Louis knocks out Abe Simon in the sixth round at Madison Square Garden to retain his world heavyweight title.
1945 — Oklahoma A&M beats New York University 49-45 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1951 — Bill Spivey scores 22 points to lead Kentucky to a 68-58 win over Kansas State for the NCAA basketball title.
1971 — UCLA beats Villanova 68-62 for its fifth NCAA basketball title.
1978 — Jack Givens scores 41 points to lead Kentucky to a 94-88 victory over Duke for the NCAA basketball title.
1983 — Larry Holmes wins a unanimous 12-round decision over Lucien Rodriguez to retain his world heavyweight title in his hometown of Scranton, Pa.
1991 — Kenny Ammann scores 22 points, including five 3-pointers, to help Stanford capture its first NIT title with a 78-72 victory over Oklahoma.
1994 — Donna Andrews sinks a 6-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Dinah Shore by one stroke, her second straight victory and first LPGA major.
1998 — Michael Jordan scores 34 points to lead the Chicago Bulls to an 89-74 victory over the Atlanta Hawks before 62,046 at the Georgia Dome — the largest crowd in NBA history.
2003 — Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko wins his second World Figure Skating Championships title, edging American Tim Goebel.
2005 — In the NCAA men’s basketball regional finals, Michigan State makes the most of its second overtime against Kentucky, pulling away 94-88. This is the first time in tournament history that three regional finals go to overtime. North Carolina beats Wisconsin 88-82 in regulation.
2005 — Annika Sorenstam shoots a final-round 68 to finish at 15-under to win the Nabisco Championship by eight shots over Rosie Jones. It’s Sorenstam’s fifth win in a row over two seasons, tying a record set by Nancy Lopez in 1978. It’s also the 59th of the Swedish star’s LPGA Tour career — and her eighth major championship win.
2007 — Dallas beats New Orleans 105-89 for its 21st straight victory over the Hornets. The Hornets losing streak is the longest losing streak for one team against an opponent in the NBA, NFL, NHL or Major League Baseball. The Mavericks last loss in the series was Nov. 17, 1999, in Charlotte.
2010 — Long shot Al Shemali wins the $5 million Dubai Duty Free, pulling away from a crowded field to pull off a surprisingly easy win in the Dubai World Cup. Al Shemali, at 40-1, starts slow then duels it out with Bankable before taking the lead for good.
2010 — Joe Mazzulla scores a career-high 17 points in his first start this season and West Virginia beat Kentucky 73-66 to advance to the Final Four for the first time since 1959. Butler, behind 22 points from Gordon Hayward, defeats Kansas State 63-56 in the West Regional final to advance to the Final Four.
2011 — Jamie Skeen scores 26 points as Virginia Commonwealth delivers the biggest upset of the NCAA tournament, a 71-61 win over No. 1 seed Kansas in the Southwest Regional final. The Rams are the third 11th seed to make the Final Four. Brandon Knight scored 22 points and fourth-seeded Kentucky restores some order to the Final Four with a 76-69 win over second-seeded North Carolina in the East Regional final.
2011 — Miami’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh accomplish something that hadn’t been done in more than 50 years. Each of them have 30-10 nights — James with 33 points and 10 rebounds, Bosh has 31 points and 12 rebounds, and Wade finishes with 30 points and 11 boards — as the Heat beat the Houston Rockets 125-119. It’s the first time since February 1961 that three teammates finish with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in a non-overtime game.
2013 — The Miami Heat’s 27-game winning streak is snapped by the Chicago Bulls, 101-97, when a furious comeback by LeBron James and his teammates falls short. The Heat finishes six games short of the record held by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers.
| March 28 |
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1939 — The barnstorming Renaissance Five beat the NBL champion Oshkosh All-Stars, 34-25, to win the first annual World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago. Sports reporters of the day make no mention of the fact that all the Rens are black and the All-Stars are all white.
1942 — Stanford beats Dartmouth 53-38 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1944 — Arnold Ferrin’s 22 points leads Utah to a 42-40 victory over Dartmouth for the NCAA basket championship.
1950 — CCNY beats Bradley 71-68 in the NCAA basketball final to become the only team to win the NIT and NCAA titles in the same year. CCNY beat Bradley 69-61 in the NIT on March 18.
1977 — Marquette beats North Carolina 67-59 for the NCAA basketball title.
1982 — Louisiana Tech beats Cheyney State 76-62 in the NCAA’s first women’s basketball championship. The tournament replaces the AIAW championship which had been held since 1972.
1985 — The North American Soccer League, reduced to two surviving franchises, suspends operations.
1989 — Southwestern Louisiana pitchers Cathy McAllister and Stefni Whitton pitch back-to-back perfect games against Southeastern Louisiana, a first in NCAA Division I softball history. McAllister strikes out 10 in a 5-0 victory and Whitton has 14 strikeouts in a 7-0 triumph.1990 — Vanderbilt wins its first postseason tournament ever as Derrick Wilcox scores all of his 16 points in the second half of a 74-72 victory over St. Louis in the final of the NIT.
1990 — Michael Jordan scores 69 points to help Chicago beat Cleveland 117-113 in overtime and clinch a playoff spot.
1992 — Christian Laettner hits a 15-foot turnaround jumper at the buzzer to give defending champion Duke a 104-103 overtime victory over Kentucky and a fifth consecutive trip to the Final Four.
1992 — Eric Forkel posts a 217-133 victory over Bob Vespi in the title match of the $300,000 PBA National Championship. Vespi’s 133 sets a record for the lowest in tournament final history.
1993 — Helen Alfredsson of Sweden, the LPGA’s 1992 Rookie of the Year, pulls away to win the Dinah Shore tournament for her first victory in the United States. Alfredsson shoots a par-72 and finishes at 4-under 284 to beat Betsy King by two strokes.
1993 — Teemu Selanne of the Winnipeg Jets scores his 69th and 70th goals of the season in a 3-3 tie with Los Angeles Kings. Selanne is the eighth player, and first rookie, to have a 70-goal NHL season.
1995 — Michael Jordan, playing in his fifth game in 22 months, scores 55 points to lead the Chicago Bulls to a 113-111 victory over the New York Knicks.
2002 — Earl Barron scores a career-high 25 points and tournament MVP Dajuan Wagner has 16 as Memphis wins the NIT with a 72-62 victory over South Carolina.
2006 — Oklahoma center Courtney Paris is the first freshman selected for The Associated Press All-America team in women’s basketball. Paris averaged 21.4 points and led the nation in rebounding (15.1). She is the first NCAA women’s player with 700 points, 500 rebounds and 100 blocks in a season.
2009 — Well Armed, ridden by Aaron Gryder, runs away with the $6 million Dubai World Cup by a record 14 lengths. The 6-year-old gelding turns the final race at Nad al Sheba into one to remember and claims the richest prize in horse racing. The winning margin nearly doubles the record of 7 3/4 lengths set by Curlin last year.
2009 — Kim Yu-na wins the women’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships, giving South Korea its first world title. Kim wins with 207.71 points, the highest scored under figure skating’s current judging system.
2010 — Raymar Morgan’s free throw with less than 2 seconds left lifts Michigan State to a 70-69 victory over Tennessee in the Midwest Regional final. Duke, behind a career-high 29 points from Nolan Smith, posts a 78-71 victory over Baylor to advance to the Final Four for the first time since 2004.
2011 — Skylar Diggins scores 24 points and second-seeded Notre Dame upsets the top-seeded Lady Vols 73-59 to earn a spot in the Final Four. The Fighting Irish came in 0-20 all-time against the Lady Vols. Nnemkadi Ogwumike dominates the inside with 23 points and 11 rebounds, sister Chiney chips in with 18 points to lead Stanford to an 83-60 win over Gonzaga and reach its fourth straight Final Four.
2012 — The NFL’s new rule for postseason overtime is expanded to cover the regular season on a 30-2 vote by the NFL owners. All games that go into overtime cannot end on a field goal on the first possession.
2017 — LeBron James ties Michael Jordan’s NBA record of scoring at least 10 in 866 consecutive games.
End ADV
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