10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
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NCAA WOMEN
UConn, Irish, SC, Baylor top seeds in NCAAs
By DOUG FEINBERG
Associated Press
NEW YORK — UConn’s drive for
five will begin at home.
Winners of 107 straight games,
coach Geno Auriemma and the Hus-
kies won’t have to leave the state of
Connecticut in the NCAA Tourna-
ment until the Final Four as they try
for an unprecedented fifth consecutive
national championship.
The top seed will open at home on
Saturday against Albany and if they
advance to the Bridgeport Regional
would have a short drive.
“I worry sometimes about being
at home. I worry about the distrac-
tions that kids have,” Auriemma said.
Goodyear
retires blimps
but keeps
familiar form
up in the air
“When you are on the road you can
just huddle everybody up and you can
eliminate a lot of distractions. Some-
times the officials get funny against the
home team in the NCAA Tournament.”
While the Huskies won’t have to
leave the state until potentially heading
to Dallas for the national semifinals,
the other No. 1 seeds aren’t as lucky.
South Carolina is the top seed in
Stockton, California. The Gamecocks
are headed out of the Eastern time zone
for the third time in four seasons. The
Gamecocks’ lone trip to the Final Four
came when they played a regional in
Greensboro in 2015.
“I don’t know what more we can
do,” South Carolina coach Dawn Sta-
ley said. “We won our conference
tournament to play closer. Two years
ago, we got sent to Greensboro. Last
year, we had to take the time zone
flight, over two time zones. I thought it
was our turn to get flipped back to the
Greensboro kind of ideology. I’m not
going to say it’s not fair. But they got
to figure out a different way.”
Baylor is the No. 1 in the Oklahoma
City Regional and Notre Dame is the
top choice in Lexington, Kentucky.
NCAA selection committee chair
Terry Gawlik defended the choice to
send South Carolina out west again.
“It made the most sense for the
good of the game and the student-ath-
lete experience to go out to Stock-
ton and have Baylor go to Oklahoma
City,” she said.
AP Photo/Jessica Hill
The Connecticut women’s basketball team pose with the American Ath-
letic Conference championship trophy after defeating South Florida in a
college basketball game tournament final in Uncasville, Conn., March 6.
NCAA MEN
AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King
Minnesota Vikings running
back Adrian Peterson carries
the ball during an NFL football
game against the Green Bay
Packers in Minneapolis.
By JOHN ROGERS
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Goodyear
has let the helium out of the last
of its fabled fleet of blimps, but
the company’s flight program will
continue.
About two dozen employ-
ees were on hand early today to
witness the deflation of Califor-
nia-based Spirit of Innovation.
But shed no tears, blimp fans,
you’ll still see a familiar blue-
and-gold form floating over your
favorite sports event or awards
show.
Although the blimp’s replace-
ment, Wingfoot Two, will look
about the same when it arrives at
Goodyear’s airship base in Carson
later this year, it will be a semi-
rigid dirigible.
Such aircraft, one of which
has already replaced Goodyear’s
Florida blimp, have a frame,
which means they maintain their
shape when the helium is drained.
Blimps, on the other hand, go flat.
Wingfoot Two, currently operat-
ing in Ohio, will be replaced by
yet another dirigible when it
leaves there for Southern
California.
Far more important to Good-
year is that the new airships are
faster, quieter, larger, easier to
fly and more maneuverable than
the blimps it introduced more
than 90 years ago. Still, the com-
pany plans to keep calling the new
models blimps.
AP Photo/Eric Risberg
The Goodyear Blimp “Spirit of
Innovation” lands after a flight
over Super Bowl fan sites in
Livermore, Calif., in 2016.
SCOREBOARD
PREP SCHEDULE
TODAY
Baseball — North Marion at Astoria,
4:30 p.m. (at CMH Field); Seaside at Mo-
lalla, 4:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Baseball — Nestucca at Warrenton, 4
p.m.
Softball — North Marion at Astoria,
4:30 p.m.
THURSDAY
Baseball — Knappa at Kennedy, 4:30
p.m.
Softball — Astoria at Gladstone, 5 p.m.
FRIDAY
Baseball — Sandy at Astoria, 4:30 p.m.
SATURDAY
Baseball — Gladstone at Astoria, 1
p.m.; Blanchet Catholic at Warrenton, 3
p.m.
Peterson
takes free
agent visit
to Seattle
Associated Press
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
Northwestern coach Chris Collins, right, and guard/forward Sanjay Lumpkin react while watching televi-
sion coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection show Sunday at Welsh-Ryan Arena in
Evanston, Ill. Northwestern, in its first tournament appearance, will play Vanderbilt.
Tears and double takes
and then, Northwestern
By EDDIE PELLS
Associated Press
There were tears in Syracuse,
head-scratching about Duke and
more than a few double takes at
Wichita State.
At Northwestern, they simply
celebrated.
On a Selection Sunday that was
more about minor quibbles than
pure outrage, Northwestern’s first
trip to the NCAA Tournament in
program history stole the head-
lines — reminding hardcore fans
and casual bracket-fillers alike that
March Madness really is that time
of year when anything can happen.
The forever also-rans from out-
side of Chicago knew they’d see
their name pop up when the brack-
ets were released, but when they
did, they partied anyway. Group
hugs. Selifes. A huge sigh of relief
and a celebration for a Big Ten pro-
gram that’s always been big on
smarts, short on hoops.
“I’m used to being part of all the
‘firsts’ here,” said senior Vic Law.
“I was Coach (Chris) Collins’ first
recruit. That belief that we all had
— that vision that me and Coach
Collins shared — was that this
would be different.”
Action in the tournament begins
today with opening-round games,
and things get into full swing
Thursday. The Final Four starts
April 1 in Phoenix.
Defending champion Villanova
was the tournament’s top seed, the
first time a defending champion
has earned that honor since Flor-
ida in 2007, when the Gators went
back-to-back.
Joining Kris Jenkins and ‘Nova
on the “1’’ line were Kansas, North
Carolina and Gonzaga.
A few more notes and notables
from Selection Sunday:
SYRACUSE: Orange coach
Jim Boeheim said his players were
crying when they didn’t see their
team’s name come up during the
selection show. Syracuse had an
18-14 record, nearly identical to its
mark last year, when the Orange
made it into the field to a chorus
of protests. Syracuse responded
by making a run to the Final Four.
Boeheim: “I think our team was a
little bit better than we were last
year going into the tournament.
We had the ability to win.” Instead,
they’ll try to win in the NIT.
DUKE: Some bracketologists
moved Duke into the ‘1’ posi-
tion over North Carolina on the
strength of the Blue Devils’ four-
win-in-four-night run at the Atlan-
tic Coast Conference Tournament.
Not so fast, said selection commit-
tee chairman Mark Hollis. He said
Duke began the week as a No. 4
seed and never really moved into
consideration as a 1. Duke moved
up until it ran up against two teams
that took both their regular-season
and tournament titles — Arizona
and Kentucky.
WICHITA STATE: In the lat-
est Associated Press poll, Wich-
ita State is ranked 20th. If rankings
equaled seedings, that would make
the Shockers no worse than a No.
4. Imagine their shock when their
name showed up with a “10” by
it. “I’m just glad they didn’t forget
about us,” coach Gregg Marshall
said. The Missouri Valley Tour-
nament champs won 30 games.
About that AP ranking, Marshall
said: “Somehow, 20 divided by
four equals ten. But that’s OK.
That’s the way it’s been for a long
time. I don’t know what we’d do if
we were a really good seed most of
the time.” Seeded first in 2014, the
Shockers ran into a Kentucky team
that was surprisingly seeded eighth,
and lost in the second round.
BRAIN BOWL: No matter
how the game ends up, the guys
from Northwestern and Vander-
bilt will probably turn out OK. The
West Region’s 8 vs. 9 matchup
pits two of the strongest academic
schools in the country. Said North-
western athletic director Jim Phil-
lips : “Maybe at halftime we’ll
compare SAT and ACT scores.”
UNDERAPPRECIATED:
Oregon slipped to a No. 3 seed,
in large part because of the sea-
son-ending injury to shot-blocking
star Chris Boucher. Middle Tennes-
see State, with 30 wins and most of
the roster back from the team that
beat Michigan State last year, is a
12 seed — possibly a couple slots
too low and setting up No. 5 Min-
nesota for a tough opening game.
Baylor looked like a 2 on most lists
but slid to a 3, in a flip-flop with
Louisville.
MATCHUPS-PLAYERS:
Gonzaga’s Przemek Karnowski vs.
South Dakota State’s Mike Daum.
Karnowski is one of the biggest
and craftiest big men in the coun-
try — a, 7-foot-1, 300-pound force
on the inside. Daum is the high-
est-scoring player in the tourna-
ment, at 25.3 points a game (with
8.2 rebounds).
COMING IN HOT: Teams car-
rying the longest win streaks into the
tournament: Vermont (21 games),
Princeton (19), SMU (16), Wich-
ita State (15), Kentucky (11 games),
Middle Tennessee State (10).
MINNEAPOLIS — Adrian
Peterson visited the Seattle Sea-
hawks, while his original team
in Minnesota hosted fellow free
agent running back Eddie Lacy.
There’s still a path for Peter-
son to return to the Vikings, but
the signs of his potential depar-
ture haven’t stopped popping up.
Peterson was at Seahawks
headquarters on Sunday, accord-
ing to a person with knowledge
of the situation who spoke to The
Associated Press on condition of
anonymity because the details
weren’t being made public. This
was Peterson’s first in-person
meeting with a team since the
Vikings declined their option on
his contract for 2017 and made
him a free agent for the first time.
The Vikings have stated their
openness to re-signing their
all-time leading rusher for the
right price, but they entered the
offseason with bigger priori-
ties and kicked it off by adding
two new starters on a belea-
guered offensive line in free agent
tackles Riley Reiff and Mike
Remmers.
That said, they’ll probably
need to sign a veteran running
back at some point with Jerick
McKinnon currently the only one
on the roster of significance. So
their interest in Lacy was telling.
The Seahawks have their eyes
on Lacy, too, after the 26-year-
old’s 2016 season with the Green
Bay Packers was shortened by an
ankle injury.
SportsTrust Advisors, the
agency
representing
Lacy,
announced Thursday on Twitter
that he would visit the Seahawks,
Vikings and Packers in that order
over the following four days.
Lacy rushed for 1,100 yards in
2013 and 2014, his first two sea-
sons in the league, before falling
off.
With Thomas Rawls and C.J.
Prosise in place, the Seahawks
have youth and potential at run-
ning back, but with Rawls miss-
ing 12 of 36 games over his first
two years to ankle and leg inju-
ries their depth isn’t necessarily
sound.
With Jamaal Charles and Lat-
avius Murray also on the list with
Peterson and Lacy, plenty of
high-profile ballcarriers remain
available following the initial
frenzy on the market for more
in-demand positions.