Moni's 2011 NCAA Men's and Women's B-Ball Brackets Coming Soon

The college basketball conference championship weekend is over for both men's and women's programs, and March Madness is about to break out here in the States with a vengeance.

In Houston it will be especially intense because we're hosting the NCAA Men's Final Four at Reliant Stadium and the UH Lady Coogs are assured of making the Women's NCAA tournament for the first time since the Chandi Jones led squad in 2004. 

And yes peeps, the rodeo will not only be gone but the stadium will be defunkified long before you peeps who plunked down major bucks for Final Four tickets get here.

The Men's brackets and seeds have been set, and I'm contemplating who is going to do what in the various regions before I post what four teams will make it to H-town and cutting down the nets in April.  

Like 'errbody' else in this country I love filling out NCAA basketball tournament brackets, but I take it two steps further.   I not only have done one for the women's NCAA tournament since 2008 because I sincerely believe that women's sports need the love more than 'the menz' do, I've been posting mine online since 2007 so that y'all can pick it apart.

The Women's NCAA Final Four will be held in Indianapolis this year and as usual broadcast on ESPN.  I'm loving the fact that this season I saw far more regular season women's games on television than in past years and I've had a chance to see many  teams beyond the traditional powerhouses like Stanford, UConn, and Tennessee.

The Streak may be over, but UConn is still the defending women's NCAA b-ball champion and working on a threepeat until somebody beats them.    As soon as the Selection Monday show happens, I can begin to compile my women's bracket post before the first games tip off this weekend.

Here are my past Men's NCAA brackets for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010

Here are my women's NCAA tournament brackets for 2008, 2009, and 2010. I've actually done a better job picking the women's NCAA brackets and champion than I have the men.  


So how will I do on both the Men's and women's sides in 2011?    Stay tuned to these TransGriot pages to find out.
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UH Women Ballers Achieve Perfection

It was Senior Day at Hofheinz Pavilion and the Number 24 ranked Houston Cougars women ballers were on a mission to not only extend their school record winning streak, but become only the second women's team in C-USA history to go through the season unbeaten.

Tulane made them work for it, but in keeping with the theme of the day five UH seniors scored a combined 82 points to lead the Cougars to a thrilling 90-84 overtime win to finish C-USA conference play with a 16-0 record and notch their 16th straight win. 

The now 25-4 Cougars we led by Brittney Scott's game high 28 points with Courtney Taylor chipping in 24. 

They have probably clinched a NCAA women's tournament bid for the first time since the 2003-04 season no matter what happens in the C-USA tournament, but if they keep winning they can definitely improve their seeding.


To the unbeaten UH victors go the spoils of a first round bye in the upcoming C-USA women's tournament in El Paso that starts March 9.  They'll take on the winner of the UTEP-SMU game

Eat 'em up!

UH Women Ballers Fight For Comeback Win Against Rice

One of the things about playing your rival in any sport at any level of competition is that you throw the records of the two teams out.   If one of the rival teams is trying to accomplish something like make the playoffs, win a conference title or go unbeaten, they will play their hardest just to beat you. 

They want the smirking satisfaction of rubbing it in your face months and years later and reminding you that they were the team that denied you whatever goal you wanted to accomplish.

One of the goals the University of Houston women's team wanted to accomplish in addition to the already secured conference regular season championship was an undefeated C-USA season.  

The fact that we were playing our big rivals was one of the things that went through my mind as I awaited the tipoff of this game againt the Rice Owls at Tudor Fieldhouse. 

It was a team the Cougars spanked at Hofheinz 71-51 back on February 10 but the Owls let the Cougars know they were bringing the Senior Day pain with a 9-0 opening run   For much of the afternoon that UH goal of a perfect conference mark was in jeopardy as the number 25 ranked Cougars faced a 19 point deficit at one point during the first half and were in a 41-27 hole at halftime .           

Thanks to a 24 point effort from reigning C-USA Player of the Year Courtney Taylor and 18 from Porsche Landry the Owls and their alums won't get the satisfaction of rubbing that in our faces.


The Cougars started clawing their way back into the game with an initial 17-7 run that whittled the Owl lead down to 48-44 at the 14:38 mark.   After another Rice run boosted their shrinking lead a run of seven straight points from Courtney Taylor cut the deficit to just 63-60 with 7:17 left in the game.

Porsche Landry's turnaround jumper gave the Cougars their first lead at 69-68 with 1:50 remaining and the Cougars allowed one Owls basket over the final 3:38 of the game to head back to Cullen Boulevard with the  hard fought 74-70 win.

Eat 'em up!


The win extended the school record UH winning streak to 15 games, boosted their record to 24-4 and set them up with the opportunity to become the second C-USA women's team to go unbeaten in the regular season when they face off against Tulane on Saturday night.

UH Lady Cougars Ballers Keep Winning

In what is turning out to be the best season ever for the University of Houston women's basketball program, they rode the sizzling shooting of Brittney Scott to beat Marshall 72-54 for their school record 14th straight win.

Scott scorched the Thundering Herd for 24 points with 6 for 10 shooting from behind the three point arc as the now 25th ranked Cougars improved their record to 23-4 on the season and are now only two wins away from an unbeaten romp through Conference USA.

They clinched the conference championship with a 77-61 win over UTEP last week and have two games left on their schedule standing between them and becoming the second C-USA women's team to go unbeaten. 

The Cougar lady ballers battle our crosstown rivals at Rice and have a Tuesday night regular season finale at Hofheinz with Tulane before they head to El Paso to play in the C-USA tournament.

Looks like I'll have a reason to watch the Selection Monday coverage on ESPN when they announce the teams that will be going to the NCAA womens tournament.

Congrats UH Cougar Women Ballers 2010-11 C-USA Champs!

Had to give the University of Houston's women's basketball team a little TransGriot love today.   

They are having a fantastic season under their first year coach Todd Buchanan and after a 77-61 win over UTEP yesterday, clinched the regular season C-USA conference championship for the first time since the 2003-04 season..

That was the Cougars 13th straight win and the now 22-4 squad is only three wins away from compiling their first unbeaten C-USA conference run in their program history and only the second one in C-USA history since UTEP ran the C-USA table in 2007-08.

They have also tied their record for the longest winning streak in program history as well. .

Buchanan was an assistant coach at UH from 2000-2005 before taking the head job at crosstown Houston Baptist University.   His words about yesterday's C-USA clinching victory?  "Awesome," as he said to Houston Chronicle reporter Sam Khan. "That’s why I came back. I came back for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of the biggest reasons.”  

There's a whiteboard in the Cougars locker room that had three goals on it.   

*win conference
*go “16-0” in conference
*win conference tournament

They can check one of those goals off their whiteboard.    But there's two more I'd like to see them add.  

*Fill Hofheinz Pavilion consistently for women's basketball games. 

*Deep run in NCAA tournament

Congrats JJ Falcon Boys Ballers!

Back in the 2003-04 season my high school alma mater won the Texas Class 4A state basketball title for the first time since the 1964-65 season with a squad that included current NBA baller Daniel Gibson.

One of the things me and some of the guys talked about during our 30 year reunion a few months ago was that painful 1978-79 District 20-4A championship game showdown against state ranked Wheatley at Barnett Fieldhouse in which our state ranked Falcon squad lost on a slam dunk at the buzzer.     We finished 32-5 that year but didn't make the Class 4A playoffs because of a brutal district that not only included those Jackie Carr coached Wildcats, but had future Cougars Michael Young at Yates, Clyde Drexler at Sterling, and Rob Williams at Milby.

Many of us Falcons believed that if that team which had future NCAA high jump Rickie Thompson on it had made the playoffs, they had the talent to go all the way to Austin.  

I was pleased to read that my now 27-5 Jones Falcons have reclaimed the District 22-4A basketball title with a resounding 92-75 win Wednesday night over our longtime Wheatley Wildcat rivals to finish with a perfect 12-0 district mark  

The last time they won district was in the 2007-08 season, and they shared that title with guess who?

Now comes the Class 4A playoffs, and one thing that hasn't changed from my high school days is that the UIL's Region III (Southeast Texas) no matter what the classification is still a brutally competitive playoff route to navigate to get to the state championship game at the Erwin Center. 

Galveston Ball, Wheatley, Yates, La Marque, Humble and Terry are just some of the state ranked teams the Falcons will have to go through to get another bus ride to Austin and potentially play for our third state basketball championship.

But congrats Falcons!   Here's hoping you make a long run in this year's Region III-4A playoff and I get to see y'all hoisting the trophy in Austin again.