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basketball

All four #1 seeds made the Final Four this year. What happened to Cinderella?

John Fea   |  March 31, 2025

All four #1 seeds made the NCAA Division One Men’s Basketball Final Four this year. The last time that happened was in 2008. Malachi Van Tassell, the president of St. Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, a team that made the […]

What an ending!

John Fea   |  March 28, 2025

What if the WOMEN’s NCAA tournament was based on academics? An all-Ivy League final

John Fea   |  March 20, 2025

Yesterday we posted on Inside Higher Ed‘s men’s bracket. Today we have the women: Here atĀ Inside Higher Ed, though, we celebrate the start of March Madness a little differently fromĀ the 1.44 million peopleĀ who tuned in earlier this month to this […]

How Wilt Chamberlain helped Richard Nixon win Black voters

John Fea   |  July 17, 2024

Here is Shaun Assael at Politico: Wilt Chamberlain, the biggest basketball star in the world, folded his long legs into the taxi and climbed beside Richard Nixon. It was April 9, 1968, and the two had just attended Martin Luther […]

“Thank you, driver”

John Fea   |  May 30, 2024

David Bragdon remembers how Bill Walton treated a Portland Trail-Blazers bus driver. Here is a taste: After the silent stretching, they slowly and methodically walked through plays, never breaking a sweat, Walton always in the middle, making slight gestures and […]

Bill Walton on the Clippers

John Fea   |  May 28, 2024

From Bill Walton’s Los Angeles Clipper days:

Bill Walton roundup

John Fea   |  May 27, 2024

The tributes are pouring in. RIP. Kareem: On John Wooden: ESPN radio host Chris Carlin: Rick Carlisle: Taking his Celtics teammates to a Grateful Dead show: Activist: Wooden: Nancy Pelosi: On Liberty University: More Wooden: On grizzly bears: Roxy Bernstein: […]

Bill Walton: RIP

John Fea   |  May 27, 2024

This is such sad news. As a young basketball player I tried to model my game after two players: Bill Walton and Kevin McHale. When I was younger I used to stay up late to watch PAC-10 games just to […]

Episode 110: “How Black Ball Saved the Soul of the NBA”

John Fea   |  June 5, 2023

The National Basketball Association is a multi-billion-dollar industry driven by Black athletes with global influence. But as our guest Theresa Runstedtler argues, the success of today’s NBA players rests on the labor activism of 1970s NBA stars who fought with […]

Will the Nuggets be the last old ABA team to make it to an NBA final?

John Fea   |  May 20, 2023

It sure looks like it. In 1976, four teams from the American Basketball Association joined the National Basketball Association. Learn more about the ABA and the merger here or you can listen to our forthcoming podcast interview with Theresa Runstedtler, […]

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on LeBron James breaking his NBA scoring record

John Fea   |  February 9, 2023

At his Substack, Kareem sets the record straight on a lot of the rumors. He is happy LeBron broke his scoring record. He corrects his old teammate Magic Johnson. He says he is more focused right now on his activism […]