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Paul Gackle

Warriors on white-knuckle ride to playoffs, setbacks hardly fatal

For a moment, the pessimists’ worst nightmare appeared to be coming to life. Stephen Curry slapped the court at Oracle Arena on Saturday after rolling his twice-surgically-repaired right ankle, and the gesture seemed like a perfect illustration of the frustration Warriors fans were experiencing across the Bay Area. Read More

Basketball a way of life for Stanford’s Joslyn Tinkle

For Joslyn Tinkle, basketball is an everyday part of life, like eating, sleeping and breathing. She grew up in a hoops house — her father is a coach and her mother is a Hall of Fame player — and now her family is converging in the Bay Area for March Madness. Wayne Tinkle isn’t traveling far to see his daughter and the Stanford women’s basketball team (31-2) take on Tulsa (17-16) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion today. Read More

Zone defense helps Cal Bears shut down UNLV in NCAA Tournament

SAN JOSE — After executing the game plan to near perfection for more than 59 minutes, the Cal men’s basketball team almost let an upset victory in the NCAA Tournament slip away. A suffocating zone defense and plenty of scoring help for Allen Crabbe propelled the 12th-seeded Bears to a 64-61 victory over No. 5 UNLV at HP Pavilion in San Jose on Thursday. But the “home” team provided plenty of drama for the faithful down the stretch. “It wasn’t always smooth,” Coach Mike Montgomery said. Read More

Cal women try to stay grounded despite recent attention

BERKELEY — Coach Lindsay Gottlieb is asking the players on the Cal women’s basketball team to press the mute button on all talking heads analyzing the squad as it heads into the NCAA Tournament. But she is making an exception for the opinion of one person: President Barack Obama. Read More

Allen Crabbe has chance to carve out own legacy in NCAA Tournament

Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Alfred Grigsby ... Allen Crabbe? Read More

S.F. Bulls are playoff-bound in first season

The Kelly Cup playoffs are coming to the Cow Palace in the San Francisco Bulls’ inaugural season as an ECHL franchise. The Bulls (24-35-7) clinched a playoff spot on Tuesday when the ninth-place Bakersfield Condors lost to the Las Vegas Wranglers in regulation. With six games to play, the Bulls are eighth in the Western Conference, nine points behind the seventh-place Utah Grizzlies. If the playoffs started today, the Bulls would face the top-ranked Alaka Aces in the tournament’s opening round. Read More

Tyrone Wallace’s impact arrives ahead of schedule for Cal Bears

BERKELEY — Coach Mike Montgomery anticipates big things for Tyrone Wallace, but he didn’t expect the freshman guard to play such a crucial role this year. Read More

WBC whiffs trying to connect with Americans

With every crack of the bat at the World Baseball Classic final on Tuesday, one thought reappeared in my head: I can’t wait for real baseball to start. I could smell the hot dogs, hear the ball hit the mitt, but if Hanley Ramirez wasn’t at the plate getting showered by a chorus of boos, AT&T Park lacked the tension, the drama, the electricity of Giants baseball. Of course, this is a completely U.S.-centric view of the WBC. If the goal of the tournament is to expand baseball’s global reach, it was a ringing success this year. Read More

Stanford women land No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament

STANFORD — The road to a sixth straight Final Four begins on the Farm for the Stanford women’s basketball team and it could wind through a familiar foe in Spokane, Wash. The Cardinal landed a No. 1 seed in the women’s NCAA Tournament on Monday — the 10th time Stanford has done so — and will tip-off play in the Spokane Region against No. 16 Tulsa (17-16) at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. If the Cardinal (31-2) advance through the bracket, they face the prospect of running into cross-bay rival and No. 2 seed Cal in the Elite Eight. Read More

No. 12 Cal catches a break with NCAA Tournament game on home turf

BERKELEY — An upset loss to Utah cost the Cal men’s basketball team a higher seed in March Madness, but the Bears caught a break by snagging a game in their own backyard.   After back-to-back losses, Cal (20-11) landed a No. 12 seed in the East region of the NCAA Tournament. Despite the setback, the team received the good fortune of playing in front of its home crowd in a rematch against fifth-seeded UNLV (25-9) at HP Pavilion in San Jose on Thursday. Read More

Academy of Art women's basketball team on historic ride

To the outside world, the goals coach LaNay Larson set for the Academy of Art women’s basketball team would have seemed lofty. But the girls in her locker room never stopped believing, even when the season appeared to be slipping away. The Urban Knights (23-8) have already achieved two of their coach’s goals by notching their first 20-win season and winning the PacWest Conference tournament title. They’ll reach a third goal in Bellingham, Wash., on Saturday when they step on the court against Western Washington in the first round the NCAA Division II Tournament. Read More

Depth should help A’s avoid sophomore slump

Billy Beane’s iconoclastic genius was immortalized in the silver-screen rendition of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball,” but the A’s outdid Hollywood last summer, spinning a tale that wouldn’t have been believable had it been fiction. Yes, the 2012 A’s are a tough act to follow, but Beane’s subtle string of moves this offseason should allow his team to put together a respectable follow-up performance. Read More

Cal men's basketball looks to navigate a wide-open Pac-12 tournament

Las Vegas is the perfect host for this week’s Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament: with a wide-open field, every team is a gamble. Cal appeared to be the favorites eight days ago, having won nine of its last 10 games. But the Bears failed to grab the tournament’s top seed, losing 83-70 to Stanford on their home floor a week ago. Then, Washington State knocked off UCLA and Colorado and Utah beat Oregon. Read More

Bulls president-coach Pat Curcio says team has ‘exceeded’ attendance goals

With six home games remaining, the San Francisco Bulls’ box office figures are right where president-coach Pat Curcio expected them to be. The Bulls are averaging 4,226 fans per game in their inaugural season at the Cow Palace, which ranks 15th out of 23 teams in the ECHL. Attendance is less than 500 fans below the league average and Curcio considers it a victory. “Our goal was to average between 3,000 and 3,500 per game and we’ve exceeded that,” Curcio said. Read More

Mexico men's national soccer team to pay visit to S.F.

The 2014 World Cup is just around the corner and one of the world’s hottest teams is bringing the action to The City. Bay Area soccer fans will get a chance to see the Mexican national team play its version of the beautiful game when it takes on Peru in a friendly match at Candlestick Park on April 17. “Playing here in the U.S., it feels like you’re home,” coach Jose Manuel “Chepo” de la Torre said through a translator. “We have a lot of support here in the U.S., we have a lot of people who are from Mexico who live here, obviously. We have to play good football.” Read More
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