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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   ADDITIONAL ITEMS • NCAA (External Link)   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, March 21, 2008 Bulldogs have no excuses TIRED CHAMPS: Three teams won their conference tournaments last week by winning four games and two of them were quickly gone from the NCAA tournament. Coppin State, which won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, lost to Mount St. Mary's in the opening-round game on Tuesday night. Georgia, which stunned college basketball with its run through the tornado-delayed Southeastern Conference tournament, lost 73-61 to Xavier on Thursday. Bulldogs coach Dennis Felton wouldn't use his team's long week as an excuse. "We're a well-conditioned team," he said. "I think our team has grown some awfully good toughness in terms of battling through fatigue issues. We're just coming off an experience where we had a real tangible experience of learning how we don't have to succumb to fatigue. So I thought we remained aggressive and played really hard all the way to the end. I wouldn't count fatigue as an issue." The lone four-game champion to win its first game was Pittsburgh, the Big East winner, which beat Oral Roberts 82-63. ON THE NUMBER: Billy Crystal could have written a movie about the first three games of the 2008 NCAA tournament. The three losing teams all finished with the same number of points: 61. Kansas beat Portland State by 24 points, Michigan State beat Temple by 11 and Xavier beat Georgia by 12. BAH HUMBUG: Michigan State ruined any chance of Christmas having a big March. The Spartans held Dionte Christmas, Temple's leading scorer with a 20.2 average, to three points on 1-for-12 shooting in their 72-61 first-round victory. Christmas, a 6-foot-5 junior swingman, came into the game shooting 44.8 percent from the field, including 38.3 percent from 3-point range. "They took away the 3, took away the drive," said Christmas, who missed all eight of his shots from behind the arc. "Like Coach said, we couldn't get into no sets. We had to depend on Mark (Tyndale) coming down, making a lot plays for us. Tom Izzo, the job he does with that program is great. That's a great defensive team. That's probably the toughest defensive team I played all year, all my career." Associated Press

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