The University of Minnesota today announced that Smith has been ousted from his coaching job just one day after the loss to Florida.

“Tubby has had a long and distinguished career and we feel it’s time for a fresh set of eyes for our student-athletes and our program in general,” said Norwood Teague, University of Minnesota athletics director.

Smith has been the coach of Minnesota’s basketball team since 2007. In his time with the program, Smith coached the team to a 124-81 record and three NCAA tournament appearances. This week’s third-round loss was the team’s best NCAA tournament showing under Smith’s coaching.

Before taking the coaching position at Minnesota, Smith coached the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team. He had been an assistant coach for the team under coach Rick Pitino, who is currently coaching the number-one seeded University of Louisville men’s basketball team into the Sweet Sixteen

“I want to thank the University of Minnesota and the people of Minnesota for giving me the opportunity to lead the Golden Gopher basketball program for six years,” said Smith. “Our staff did things the right way and will leave knowing that the program is in far better shape than when we arrived. The people of the State of Minnesota embraced Donna and me from the beginning and we will always be grateful.”

Google’s Dan Vanderkam announced the feature in a tweet (via Search Engine Land):

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Dan Vanderkam
@danvdk

Just launched, NCAA March Madness brackets on Google: http://t.co/iHFC0ivnx4. Super-proud of my team for putting this together!

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15 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Here’s what it looks like:

Google has offered March Madness tools in the past. Here’s what they did last year. And the year before that.

For everyone in the city of Lexington, KY, is was amazing. The city exploded after the victory, and apparently so did Twitter. During the final three minutes of the game, 89,000 tweets poured in about the game.

And according to Twitter, Kentucky “controlled the conversation on Twitter, sustaining a higher Tweets-per-minute (TPM) rate than Kansas throughout the game.” Although we know that not all of the tweets coming in about Kentucky were congratulatory, we do know that they dominated the Twitterverse throughout:

That giant peak in the graph is when the Tweets per minute hit their highest point of the night – you guessed it, when Big Blue Nation won the championship. Twitter says that the TPM peaked at just over 30,000.

Until the championship game, the most amount of March Madness-themed Twitter activity occurred after the Elite Eight games were played and Kanas and Kentucky locked in their spots in the Final Four.

The lead image was taken high above a prominent party street in Lexington, KY last night. If you can imagine the Twitterverse as a physical place, this is probably what it looked like as the clock approached midnight.

[Lead Image Credit]

In fact, Bell’s palsy has many symptoms similar to that of a stroke, but is actually a paralysis of the facial muscles which strikes suddenly–often overnight–and is either caused by muscle inflammation or by a virus. Most people afflicted with the condition recover with treatment–which includes steroids to reduce the swelling–relatively quickly, sometimes in as little as two months. Some have irreparable damage to facial nerves.

“I don’t obviously have a severe case of it,” Mulkey said. “Because I’ve seen the worst. I’ve seen people who have it where their face is totally drooping.”

Mulkey, who is 49, is expected to begin seeing an improvement in her symptoms in the next two weeks, and there’s no reason to believe she won’t make a full recovery. The coach, regarded as something of a pistol by her peers, says she won’t let this stop her from taking Baylor into the Final Four, which they advanced to on Monday after their win against Tennessee.

“And y’all (reporters) need to look out because they tell me these steroids make me irritable,” she joked while giving a statement about her ailment.

With the Final Four being so close, Twitter users are reacting to the news as they try to get a better understanding of the affliction:

The straight shooting coach says that he doesn’t play guys who don’t compete or follow his direction.

Martin’s New Year’s resolution for 2012 is the same as it is every year, “He wants better health, and to do his job in life better– to be a better husband, father, son and coach.”

Well, his determination and personal goals are gaining recognition and it has been confirmed that he is in talks about a contract with South Carolina’s Gamecocks.

The move to South Carolina is being viewed as a step back in his career but SCU desperately needs him; they have not won a NCAA tournament game since 1972.

This is not the first time that Martin has been looking to change teams, last year he was considering offers from Miami. Such negotiations might be tricky considering Martin signed a new contract with Kansas State in 2010 and is supposed to run through 2015.

Any offer from the Gamecocks would have to be financially rewarding. His current contract pays him an average of $1.55 million per year after signing bonuses, but before performance-based bonuses.

Many KSU fans on Twitter hope that these talks will be nothing more than a casual flirtation:

While the deal has yet to be solidified SCU alumni are stoked at the proposition:

The topic is gaining widespread media attention, being featured in an article on USA Today.

Many are saying that it’s one thing to cheer for a team you used to coach, but it’s something else to openly disrespect the opposition, especially when you’re not a coach, you’re an ESPN sports analyst.

But the famed coach is no stranger to garnering media attention for his erratic behavior:

Knight does not hide his hatred of the the Wildcats or Coach Calipari.

Even after hearing Knight’s criticism, John Calipari has nothing but respect for the coach.

In a speech in Wabash, Indiana, he claims that Kentucky players don’t even go to class. At the time, Kentucky had the second highest GPA in the SEC.

Bobby Knight Drinking a Beer on Air

The rules of non-bias in sports commentary seem to not apply to Bobby Knight. He has played by his own rules since he was a coach. When throwing chairs and choking players becomes the norm, you can’t really expect common courtesy to enter into the picture.

Matt Jones at Kentucky Sports radio was one of the first to cover the story.

A Spokesman at ESPN issued a rare “no comment” to Knight’s refusal to utter the name of the team he hates.

Clark was calling the Lehigh / Xavier game when the 13 seed pulled another upset against South Florida to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. Ohio is the first 13 seed to make it this far in the tournament.

Kellogg was a little distracted during his play calling, watching the final seconds of the Bobcats game tick down, when Jim Nantz brought it to the attention of the TV audience.

Kellogg got a little emotional when Nantz asked if he go this nervous during his own career: “It’s all different when your kids are doing it. It’s a total different experience.”

“O wow, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Way to go Bobcats!” Kellogg shouted after the final seconds wore out.

Clark will have to continue to watch his son while broadcasting. He will be in Atlanta calling the Baylor-Xavier and Kentucky-Indiana games while Nick is taking on North Carolina in St. Louis.

Davis is the only player from the University of Kentucky to win the award, and only the second in the SEC to win it. “Pistol” Pete Marovich won the award twice while at LSU.

The Oscar Robertson Trophy, will be presented by Oscar Robertson at the annual College Basketball Awards Breakfast before the Final Four on Friday, March 30.

Davis was chosen from a field of ten finalists based on regular season performance.

During the regular season he averaged 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and shot 63.6 percent from the field, scoring double doubles in 18 of the 36 games he played.

He is most noted for his dominance around the rim, chalking up 166 blocks this season, double that of the previous single season record. Kentucky could set the team all time record for blocked shots this year, largely on the back of Davis. They are within 3 going into the next game.

He has already been named first team All-American, District IV Player of the Year, and National Freshman of the Year by the USBWA. He is the SEC Player of the Year and SEC Defensive Player of the Year, being named SEC Player if the Week twice and SEC Freshman of the Week four times.

He led the Kentucky Wildcats to a 34-2 season, going 16-0 in regular season SEC play. Kentucky was the Number 1 overall seed going into the NCAA Tournament, and they continue their quest for the Final Four against Indian on Friday.

USBWA President Lenox Rawlings has this to say about the talented Freshman, “Anthony Davis made an immediate and dramatic impact on college basketball. He has many skills, most obvious among them his ability to block and alter shots. Davis’ dominance inside solidified Kentucky as a national title contender and brought Bill Russell back into the dialogue, shining light on the vital half of the game that people often ignore.”

Davis is in contention to receive The Naismith College Player of the Year award, the most coveted MVP award in college basketball. He would be the first player from the storied University of Kentucky basketball program, and the first freshman to win the award.

But of course, what does everybody want to see?

Yes, there were a few notable upsets – the two most shocking happening when a couple of #15 seeds knocked off a couple of powerhouse #2 seeds. It was the first time in history that two #15s were victorious in one tournament. And as you would expect, those two games sent social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on fire with comments – especially when Lehigh defeated the mighty Dukies.

Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs tracked social media comments across all the games over the weekend (Thursday – Sunday). According to their research, 2.46 million comments were made, making an average of 49,000 comments per game. And the winner, the most buzzed-about game of the 48, was Lehigh and Duke:

As you can see, it wasn’t even that close. By the word cloud provided, you can kind of figure out why that game drew such a huge response: bracket busting. Plus, the game did involve Duke losing, which tends to please about 95% of the country.

The other big upset, Norfolk State topping Missouri was also popular, drawing 158,000 comments. Purdue vs. Kansas probably grabbed the #2 spot because it was just a spectacular game. The games the came in 4th and 5th according to social media buzz, UK vs. Iowa State and Creighton vs. UNC both had dominating performances from the top seeds.

“Our players have a will to win, and the last thing a player’s going to do is let a sickness or injury get in the way of a game that they want to win. So, I didn’t want to come out. Coach asked me if I wanted to, I said no, I was good. But, obviously late in the game it tested me a little bit,” Marshall said on Sunday. He later tweeted about his love for his teammates.

Early reports say Marshall will probably be able to play with a cast on his wrist, mostly because he’s left-handed, but it will be painful. The star’s father, Dennis Marshall, told CBS Sports that his son will have to have a screw inserted into the wrist and that his ability to play in Friday’s game is yet to be seen. Updates are expected early this week.

“We’ll speak to the hand specialist tonight with Kendall and his family, and we’ll see what happens after that,” UNC coach Roy Williams said after the win.

When asked to comment on the blow to one of the top-seeded teams in the country, Kentucky coach John Calipari told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz, “What I hope is that it’s not as bad as it sounds and that he can be able to play for him, for the program, and for the tournament. I can’t answer what they’ll do because this has never happened to me this late in the season. It becomes an opportunity for someone else but it can change their team.”

Twitter users certainly seem to be pulling for the point guard, as evidenced by the flood of updates about his injury and speculation on what it means for the game.