Amir Abdur-Rahim will always hold a special place in Kennesaw State's basketball history.
Not only was he the first coach to lead the Owls to the NCAA Tournament, Abdur-Rahim set an example by the way he lived his life and coached his players.
So when Kennesaw State reached the tournament for the first time since his death in 2024, there was little doubt the inspiration for the run.
“I’m just standing on the shoulders of that giant,” Kennesaw State coach Antoine Pettway said after the Owls beat Louisiana Tech 71-60 in the Conference USA championship game.
No. 14 seed Kennesaw State opens play against No. 3 Gonzaga on Thursday in Portland, Oregon, part of a West Region filled with firsts:
Texas will play its first NCAA Tournament game under coach Sean Miller. Same for North Carolina State under Will Wade.
Queens is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance in just four years as a Division I program. High Point is in the bracket for the second straight season, but first under Flynn Clayman after Alan Huss left for Creighton.
Villanova, one of the most consistent programs the past 20 years, also has notched a first.
The Wildcats won two national championships under Jay Wright and went to the Final Four in his final season but lost momentum under Kyle Neptune, costing the former assistant his job in 2025.
In stepped Kevin Willard. The former assistant to Rick Pitino made a name for himself by taking Seton Hall to the NCAA Tournament five times and led Maryland to March Madness twice in three seasons — the last to the Sweet 16.
Willard quickly revived a winning culture at Villanova, leading the program to 24 wins and its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2022. The No. 8 seed Wildcats face No. 9 seed Utah State on Friday in San Diego.
“I know how important it is to this program and this university,” Willard said. "We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to build this roster in a way that we can get back to this point.”
Miller had early success at Arizona before a recruiting scandal took its toll and he was fired in 2021. He returned to the place of his first coaching success, Xavier, and led the Musketeers to the NCAA Tournament twice in three seasons before landing in Austin.
Texas took some lumps in Miller's first season, thanks in part to one of the nation's toughest schedules, but the Longhorns did just enough to earn a First Four game against NC State on Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio.
“I think we’re in a good place,” Miller said. “I think that everybody truly understands, regardless of what happens in Dayton, this is a brand new season, a new beginning.”
Wade is hoping for the same thing with his Wolfpack.
Like Miller, Wade was fired in the wake of a federal investigation into improper recruiting practices. He left LSU and made an immediate imprint on McNeese State, leading the Cowboys to consecutive NCAA tournaments.
Wade's first season at N.C. State had some good moments — notably a win over North Carolina last month — but the Wolfpack (20-13) had some tense moments on Selection Sunday after losing five of their final six games.
“I’m shocked by going to Dayton, but I mean, look, we did it to ourselves,” Wade said. “I told our guys there’s no victims in the room.”
Abdur-Rahim's death at 43 from an undisclosed illness sent shockwaves across college basketball, particularly at Kennesaw State and South Florida, where he coached in 2023-24. Pettway did his best to keep Abdur-Rahim's memory alive while trying to get the Owls back to where the former coach left them.
Kennesaw State improved its win total in each of Pettway's three seasons as coach, culminating with 21 this season. The Owls lost leading scorer Simeon Cottle midseason due to a federal probe into gambling and finished sixth in the Conference USA regular-season standings, but rolled through the conference tournament, capped by the emotional win over Louisiana Tech.
"It was adversity for sure this season," Pettway said. “When we went through that, we had two options: we could splinter or we could come together. We got together as a team and decided we were going to dig in even more.”
The result was a run that would have made their former coach proud.
AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
Villanova head coach Kevin Willard calls out to his team during second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Georgetown in the quarterfinals of the Big East basketball tournament Thursday, March 12, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
CHICAGO (AP) — Successive punches of snow and wind were set to impact the eastern half of the United States on Monday as severe weather swept across much of the nation and made roads impassable in the Upper Midwest.
Forecasters said mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., were at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes. The cold front was expected to move off the East Coast by Tuesday, bringing sharply colder weather in its wake, forecasters said.
By Tuesday morning, wind chills below freezing were expected to reach the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle with freeze warnings in effect in parts of the Southeast and parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas, forecasters warned. To the north, rain was expected to change over to snow behind the cold front with accumulations of more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) possible in the central Appalachians of West Virginia.
The late winter blast comes as Hawaii continued to be affected by a separate storm system that caused severe flooding over the weekend.
The National Weather Service that warned a line of severe storms with damaging winds would cross much of the Eastern U.S. After firing up Sunday, the storms were crossing the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio valleys. The storm threat was expected to enter the Appalachians, then move toward the East Coast, where “severe thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds and several tornadoes” were expected, the service said.
A stretch from parts of South Carolina to Maryland appeared most likely to experience the greatest damaging winds Monday afternoon, the weather service said. That could include Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; and the nation’s capital.
Many schools in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia were closed Monday. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein urged residents to enable emergency alerts on their phones ahead of expected wind gusts of 74 mph (119 kph). In Maryland, many school systems planned to dismiss students early on Monday.
Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted,“ said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys.
Blizzard conditions persisted Monday in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, where the storm brought as much as 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow by morning. It was still snowing in the region. Additional snowfall of a foot (30 centimeters) to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of snow can be expected in upper Michigan, along with gusty winds, on Monday, the National Weather Service said. Schools were closed in a number of communities Monday in both states, including Milwaukee and Marquette, Michigan.
Lower snow accumulations in places such as Chicago and Milwaukee were expected to create trouble for commuters on Monday, Roys said.
Jim Allen, 45, who lives on the Upper Peninsula, said his family stocked up on necessities and he was ready to clear snow several times Sunday with a shovel and snowblower.
“We’re basically prepared to just kind of hunker down for a few days if we need to,” Allen said.
Nearly 1,400 flights were delayed nationwide and another 1,800 were canceled, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight disruptions. O’Hare and Midway international airports in Chicago reported more than 350 cancellations early Monday. At Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta, about 200 flights were delayed and another 160 were canceled.
More than 250,000 utility customers in six Great Lakes states were without electricity early Monday, according to PowerOutage.us. Some originated on Friday when gusts in the region reached 85 mph (137 kph). Another half-million customers were in the dark from Texas to Kentucky.
In Nebraska, about 30 National Guard members were deployed to combat multiple wildfires across a broad swath of range and grassland, state officials said. One fire-related fatality was reported.
Rain continued falling on Sunday in Hawaii, where acres of farmland and homes have been flooded, roads have been closed and shelters opened. Some areas of Maui received more than 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a social media post.
Maui County later on Sunday downgraded an evacuation notice and said crews were pumping water from retentions basins to keep them at safe levels.
Resident and real estate broker Jesse Wald, who recorded video of a coastal road’s collapse Saturday, said other parts of the road were flooded out by mud and sediment.
“In the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve never seen this much rain,” he said.
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Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Julie Walker in New York and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, also contributed to this report.
Fans walk through snowy streets before an NHL hockey game between the Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
People drive on a snow-covered freeway during a snow storm Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)
Workers clear snow off the ground Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
