What To Watch For This Week In Florida Sports (March 30-April 5)+

We’re Watching College Basketball in the Sunshine State. Congratulations to the Florida Southern Moccasins, winners of the NCAA Division II Championship Game Saturday in Evansville, Indiana. The Moccasins defeated Indiana University (PA) 77-62 to finish the season with a 36-1 record, winning its last 25 games of the season. It was the second Division II Basketball Championship for Florida Southern and 28th Division II national championship for the Florida Southern Athletics program.

The Miami Hurricanes have advanced to the Final Four of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) in Madison Square Garden and meet Temple, Tuesday night in the semifinal round. It is their first appearance in the NIT Semifinal round. Should the Hurricanes (24-12) advance, they will play the winner of the Old Dominion/Stanford game for the NIT Championship Thursday.

The Florida State Seminoles Road to Tampa Bay came to an end Sunday in a loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks, who advance to the Women’s Final Four in Tampa April 5-7. Also advancing was the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who defeated the Baylor Bears in the regional final. The last two spots are up for grabs tonight at Connecticut meets Dayton and Maryland plays Tennessee.

Game times in the Amalie Arena for Sunday’s semifinal games are 6:30 and 9:00 p.m. and the Championship Game is set for Tuesday night at 8:30 p.m.

We’re watching the final week of Florida Spring Training as only 36 games remain through Saturday, April 3. With 194 Florida Grapefruit League Games in the book since March 3, a total of 1,354,775 fans have attended games for an average attendance of 6,983 per game. Should the 6,900 average attendance figure hold up in the remaining games, total attendance will top 1.6 million for the year. Only three games have been rained out this year.

In their final tuneup before the season opener, the Miami Marlins will meet their Class AA Southern League affiliate, the Jacksonville Suns on Saturday, April 4, at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.

Gametime is set for 2:05 p.m. and former members of the Suns, now on the Marlins roster, include Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Tom Koehler and Steve Cishek. The Suns are the reigning Southern League Champions and defeated the Chattanooga Lookouts in a three-game sweep to win their sixth Southern League title.

The Marlins open the regular season with a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves at Marlins Park beginning Monday, April 4, with a 4:10 first pitch. On Florida’s west coast, the Tampa Bay Rays open on Monday with a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles and a 3:10 p.m. first pitch for the home opener.

Following their home openers, Florida’s two Major League Baseball entries meet for a three-game series at Marlins Park beginning Friday, April 10. In each of the last two years, one team has swept the four-game series, with the Rays winning all four in 2013 and the Marlins winning all four in 2014.

The two teams will play six games against one another this year with the Rays hosting a three-game series at Tropicana Field, September 29-October 1, the next to last series of the season.

The 2015 season of the Florida State League begins Thursday, April 9 in six locations statewide. The league originated in 1919 with teams in Bartow, Bradenton, Lakeland, Orlando, Sanford, and Tampa, Florida. The league closed down in 1928 and resumed play in 1936. It has continued uninterrupted, except for a four-year (1942–1945) suspension during World War II.

The Fort Myers Miracle won the 2014 Florida State League Championship and open the season in Port Charlotte against the Charlotte Stone Crabs Thursday, but return to the Century Link Sports Complex in Fort Myers for two games against the Stone Crabs on Friday and Saturday.

What To Watch For This Week in Florida Sports is published weekly by Nick Gandy, a 25-year veteran of sports communications in the State of Florida. Drop me a line at ngandyman@gmail.com if you have content for future editions of this blog. Follow me on Twitter @Ngandyman or visit my LinkedIn Profile.

What To Watch For This Week in Florida Sports (March 25-31)

WATCH FOR the two biggest stories in sports taking place in the State of Florida. In a state offering so many sports opportunities, it’s the basketball court where the headlines are being made in the Sunshine State.

WATCH FOR the Miami Heat to extend their current 27-game win streak with games this week against the Chicago Bulls (Wednesday), New Orleans Jazz (Friday) and San Antonio Spurs (Sunday). It’s the second-longest streak in NBA History and American sports.

To get a perspective of the 53 days the Heat win streak has been going on, here are some other events that have made the headlines in Florida since Miami’s last loss on February 1 against the Indiana Pacers.

February 12 – Pitchers and Catchers Report for Spring Training at 14 Florida locations
February 24 – Jimmie Johnson wins the 55th Annual Daytona 500
March 2 – Tampa Jesuit High School wins its first Basketball Championship in 29 years
March 6 – Florida Gators win SEC Regular Season Basketball Championship with win over Vanderbilt
March 9 – Florida Gulf Coast Eagles win Sun Belt Conference Tournament to qualify for NCAA Tournament
March 10 – Tiger Woods wins the World Golf Championships at Miami’s Doral Blue Monster
March 17 – Miami Hurricanes defeat North Carolina to win 2013 ACC Basketball Tournament
March 24 – Tiger Woods wins the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando
March 25 – Florida Spring Training season enters its final week of play

WATCH FOR the nation’s latest Cinderella story, the Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The Eagles, in their first NCAA Tournament, are the first 15th seeded team to advance to the Sweet 16. Florida is the only state with three teams remaining from the tournament’s original field of 68. Michigan and Kansas have two teams still playing.

Florida Gulf Coast meets the Southeastern Conference regular season champions, the third-seeded Florida Gators, Friday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

WATCH FOR the Miami Hurricanes, who also made headlines in South Florida as the ACC Regular Season and Tournament Champion, as they face the Marquette Warriors, in Sweet 16 action, in Washington, DC.

The winner of the Florida Gulf Coast/Florida matchup meets the winner of the Michigan/Kansas game with the winner advancing to the Final Four. The Miami/Marquette winner plays against the winner of the Indiana/Syracuse Sweet 16 matchup.

In the women’s tournament, the Florida State Seminoles have a chance to be the women’s tournament Cinderella story. After defeating the Princeton Tigers in the first round, the Seminoles meet the defending champion and top-seeded Baylor Bears tonight in Waco, Texas.

WATCH FOR a great bonanza of freshwater fishing opportunities. All across the state, anglers have reported great catches of a wide variety of freshwater fish.

Typically, black crappie (specks), redbreast sunfish and largemouth bass (the largest sunfish) begin spawning when water temperatures get over about 62 F. Crappie will stop spawning before bass, which continue to work the beds until it warms up to about 75 degrees. They are followed by redear sunfish and bluegill.

WATCH FOR the best in Florida Fishing with a copy of the 2013 Florida Fishing and Boating Guide and the Monthly Fish Busters column from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

WATCH FOR the Florida Grapefruit League to close out a successful 2013 season while celebrating the 125th Anniversary of Major League Baseball’s annual pilgrimage to the Sunshine State. Games began on Friday, February 22 and will conclude on Saturday, March 30 with three games.

Over the next few days, three players in Florida will vye for the Grapefruit League home run title. The Phillies Domonic Brown and Ryan Howard, as well as the Braves Freddie Freeman have each hit seven round trippers.

Through games of Monday, March 25, Florida Grapefruit League attendance was well on its way to topping 1.5 million for the 12th time in the last 14 years. Over 1.4 million fans attended games through Monday.

The front page of the Florida Grapefruit League web site features links to articles about team preparations for the upcoming season. Also feel free to visit the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays as their regular seasons open on Monday, April 1.

WATCH FOR the recently released Florida Sports Foundation five-minute video showing how sports contributes to the State of Florida economy. As a $36 billion industry, it’s hard to imagine all of the aspects of sports and how it relates to the business community. Hopefully, this video will introduce a better perspective of the relation between the two.

The Weekly “What to Watch For in Florida Sports,” is compiled by Florida Sports Foundation Director of Communications, Nick Gandy. Follow the Florida Sports Foundation on Facebook and on Twitter #fla_sports. Visit http://www.flasports.com for more information about the Florida Sports Foundation and the vibrant sports industry in the Sunshine State. Florida is Where The World Comes to Play.