Now is the time of year when the college basketball season begins to get interesting.
That means it’s time for you — and your iPhone — to get an early tip on teams that figure to make noise come March Madness.
iPhone apps for news and scores
College Basketball Live! (Free) is pretty similar to Sportacular, just without the other sports. You get news, stats and standings from this app, as well as live scoring for schools in the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10 and SEC conferences. There’s also a free version of the app will all of the features, the only downside is the advertisements which are included.
Not to be confused with the aforementioned app, College BasketBall Live (99 cents) provides news feeds from ESPN and Yahoo! Sports, as well as scores and standings. There are also team-specific versions of the app for a select number of teams, such as Kentucky (Kentucky Hoops), North Carolina (North Carolina Hoops) and Duke (Duke Basketball Live).
Powered by InGameNow.com, NCAA Basketball — InGameNow (Free) has similar features to those apps but with one important wrinkle: You can interact with others during the games just like you can on the Web site. The live scoring is decent, though this app is clearly based around your ability to chat with other fans.
For those simply looking for scores, that’s all NCAA Basketball Scores brings you. This limited app only allows to look at today and yesterday’s contests, but it’s also free.
iPhone apps for SEC basketball teams
While the Southeastern Conference may be most notable for its football programs, the conference can boast a couple of nice basketball-related apps.
SEC Sports (99 cents) is an app version of the conference’s Web site, and though it’s heavy on football content, they are beginning to highlight their basketball content as well. The app has live scoring and well-produced video clips highlighting all the SEC action.
For fans of the conference who are away from the television on Saturdays, you may want to check out CBS Sports: College. This $9.99 app streams the station’s football and basketball game of the week for the entire 2009-10 season.
It also has news and standings, so it’s not entirely worthless the other six days of the week.
iPhone apps for March Madness
I know, I know. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is a long time away, but it’s impossible to talk about the sport without mentioning perhaps the greatest playoff system known to man.
NCAA Highlights was released prior to the 2009 tournament and it included loads of fantastic videos, such as team previews and classic highlights. The current version has a severely limited number of videos, but it does include highlights from other sports. Regardless, it’s a free app and we can always hope for an update or new version in February.
Despite the name, March Mayhem (Free) is an app some will be interested in now. It’s free and it offers live scoring and a news feed from ESPN. It also has a section that shows you the NCAA bracket, though that won’t mean much for the next couple of months.
We can also hope for a return of iHoops, yet another free app that provides you access to the NCAA Tournament bracket. The app is essentially an office pool manager that keeps track of multiple entries, and if last year’s release is any sign, we can expect a February release or update.
