The site was silent yesterday because Kate and I drove down to The City to surprise my grandmother and father (her birthday was yesterday, his is Tuesday), and see a Broadway show (about which more later, maybe). That means a slight delay in the accolades for some little guys, but fortunately only one automatic bid was handed out Friday:
Holy Cross: The Crusdaders of the College of the Holy Cross (a name that sounds like it ought to describe something other than a basketball team) beat Bucknell Friday to win John Feinstein’s favorite conference. It’s the first time in three years that they’ve managed to beat Bucknell in the conference tournament, so it’s an especially big win for them. We were pulling for Holy Cross, here in Chateau Steelypips, as it’s in Worcester, which we drive through a lot, and Union’s recently installed President was hired from Holy Cross.
Saturday saw a bunch of bids decided while we were in the car or at the theater:
Albany: Local favorites Albany beat Vermont 60-59 to win the Cats and Dogs conference tournament. Last year, the Great Danes had a ten-point lead against top-seeded UConn in the first round, but couldn’t hang on to pull the 16-over-1 upset. They’ll get another shot this year.
Florida A&M: The Rattlers won the MEAC (“Mid Eastern Athletic Conference,” for those playing the acronym game) on an absolutely amazing buzzer-beating layup. with a little over a second left. In theory, you ought to be able to see the video on ESPN’s site, but they have the worst website ever. The MEAC schools are traditionally black colleges and universities, and are generally better known for marching bands and cheer squads, but they’ve provided some great moments– think Hampton and Coppin State. They’re fun schools to root for.
Jackson State: The state is, I believe, Mississippi, and the Tigers won the SWAC title over Mississippi Valley State (who may have the best school logo on ESPN). They had a sixteen point lead at the half, but were briefly tied in the second half before pulling away to win by ten. This is Jackson State’s first NCAA bid in seven years, so congratulations to them.
Miami University: Hey to Perry Rice. The Red Hawks of Miami (the Florida school is the University of Miami, so you can tell them apart) won on a wild buzzer-beating bank shot to take the Mid-American Conference title. Of course, much of the magic was sucked out of the play by the fact that the game officials then spent twenty minutes poring over replays to decide whether the shot should count (the clock started late), before arriving at an utterly bizarre decision to put time back on the clock, and give Akron a last chance to tie (if anything, the clock should’ve run out sooner than it did, not later). Akron squandered their chance by throing the ball out of bounds, and Miami survived. This was a terrific game– we caught the last five or six minutes after we got home.
New Mexico State: The hook for the covereage of the Aggies WAC championship is that their coach, Reggie Theus, is a former NBA All-Star. This probably doesn’t actually matter, given that he won’t be taking the court, but you should expect to hear it apprximately nine thousand times in the next week. It’s kind of a shame, because they had a very good season, and played a great game to beat Utah State (who knocked off conference favorite and nationally ranked Nevada, to the distress of many a “bubble” team).
Long Beach State: The 49ers beat the Cal Poly Mustangs to win the “How Many State University Systems Does California Have, Anyway?” Championship, otherwise known as the Big West Conference title. This was apparently a great individual battle, with Aaron Nixon scoring 29 for Long Beach, and Chaz Thomas getting 31 for Cal Poly in the loss.
Only one genuinely small conference remains to be decided– the Southland conference, whose winner usually appears in the play-in game as “Southland Conference Champion,” because the game is played pretty late in the process, and the selection committee really doesn’t care that much. There were a couple of less significant big conference championships decided yesterday, but they get plenty of press as it is.