Williams National Championship Game Liveblog

I'll be liveblogging the Williams v. Wisconsin-Stevens Point DIII men's championship game over at Ephblog. The game starts at 1:00 eastern time, noon from where I'm sitting.

Alma Mater Hoops Update

Good weekend so far for the alma mater men's hoop teams.

Yesterday Ohio smacked Georgetown around as if their seeds were reversed, running away with a 97-83 victory. Georgetown only managed to come as close as 7 at about the five-minute mark of the second, but OU responded with a three and controlled the game the whole time. I don't want to count chickens, but there is a better-than-outside chance that OU could end up facing Ohio State, which might well qualify as the biggest sporting event in OU history. The Bobcats beat Kentucky in the tournament in 1964, but given that Ohio State is the big in-state bully, and given how much bigger the NCAA's are now, a Sweet Sixteen matchup with the Buckeyes would surpass anything I know about in Athens.

Closer to my heart, Williams defeated Guilford today in the DIII national semis 97-88 in a game that was a nailbiter until the end. Williams was actually down eight at the half but shot the lights out in the second half. Williams won the national championship in 2003 and has gone to one other championship game. The Ephs will face the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point tomorrow.

Revisiting the Greatest Idea Ever

As long as I am discussing the NCAA tournament, I may as well throw out one of the ideas that I have long put forward. I may as well pull it out again as I watch the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff defeat Winthrop in this year's "play-in game" to continue their improbable run.

Every year it seems the same debate plays out when addressing the bubble teams and the field of 65. It is a field of 65 because in its infinite wisdom the NCAA decided to make the two weakest teams go to Dayton and hold that "play-in game." But rather than subject these teams to that insult, why not take the last four at-large slots and have four play-in games, one for each region, pitting the last four teams from major conferences against the last four teams from mid-majors. It would make for a hell of a Tuesday, would help settle the mid-majors versus majors debate, and would allow every conference tournament winner a guaranteed slot. Reserve the 13 slot for the winners of these games, as customarily the 13 seeds are among the last into the field.

You're welcome.

Alma Mater Hoops Watch

We are about to embark on one of the great weekends in all of sports with the tipoff of the NCAA tournament. Each year my loyalties fluctuate. Unlike in professional sports, where my loyalties are firmly based in Boston, my college sports loyalties fluctuate. I grew up in a state without any real Division I presence in football or basketball (though UNH hockey is a perennial contender, albeit one that has yet to scale the top of the NCAA mountain). By default I have always been a Boston College fan as a result.

Going to college did not make a lot of difference on this front. I bleed purple and gold for Williams athletics, but Williams is a Division III athletic program, and while we have the greatest athletic program in all of DIII, it is simply not the same as the spectacle of major-level DI sports. I pursued my MA work at UNC-Charlotte (which now goes simply by "Charlotte" for athletic branding purposes). Charlotte has a respectable basketball program, once made a Final Four, and had a run in the period from the mid 90s to the middle of the decade just past when an NCAA run was the norm. Nonetheless, Charlotte straddles that line between major and midmajor-level program. For my PhD I attended Ohio University in the Mid-America Conference, for which the term "mid-major" was pretty much coined.

Otherwise my loyalties come and go. I have been a fellow at both Virginia and South Carolina, so I have tried with middling levels of success to appropriate those schools. I teach in the UT system and my paycheck (and tenure decision) come from Austin, so I gravitate toward the Horns. Duke was the most prominent and persistent college to recruit me for track out of high school, so I am not only not a Duke hater, I actually like to see them do well. Despite the appeal of being a free agent, it's a lousy way to go through life as a college fan, and I have always said that if I were to get a job at a college with big-time sports I would engage in full immersion and would write a book called "Becoming a Fan" based on that first year of overcompensation.

In any case, as usual, my alma maters are experiencing various levels of involvement with the Madness of March. Williams is ranked second in the country and has made the DIII Final Four, which is played every year in Salem. Williams has been there before, having won once, and has a good shot again this year. The Ephs will take on Guilford College on Friday for the right to play for the national championship. Guilford was the alma mater of one of my (late) college track coaches and is a Quaker school in North Carolina which will come into the national semifinal with a 30-2 record (Williams is 29-1) and that made the national semis last year as well.

Ohio University made an improbable run through the MAC tournament, its only shot at going to the Big Dance. Their prize? A trip to Providence (freakin' sweet!) and a meeting with historical powerhouse and #3 seed Georgetown. OU took a really good Florida team to the wire a few years back, though, and while far from a national power, OU has been to a dozen NCAA tournaments and will hopefully give the Hoyas a game. I'll proudly wear my OU green and am looking forward to the game on Thursday.

The news is not so good in Charlotte. The university inexplicably (to my mind) fired Bobby Lutz, the winningest coach in program history. In a dozen seasons Lutz compiled a 218-158 record. The team had its worst record in a long time last season, but was in a position for an NCAA berth this year until a collapse toward the end of the year and in the first game of the A-10 tournament scuttled any hope to make the field of 65. I have no idea what AD Judy Rose, the university administration, and the trustees want from the basketball program, but if the next dozen years look anything like the dozen just passed, it seems to me that it will be a rousing success and Lutz should have categroically been part of the program going forward. Lutz has been at least arguably the best coach in the history of the program, is a Charlotte alum, is one of the truly good guys in the profession and the community, and had weathered the toughest storm he was likely to face after last season. He had some of his best recruits on campus and had in the past turned down opportunities to move up in order to remain at his alma mater. I will continue to root for Charlotte to do well, but this is a lousy, knee-jerk decision no matter what rationalization comes from the athletic department.

In the meantime: Go Bobcats! And, above all, Go Ephs!!!

Sox Take a Stand

While many of us partake of the secular holiday known in America as "March Madness" (look it up Brits, South Africans, and others) I thought I'd simply praise the Red Sox for taking a stand on behalf of their coaches and support staff (be sure to click on the video link at the top of the story from Bob Ryan's PTI-style show on NESN). Basically the players refused to play yesterday's exhibition game or to go to Japan without MLB following through on its promise to pay coaches and other personnel a $40,000 stipend for making the trip. The Sox since 2004 (when they voted record shares for non-players) are a far cry from the often unlikable Sox of the 1980s who notoriously shafted the little guys in their 1986 playoff shares and who were reknowned for being a "25 guys, 25 cabs" group.

(My Final Four are UCLA, Georgetown, Texas, and Carolina. Texas and Georgetown in the finals. Texas to win it all. Just a gut instinct. Now you can bet heavily against it happening. Enjoy the games.)

The Ides Of March: Madness!

The tournament is here. All the chatter gives way to Cinderella going to the dance, the top seeds showing their stuff, and four days that will eviscerate brackets across the land. Here is what my main bracket (Like everyone, I play different brackets in different competitions) looks like:

The Sweet 16:
Florida v. Maryland: Maryland will be feisty, but Florida is too talented.
Oregon v. Wisconsin: Oregon can shoot, but Wisconsin is tough and will have the best player on the court in Alando Tucker.
Kansas v. Southern Illinois: I really like SIU, and their team D is spectacular, but let's be serious. Kansas will run them out of the gym, but even if they can't, they will out-strong the Salukis.
Duke v. UCLA: I know everyone thinks Duke is going out early. Don't kid yourselves, Duke haters -- Duke may not be what they have been, but they will make it this far. Then they will lose to a UCLA team that got more rest than it wanted after their early loss to Cal in the Pac 10 tournament.
UNC-Chapel Hill v. Texas: The Tar Heels play a lot of good freshmen. Texas plays the best freshman. UNC-CH is soft. They are going to lose this one and it will not be that close.
Washington State v. Boston College: Hey, most of this will probably be wrong anyway, so I may as well be loyal. But I also think that if BC can pull it all together, they can play better than people realize. Dudley will have a monster game, especially down the stretch, even if he does look like Webster stricken by giantism.
Ohio State v. Virginia: I hate Ohio State. And I had a too-brief affiliation with UVA for a few months in 2004, so I want to tell you that Wahoo magic is about to bloom. But Oden will be too much, Virginia too little.
Texas A&M v. Nevada: In a good year for Texas college hoops (Texas Tech, North Texas and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi all made the big ho-down as well) A&M will be the second in the Elite 8, though Nevada is going to put up a fight.

Elite Eight:
Florida v. Wisconsin (Midwest Regional Final): I want to pick Wisconsin. But once Butch went down so too did their realistic national title hopes. they will punch Florida in the mouth, but the defending champs will prove to be too deep and too talented.
Kansas v. UCLA (West Regional Final): This will be the best game of all of the regional finals. Kansas is really, really good. UCLA is only really good. That one "really" will make the difference.
Texas v. BC (East Regional Final): I am loyal. But I am not a fool. Texas will pummel BC, but a Boston audience will get to see Kevin Durant and dream of him resplendant in green. Now if only Paul Pierce would get a five week "stomach virus" because he has chosen a hell of a bad time to prove that he is one of the ten best players in the NBA.
Ohio State v. Texas A&M (South Regional Final): Is it absurd that I am going to have three Big 12 teams in the Final Four? Probably. i tend to avoid cliches that people invoke to pick the national champion, but I'm going to pull one out now: When in doubt, look at the guards. I really like Conley for Ohio State, largely because his dad was a world class long and triple jumper back in the day. But Acie Law III is spectacular, he has enormous huevos, and he will take this game over in the last tem ninutes. Oden's going to be great, but the story in this one will be how Ohio State fought the Law (and Law won).

The Final Four:
Florida v Kansas: I have said all year that Florida would not repeat this year. They are a good team, but I just think that Kansas is better. Kansas has great balance and can play any sort of game. This could be a fantastic matchup, but Kansas will pull it off.
Texas v. Texas A&M: OK, so this matchup is farfetched. But this state will go absolutely insane if it comes to pass. My friend Brian will probably explode with his man-love for the Longhorns and his loathing of everything Aggie. A&M has the almost embarrassing coaching advantage with Gillespie over barnes in a walkover. But the Longhorns will have almost everything else, including, again, Kevin Durant, who will go for 30-15. Texas wins.

The National Championship:
Texas v. Kansas: These two teams have played two of the best college basketball games in 2007. In the Big 12 championship the Horns ran out of steam after three games in three days and could not forestall a Kansas comeback victory in overtime. There will be plenty of rest in between games this time around. The national title will reside deep in the heart of Texas for the next year.

Or none of this may come to pass. That is what makes March so glorious.

TNR's March Madness Blog

The New Republic has a basketball blog in time for March Madness. There is a lot of gasbaggery mixed with pretension going on over there, but it's probably worth a view.

This might be one of the most balanced brackets we have seen in some time. As for the bubble teams, it is hard to work up too much outrage. Syracuse and Drexel would seem to have the strongest cases, and I have to wonder why stanford got in, but I think the selection committee has done better than at any time in the past few years even if a few potential bubble teams from midmajors played their way in and made things a bit easier.

My only early advice: Don't go all chalk. In other words, don't pencil in all of the one and two seeds. At the same time, and more importantly, don't get too clever by half either. There usually is a reason why a team is an 8 seed. For every Arizona in '97 or Villanova in '85 or NC State in '83 there are a million brackets ruined by someone thinking that they have a ten seed that is going to shock the world. You are much wiser looking for this year's version of the 2006 Florida team than for this year's George Mason. The reality is that picking an upset and being wrong runs you the risk of having that pick haunt you for the rest of the tournament. Your belief that Virginia Commonwealth is going to the Elite Eight is the reason why Sally in accounting is going to beat you soundly by picking teams she has heard of, going with high seeds most of the time, and having her upset team last for one round before they run into a team that has those pretty uniforms that also happens to be a three seed.

The idea of a play-in tournament for the last four slots still stands as the Greatest. Idea. Ever.

Greatest. Idea. Ever.

Last March I presented the greatest idea ever. Seriously. Here is how I presented it on March 14, 2006:

In a world where new ideas are rare, the Thunderstick and I have just come up with a dandy: We believe that the teams tonight [in reference to the play-in game that determines the last team into the field] are getting screwed by the system, that there ought to be room for both of them to be in the Dance and that a team such as Air Force probably could yield to Monmouth or Hampton. But better yet, why not have a play-in game between bubble teams? After all, the brunt of the aftermath of Selection Sunday involves discussing who should have gotten in and who should not have. Why not have teams battle it out for those slots? Why not have all of the #13 seeds be up for grabs? Take four bubble teams from major conferences, four from mid-majors and let them face off. You could pit Missouri State v. South Carolina, Air Force v. Michigan, George Mason v. Cincinnati, and Texas A&M v. Hofstra. Who could possibly oppose this idea? It would effectively start things off on the Tuesday before the tournament, and the intensity of these games would be unreal. Such a system would also alleviate the age old "Majors or Mid Majors?" argument that we engage in every year, and the result would be more March Madness.

So naturally the Thunderstick and I have been discussing our epochal contribution to mankind. And here is what he wrote to me today:

Checking out ESPN, in the latest Bracketology, the last four teams in were Purdue, Illinois, Old Dominion and Missouri State. The last four out were Kansas State, West Virginia, UMass and Drexel. How great would be on Tuesday night if instead of getting the play-in game that right now is projected to be Arkansas State vs. Mississippi Valley State, we got to see Purdue vs Drexel, Illinois vs UMass, ODU vs West Viriginia and Kansas State vs. Missouri State? I think I'd watch every one of those games.

I'm telling you -- this is better than Euclidean geometry, the microchip, the Marshall Plan, and even the footlong chili cheese dog all rolled into one. As I said last year, "Someone call Dickie V and Miles Brand. This idea is too good not to happen."