February 2007 ArchivesBullet Points
Bullet Points
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- That's right, waah-waah. This is the final Daily Paragraph, the last K-Dub's Krazy Fact of the Day of the season. That's because (not-so-Top Five) Tuesday, February 27 is the honorary first day of March. It's tourney time! The Horizon League, Ohio Valley and Big South kick off their first rounds tomorrow, so things around here are going to change. People who have followed the site since the olden days (like, say, 2005) might remember that we switched to tourney mode around this time. Last year, I was part of ESPN.com's team blog during Championship Fortnight (which they promptly deleted in late March), so I didn't have the correct amount of time to attend to such an enterprise over here. But since they've deleted the concept as well, Tourney Central is back, and in a big way! Daily updated brackets from around Hoops Nation, with Bullet Points, links to tempo-free boxscores, and the same half-assed commentary you've come to expect from The Mid-Majority. Folks who are still stuck in the regular season (lame!) will still get their love, with Conference Shootaround in full effect until March 5. NASHVILLE -- Look, nobody has to tell me about how long the season is. I've been out on the road for all but two weeks since November 10, and it's taking its toll mentally. Two nights ago, I had a dream that I was organizing Oprah's music collection; she was telling me she couldn't decide whether to go exercising with a Kraftwerk CD or a tape of a 20-year-old A Prairie Home Companion broadcast. Or maybe it was a waking hallucination. Hell, it could have really happened. Anyway, a lot of weird stuff occurs in late February. Teams that have worked for 3 1/2 months to build an NCAA resume and eight weeks to create a conference-record castle in the sky are starting to get worn down, waiting for that second wind that will take them through to March. While the coaches and players certainly won't make excuses for themselves, there's no denying the weirdness in some of last night's results around Hoops Nation™. Were these games simply all a Who-Shot-J.R. dream? CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -- Before we get too wrapped up in Championship Week this and NCAA Tournament that, in seeding whichever and Billy Packer whatever, I'd like to take time out to offer a small tribute to some special people. This is a tribute to the 508 fans who attended last night's Division I game in Durham, N.H.. These 508 hardy souls took time out of their lives, skipped or Tivo'ed American Idol, and spent money on gas and tickets to watch the host New Hampshire Wildcats get torched by the visiting Binghamton Bearcats by a 66-37 score. And it wasn't even Senior Night, that's coming up Sunday. CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- We all love BracketBusters, and there's no denying that the event had a gigantic impact on the college basketball-o-sphere over the weekend. Southern Illinois was able to make a big road statement in a showcase game (a win at Butler that would have been 44-41 without all the free throws); Drexel and the Creighton Assassins Association (apologies to Jim Larranaga) benefitted; Appalachian State and Winthrop aren't "whodats" to the hoops fans who get their news from SportsCenter. But peel back the first onion-layer, and there's absolutely no denying that this fifth-year event is suffering from some serious growing pains, especially when it comes to travel. Consider the case of America East contender Albany, which lost to Boise State on Friday night. First, the east coast ice-storm caused a last-minute change of plans for the Great Danes. Thankfully not stuck on a JetBlue plane on a runway, head coach Will Brown and the five starters left out of Reagan Airport in D.C. to Boise via Denver on Thursday afternoon. The other travelling party, including six bench players, left from Dulles Thursday afternoon, stayed over in Minneapolis, and arrived at Taco Bell Arena in Boise just in time for a 2:45 pm shootaround. And that doesn't include the missed Chicago connection the second group had on the way home. INDIANAPOLIS -- It's the eve of mid-majordom's national holiday, and for this fifth edition of the event we're getting the whole family involved. Yo dad, those repairs on the car can wait. There are 14 great televised mid-major matchups to watch! It's the perfect time to bring Junior onto the couch for a day of male bonding and watch some good ol' fundamentals-first basketball. You want him to grow up to play the right way, right? Watching Butler and Southern Illinois and Appalachian State should give him the hoops and life smarts that he needs to be the next PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I've been talking to folks around the country these past few days, and have had a really hard time convincing them that the Northeast is where it's at. It's not all Friends and the Hamptons and day trips to Times Square... you pay for all that glamour with high gas prices, frost heave-pockmarked highways, tolls ($20 from Baltimore to New York) and ice storms... the latter of which is currently taking over everybody's lives. But we trudge on (in our Velcro-strapped moon-boots) nonetheless, here on this Valentine's Day. Conference Shootaround! BALTIMORE -- OK, OK, OK, OK. I've read your e-mails, I've received your calls and media inquiries. The big question of the weekend is not what happened in the huge mid-major games these past few days, but what are we to do about this? And this? Let's get the easy punchline out of the way first: There's no wayThe Unnamed Major Program From The Northwest (UMPFN) can ever be a mid-major again, what with a drug bust on the books and everything. But you want to know my take on it, that's why you're here. I'm here to tell you, point blank, that psychedelic mushrooms and basketball don't mix. I have a modicum of experience with most of the variables in this story: I lived in the Northwest for seven years, I make my living in the basketball industry. I did taste some "magic mushrooms" during my days at Oregon, but I plan to run for public office someday and I swear I didn't inhale. DALLAS -- Big, big weekend in Hoops Nation. Huge. Make sure to check out these six big showdown/throwdown/hoedowns at the top of league tables this weekend. As a bonus, we're offering some sample pregame warmup music for your iPod, so you can truly get pumped up for these hot matchups. Holy Cross (10-0) at Bucknell (9-1) (Patriot) (Fri.) -- Since the Crusaders beat the Bison up in Woo-Town last month (when I intimated that the league should FedEx the trophy toot-sweet to HC), Bucknell hasn't lost, and have suffocated the Patriot League with the same staggeringly efficient defense they showed last year. They've shaken off the dead-eyed slough they exhibited in December, and have proven they want to win this thing -- but how will they deal with the injury to leading scorer Donald Brown? Oh yeah, and Holy Cross? Oh, they've just won 12 straight and have the league's best player. ARLINGTON, Tex. -- It's true what they say, everything's bigger in Texas. The hats, the Cadillacs, the stars at night, people's butts, the food. I went into a convenience store this morning and saw an 84-ounce fountain soda for sale, I couldn't even get my hand around it much less fit it in a cupholder. Texas-sized. The Mid-Majority is a little bigger now, both in Texas and everywhere else. After some server slowdowns-slash-growing pains (and we thank you for your patience), we've got some new stuff to share with you. LOS ANGELES -- This one's for the old-timers, the folks who have been following the journey from its humble beginnings two and a half years ago. You know who you are. There's a secret I've been keeping from you (shhhh...), or rather it's part of the story that didn't fit well inside the 30-second capsule that I've worked to fit within the average attention span or feature story structure. You know that I cut my teeth on big-boy basketball in Oregon in the early Nineties, then moved on to Drexel in the late part of the decade, where I fell in love with the mid-majors. What I left out was my connection with the Anteaters of California-Irvine. LOS ANGELES -- I'm not going to get all weird on you and tell you that covering basketball is tantamount to some kind of athletic event, but boy-oh-boy can it take a physical toll. Last night, I ventured out to Gersten Pavilion (a/k/a "Hank's House") to take some notes on theUnnamed Program From the Northwest, for inclusion in some Tournament stuff I'll be doing next month for various media outlets. I tell you, friends, jet lag is bad enough, but game lag just amplifies and intensifies it. Because the game at Loyola Marymount was part of ESPN2's Big Monday tripleheader, tip-time was set at 9 p.m. Pacific so that it would fit snugly into a midnight timeslot back East. LOS ANGELES -- There are three important national holidays on the official calendar of Hoops Nation™. First and foremost in importance, of course, is Selection Sunday in March -- the day that the entire college basketball year leads up to. A second is coming up in a couple weeks: that glorious Day of the Mid-Majors, the day when we take over (some of) the cable and broadband airwaves, BracketBusters Saturday. The third one, the one that elicits the most ecstasy and joy in your humble narrator, is today -- the anticipation has been sphincter-clenchingly unbearable, and it's finally here. After a long winter of annual discontent, a bright and clear morning has dawned... on Football Independence Day. PHOENIX - O, layover... Haven of annoying cell-phone talk, home of heavily made-up airline employees yet unhelpful gate agents (that'll be seventy-five bucks to fly standby, please), opportunity to gorge oneself on 3,000-calorie Cinnabons, chance to catch up with increasingly irrelevant color periodicals. Let's see how much I can type between now and departure. Conference Shootaround! |
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