Season 4 (2007-08)Seriously, what's the big deal about fearlessness? It's made out to be this incredible and rare trait that only a select few possess. People forget that it's our natural, default state of being. We enter the world too naive to fear anything; over time, we develop a profile of all that scares us. Some spend their lives figuring out what's on their own checklists. Some play twisted games with fear. They put themselves in uncomfortable, disruptive situations that press that fear button, set their bloodstream awash in life-affirming adrenaline and cortisol. Throughout history, entire nations have been manipulated into fearful submission with laws and religions. In modern times, there's an entire fear industry, countless chairs facing countless couches. The hired friend leans in close, asks countless variations of the question, "What, exactly, are you afraid of?" Fear is often triggered by something outside that activates the mechanism inside. Sometimes we fear that something inside will betray us. There is fear of the invisible and unknown, fear of the physically present, dangerous and looming. There is the panic that engulfs and immobilizes, as well as the phobia that propels into performance. But all fears have one thing in common. Nobody's afraid of things that have already occurred. If one is running from the past, it's only because of a fear of repetition -- worse, bigger, more damaging this time. The object of fear is always somewhere in the future. Fear is of the end.
Thank you, Davidson players, coaches, staff, students and fans. It was a ride that was both sweet and elite. We'll close Season 4 with an epilogue on Tuesday. We received a lot of messages in response to the query as to whether or not I should wear the "Just Balls" tie to the game today. With a 2-to-1 split in favor of donning autographed neckgear, the votes against stuck out and haunted my sleep. Several people brought up the possibility of a double-reverse tie jinx, and a few brought up the Naismith-Kansas association. But I'm wearing the tie. Repeat, I am wearing the tie. The letter that really sold me was T. Jensen, a self-described Jayhawk fan who commented on the nervousness this morning in Rock-Chalk land. They know that they're up against something special today. Wear it, please. Wear that piece of nylon with the basketballs on it. And I am even a Jayhawk fan, but in respectful support of mid-major b-ball, please wear it. I have never heard Jayhawk fans talk more adamantly than now... we need to "dispose of the 10 seed Cinderella." But still have spent moments reflecting on the pace master, the guy who has the most unique feeling for the college game, Steph Curry... who we have to have patience with, and lock-down mentality, to beat... But yes, wear the darn tie. I know it'll be right. I know, I know. This is a dangerous line I'm walking with the tie, but the postseason is all about danger, looming heartbreak, sudden death. It's win or go home for not only the Davidson players, coaches and staff, but for their fans too. It's win or go home for all the Charlotte media who sit here in the vast media room at Ford Field, biting their nails and whispering about individual matchups. It's win or go home for everybody in America who loves Cinderella -- if Davidson loses tonight to create a who-cares Final Four made up entirely of one-seeds, it's on to baseball season. And, of course, it's win or go home for Bally and I. At this moment, we don't know which highway we're taking on our way out of Detroit tonight: I-75 south or the Canadian 401 east.
I adopted the practice of wearing a shirt and tie to every game that year (inspired by my new colleague Andy Katz), and wore the gift tie to my first game as a representative of the Worldwide Leader, a game on November 19 between Vermont and Harvard. It is certainly a little awkward wearing a tie with basketballs all over it to a basketball game, in all honesty. It's something that you'd expect some eccentric alumnus to do, someone who hasn't been to a basketball game at his school in five years. Or maybe Dickie V, if he was more like Don Cherry. Wearing a "Just Balls" tie is not something you do if you're trying to be anything resembling cool. After all, they make a clip-on version as well. I don't remember wearing the "Just Balls" at all that 2005-06 regular season, not until March. I broke out the tie out again at the NCAA tournament in Dayton, and it hung around my neck for four games during the first round on Saint Patrick's Day 2006. One of those games was No. 11 George Mason's stunning 75-65 upset of Michigan State, a six-seed that had gone to the Final Four a year earlier. As I was standing in the Patriots locker room collecting quotes for a story, the winning coach interrupted my question. "That's some tie you got there, Kyle," said Jim Larranaga, inspecting the thing. "Thanks, coach," I replied.
There was that sophomore in red who outscored the entire Wisconsin team in the second half (22-20), but he wasn't the only player out on the court last night. Some of the supporting numbers were really astounding -- take, for example, point guard Jason Richards' perfect 13:0 assist-to-turnover ratio (a figure Bob McKillop made sure to repeat at least six times on postgame interviews). Or the perfect 5-for-5 shooting by Nigerian junior Andrew Lovedale, who's gone from third on the forward depth chart at the beginning of the season to unsung hero (let's fix that: Andrew Lovedale is 6-8/His two-point dunk-shots are rea-lly great). And there were the efforts that didn't get on the stat sheet, but were important nonetheless. Lovedale, Thomas Sander and Boris Meno sacrificed their bodies for the cause, making the lane a gauntlet for the Wisconsin offense. They were so effective that Bo Ryan spent much of the first half whining on the sideline about all the fouls the officials weren't calling. Davidson, double-champions of a league the ACC and SEC fans down south call the "So-What" Conference, beating up the big boys down low. Imagine that! While we get ready for the in-between day interviews, let's empty out the rest of the notebook from last night.
One of the great things about the day before an NCAA subregional, regional or Final Four is that the public can come and watch the teams practice for free! This is enormous Ford Field in Detroit, which is normally used for American-style football. The stadium will have 72,000 available seats for this weekend -- for basketball! You can't tell from this shot, but the Davidson Wildcats are out there on the floor. Can you find Bally in this picture?
As my new friend TuckyBill likes to say, "mid-major" is just another name for "more bang for your buck." Our two remaining candidates were out-dollared in every possible way, but they're right here alongside the big spenders from the power conferences. Will deeper pockets finally defeat Davidson's and Western Kentucky's dreams? In our third installment of this particular feature, we show exactly the kind of spending power these two are going up against. As with the other two grids, data is culled from the Office of Postsecondary Education's Equity in Athletics report, using 2006-07 information (the latest available).
Bowling Green has been painted Big Red ever since the home team clinched its first Sweet 16 berth in 15 years last weekend. After the jump, more pictures of the scene in B.G. as Western Kentucky University prepares for Thursday's No. 12 vs. No. 1 matchup against UCLA.
Bowling Green At 2:45 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday, the message came in, with a time stamp that indicated it had been left an hour earlier. "The plane leaves around 3 p.m.," the sports information director said. "We'll see you down there at the airport." I'd have received the call on time if I'd been anywhere else. Bowling Green, Kentucky is one of the few places in America where my phone doesn't work correctly, a time-warping non-Verizon vortex where every call is a roamer and new voicemails don't show up on the readout. But there I was on the campus of Western Kentucky University, in the direct shadow of the roundhouse called E.A. Diddle Arena. Two days earlier, the Hilltoppers had clinched a spot in the Sweet 16 with a win over San Diego; hundreds and hundreds of fans had greeted them on Sunday night at the Bowling Green/Warren County Regional Airport. I was in town to cover the sendoff to the West Regional in Phoenix, which was rumored to be an even bigger deal.
Birmingham This month has its place in the weather calendar, a rock-solid role. March thaw helps keep April showers warm, and as long as everything happens in the right order, May flowers won't be DOA. March basketball, however, is as unpredictable as global warming. You don't know who's going to win, where the path will lead, or how long it will last before you get sent home. I left Rhode Island on March 13, the middle of Championship Fortnight, and haven't been back since. I didn't rent a car, since nobody could have guessed how long I'd be out for, or where I'd be going. So I drove the family sedan down to Atlantic City that Wednesday morning, just in time for a noon tip, and spent four days at the Atlantic 14 tournament. I had a routine, parking in the Caesar's lot by day, and disappearing out of town when the action was over. On Selection Sunday, I packed up and headed west towards Dayton for my annual trip to the Play-In Game. That annual evening of 65 fates, I sat in a Bread Restaurant in Western Pennsylvania, the bracket matchups dribbling into my web browser in plain text, in silence. Without waiting for the full bracket, I excitedly fired off an e-mail. Birmingham. That was the hot one. I could feel it.
Mr. Welmer is the Iron Man of basketball officials. He racks up gigantic per-game paychecks and strings together Ripken-like streaks of 16 consecutive days calling games during the regular season. I am a jerk who drives tens of thousands of miles around the country, sleeps in the car, and covers college basketball for a couple of national media outlets. I'm also definitely a decidedly unranked underdog against anybody who say this: "Arguably, there probably may never be a guy like me that is able to get a schedule that big," Welmer said. "I take pride in that because I guess that’s the American way on everything. I guess it’s kind of the male ego thing." Well, put this in your male ego thing, Steve... after being down as many as 14 games five weeks ago, Whelliston has caught, overtaken and surpassed Welmer -- in the third, second and first person. The furious rally was not quite unlike Davidson's comeback against mighty Georgetown on Sunday, as I got hot like Curry and exploded for 22 games during Championship Fortnight. When I dropped seven during the first week of the NCAA Tournament, Welmer didn't have an answer.
Two brave, fighting groups of men... two long dormant small-college basketball legacies reborn... two tourney champions turned Sweet survivors. The Sun Belt and the SoCon, two leagues the general public can't tell apart from each other, are sending representatives to the NCAA Regionals. Hoo-zah! Courtney Lee and Stephen Curry... what can we say? Or rather, what can we say that hasn't been regurgitated before in a long series of heroic odes, in these pages and elsewhere? Two young men with champions' hearts, two red-clad stars of Hoops Nation... two people who are extremely good at playing basketball. Both will showcase their respective awesomenesses later this week, for all of the country's VHF-watching audience to see. Lee, nothing short of 29 points and best-player-on-the-floor status for his role in keeping San Diego at bay in a wire-to-wire Topper victory, making sure No. 13 did not overcome No. 12 in the City of Upsets. Curry, nothing but pure basketball magic. After being shackled with two fouls in the first half, he leapt off the bench with 25 second-half points (to close with his jersey number) and pulled the Wildcats from a 17-point deficit. We're not going to make any sort of religious parallels to anything on this Easter, the most holy of days... but gosh-darned if we're not biting our tongue.
But now we're on to the second round, where big time players make big time plays, and recruiting them generally takes big time money. First, each matchup ranked on the basis of overall athletic budgets, then by the government-mandated report of specific men's basketball expenses. For those of you just joining us, data is culled from the Office of Postsecondary Education's Equity in Athletics report, using 2006-07 information (the latest available).
We saw it coming, the nation saw it coming, everybody knew that this had the opportunity to turn into a track meet. You, Super Saints, are perfectly capable of that kind of stuff. What we didn't expect was that you'd run your overrated, overhyped SEC competition off the floor... The 83-62 final was the second-largest margin of victory ever for a No. 14 over a No. 3. The 21-point margin was two short of the 78-55 spread in 1985, when Navy destroyed Louisiana State in Dayton. Next, it's Villanova. Much like that other teenage riot on Sunday, it's a No. 12 vs. No. 13. But your opponent will be a sad-sack .500 Big East team, one of that conference's weakest offenses, that surfed on the miniscus of the bubble all February. You'll be able to run on these guys too, so rest those legs up. They're even less threatening than Vandy on the boards, and they sure like to foul a lot. So will we see you in the Sweet 16? Should we start checking flights to Detroit? We're getting ahead of ourselves. Men of the green and gold, hearts that are brave and bold... Fight, fight, fight with all of your might! You can win if you will fight, fight, fight!
Mid-Majority SoCon Player of the Year Stephen Curry, teenage idol, crowned boy-king of western North Carolina... nobody will ever pronounce your name wrong, ever again. If they do, they have to wear a red Davidson No. 30 jersey for two days as penance... and we will do our best in enforcing that law. Twenty-four points in the first 14 points of the second half -- against every type of defense ever invented -- on the way to four-oh. Eight 3-pointers, but none as big as the one with a minute to go that split open a tie and greased Gonzaga's skids.
O Hilltoppers... it must have been cold there in South Alabama's shadow, to never have sunlight on your face. Now, there on the citrus coast of Florida, you shine with a fearsome brightness. You are the 2008 tournament champions in the Sun Belt, and you are the conference's last remaining survivor. The Commonwealth of Kentucky's third party is now its first entrant in the Thirsty 32. They said you didn't have any signature wins, that you always fell short when it counted, that Hoops Nation was somehow denied the pleasure of a final showdown with South Alabama in the SBC. Did they forget to consider that Courtney Lee and Ty Brazelton might not want to go home yet? And Ty Rogers, honorary mayor, president and one-man city council of Eddyville, Ky., take your throne among the NCAA immortals. A brief moment of silence for Drake's season, a double championship in Hoops Nation's toughest conference... followed by 44 minutes and 58 seconds of brilliant, stirring, beautiful, glorious basketball. We'll always remember what you did.
The true underdogs, teams from the lower and smaller leagues, went zero for nine on the first day of the NCAA Tournament, and March 20 will be our Bill Murray Groundhog Day for the foreseeable future. We will discuss these games endlessly, reference these results constantly, on this site and elsewhere. We will frame 2008-09 campaigns with them. The sad scorelines will hang over entire leagues for the next 12 months, will define the perception of entire conferences among casual fans. These results will live on, and will somehow have to be defended at this time next year... if and when we talk of extra bids for the MAC, or the CAA, or the Big West. If there's any one common thread in the losses yesterday, it's a lack of offensive consistency. Heck, that's a common thread in most of these first-round games featuring mid-majors, we've had our hearts cracked open for years like this. But we knew that Winthrop would struggle to score points, they have all year; we knew that George Mason looks bad when all its cylinders aren't firing. And we knew that Cornell basically had to hit 25 3-pointers if it wanted to slay bigger, badder Stanford.
Well, here we are in Birmingham. I'm watching practices, asking dumb questions in press conferences, eating all the Cheetos at the media buffet spread, and waiting for the upsets to start happening on TV. While I'm doing Real Serious Work, Bally is living it up VIP style at the Big Dance. Follow along as he takes you behind the Madness, and hang out with his cool celebrity friends! The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final Four in a simulation of last season. For our purposes here, it gives the world's only hype-free, non-voting, computer poll of teams in the lower 22 conferences. This is the full 246-team chart (which stopped hourly updates right before the selection show), and this is a doctored, spliced recording. As of 3/16/2008, 6 p.m. ET 1. Drake (Missouri Valley), 102.66, 28-4 (15-3) There have been about five messages a day, wondering if I'd forgotten to post a final State out of shame or something. I think the index did pretty well in its first full season, mostly because it knew what it was. This never pretended to be a predictor of future events, or a measure of Tournament worthiness, it simply rewarded schools at our level that played excellent, well-rounded basketball, and would be in position to win the kinds of games. Some of these teams did just that and will in the near future, and others fell short. |
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When ESPN.com brought me on in the summer of 2005, my good friend Sarah bought me a 
DETROIT -- The alarm clock went off this morning, like it normally does... but we're still trying to figure out when, exactly, we fell asleep. Around 6 p.m. yesterday? That timeframe makes more sense than what we were hallucinating about. Davidson? A No. 10 seed? Slaughtering the Big Ten champs in Big Ten country? 
There are 16 teams left to fight over the National Championship, each with just four more wins to go to achieve the ultimate prize. Strangely enough, they spent widely disparate amounts of money to get here.
If you've been reading this site with any sort of regularity this year, you know about my 
Back by popular demand, it's another chart of who's got money and who doesn't. Basing your prognostications on athletic budgets isn't a perfect method -- you would have gone 24-8 in the first round, which seems about average for all those suffering from Tampa Madness (you would have had WKU over Drake, though). 
BIRMINGHAM -- On mornings like this, after days like that, I'm envious of people who can simply move on with their brackets and think about the next round's matchups. For those of us who cover the mid-major schools, we'll be reliving this day over and over again for the next year. 
