• Season 9 SuperTicker presented by BLAPP
#TMM9
Having recently completed its 9th season, The Mid-Majority is a community chronicle of the smaller Division I college basketball conferences. Last year, the theme was Team. Six groups of five (plus a fantasy mid-major player) were engaged in friendly Amazing Race-style competition, criss-crossing Hoops Nation to provide awesome college basketball content. Season X (2013-14) will be our final one.

Recent Game Recaps

Epilogue, The Ninth: Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Memories

So We Meet Again

Rte. 139 - End of the Line

Hanging On

A Championship in Pictures

This Time of Year

Dotson Leads Ducks to the Sweet Sixteen

Grizzlies Overwhelmed by Orangemen

Empire

Challenge 11: Final Four Memories

By George, UConn is Dead

Butler and Us

Donning the Black and Gold

Challenge 10: Tourney Memories

The Madness of the Horizon League

The Rare Ivy League Conference Tournament

MAC Madness

Anything Can Happen in the MAAC

Challenge 9: Shock The Neighborhood

A Youthful Surprise

From Worst to First

Peers and Seers

Tag: Atlantic Sun
Sorted by date
S5 March 20, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- There's no day more exciting and more highly anticipated than First Round Thursday, and there's no 12 hours quite as difficult to get through. As soon as the games begin, the NCAA Tournament teaches a hard lesson about the perfection that's necessary to compete against enemies with mo...
S5 March 16, 2009 Aside from reality show winners and one-hit wonders, nothing is forgotten quite as quickly as Championship Fortnight when the NCAA Tournament brackets are released. Some of the teams we've been following all season are destined for great and lasting glory, which will be fulfilled and certified once ...
S5 March 16, 2009 Bullet Points Stephen F. Austin punched Hoops Nation's final NCAA Tournament ticket Sunday afternoon, its first appearance ever. Championship Fortnight is over, and the national postseason is just ahead. Completed brackets and scores for all 23 TMM leagues are included below. Southland Texas...
S5 March 14, 2009 Bally had an exciting first week of playoff action, visiting the Atlantic Sun, Missouri Valley and Sun Belt. But was he tired after all that fun? Absolutely not! Bally can't be stopped, he's going all the way to the hoop! Here are some highlights from his stops in Texas and Ohio for the Sun Belt an...
S5 March 12, 2009 KATY, Tex. -- Quick programming note: we've run into some technical difficulties here in Texas, so that marathon chat we promised has to be postponed. Next week seems a better fit anyway, since there will be an actual 65-team bracket to talk about. We'll do a regular chat tomorrow from Cleveland at ...
S5 March 11, 2009 HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- With our third-to-last GMHN of Season 5, we have a very special treat for you, yes we do. The image you see over and over during Championship Fortnight is students running all willy-nilly onto the floor after their beloved teams win mid-major titles. So it's only fitting that w...
S5 March 10, 2009 Bally loves the excitement of March basketball as much as anyone, and he gets to travel all around the country seeing lots of games and meeting new friends! Here he is on Monday night with the South Alabama Jaguar mascot right after the team upset Arkansas-Little Rock in the Sun Belt semifinals as ...
S5 March 8, 2009 Bullet Points Radford (Big South), East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun) and Morehead State (Ohio Valley) have qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Cleveland State, the Horizon No. 3, eliminated No. 2 Green Bay in that conference's semis, and Illinois State upended Creighton in the Missouri Valley...
S5 March 7, 2009 Bullet Points Cornell became the first school to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament. For the second straight year, the Big Red claimed the Ivy League title, beating Penn 83-59. The upsets began in earnest on Friday. Ohio Valley No. 4 Morehead State took out No. 1 Tennessee-Martin. CAA No....
S5 March 6, 2009 Bullet Points Four-time Atlantic Sun champion Belmont barely escaped Mercer, and Big South top seed Radford fought off a strong challenge from No. 4 UNC Asheville in that league's semifinals. The Big South final on Saturday is set: VMI at Radford. The three top seeds in the Northeast Confer...
S5 March 5, 2009 NASHVILLE -- You might recall that there was a marathon chat announced to be held Friday (tomorrow) from the Valley quarterfinals. Due to a number of factors, that's being postponed. Instead, we'll try for a 12-hour chat next Thursday, and do a regular chat at 3:00 EST tomorrow that will overlap wit...
S5 March 5, 2009 Bullet Points Three of four top seeds moved on in the Patriot League, including No. 1 American. Atlantic Sun No. 2 East Tennessee State advanced. Two small upsets occurred in last night's action. Patriot No. 6 Colgate upended No. 3 Navy on its own floor, and No. 9 Florida International squeake...
S5 March 4, 2009 Bullet Points Championship Fortnight is under way, as the top seeds won in the Big South and Ohio Valley. The first minor upset occurred in the Horizon League, where No. 7 Illinois-Chicago outhooped No. 6 Youngstown State. Both finished the conference slate at 7-11 and were separated by tiebre...
S5 March 2, 2009 Our first conference tourney will be the Atlantic Sun event in Nashville, a league we took you behind the scenes for last year. This year's seen a fantastic race between three strong teams: three-time champs Belmont, revenge-minded Jacksonville, and an ETSU squad that hasn't quite made it over the t...
S5 March 2, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Every day we get just a little more physically vulnerable, every day another step closer to the inevitable finish line of life. The positive trade-off is that whether we've cheated the reaper by strengthening our bodies or not, our minds are always increasing in power. Every day, we ...
S5 February 26, 2009 ATHENS, Ohio -- As was noted in this kind piece by the newspaper I spent my college career wishing I could work for, next week marks the beginning of what we're really here for, what this is really all about. The conference tourneys mark the third of the four seasons within a season in college baske...
S5 February 25, 2009 HARRISONBURG, Va. -- Still trying to figure out what all this means. So you're saying that if I had just auctioned off a crate full of Ballys last month, we wouldn't have had to do that whole bailout thing? But seriously, it's amazing to see that we've touched off the hottest plushie trend since Pea...
S5 February 19, 2009 Troy at Florida International (Sun Belt) Golden Panther Arena - Miami, FL 8:05 PM EST With mid-majordom's top Sweet 16 aspirants like Saint Mary's, Davidson, Butler and Utah State taking recent losses and struggling through February, the number of double-digit win streaks on this side of the Red L...
S5 February 9, 2009 Stetson at East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun) Memorial Center - Johnson City, TN 7:00 PM EST The Atlantic Sun is providing many of these mid-major hot-shot conferences a clinic on how to organize its standings. You want three teams up top with gaudy records, a strong .500 midsection, and a couple...
S5 February 2, 2009 CHICAGO -- So much of modern life is blocking, filtering, limiting. There is so much information coming at us every day that we must become fighters of information, lest it overwhelm and submerge us completely. We battle back with fast-forward buttons, delete keys, spam-guards, RSS newsreaders, trus...
S5 January 26, 2009 The Citadel at Samford (Southern) Pete Hanna Center - Birmingham, AL 8:30 PM EST It's easy to get caught up in the Davidson excitement. The Wildcats are 9-0, scoring 81 points against 67 allowed in league play, and they have this one player who can shoot lasers out of his toes or something. They'r...
S5 January 20, 2009 WASHINGTON -- In the next several days, you're likely to read many accounts of these days by special columnists (even some sportswriters) who have spent the last few days being whisked from inaugural ball to celebrity gala, who've worn tuxedos to fine restaurants and will sit in special boxes watchi...
S5 January 12, 2009 Davidson at Appalachian State (Southern) Holmes Center - Boone, NC 7:30 PM EST Every so often, the rules must be broken. There are some very traditionally great yet somewhat diluted matchups out there on this Monday night -- the Atlantic Sun's Battle of the Boulevard is back on (Lipscomb's struggl...
S5 January 6, 2009 NASHVILLE -- A lot's happened in the past 48 hours. I've driven 1,450 miles through high Colorado mountain passes, endless Kansas, Oklahoma hailstorms. I've watched Southwest Airlines' careful domino-stack of hourly gate departures collapse under the weight of a weather delay, into a maelstrom of sc...
S5 January 2, 2009 POCATELLO, Id. -- First of all, we have a chat today over at ESPN SportsNation at 4 p.m. Eastern, or 2 p.m. Mountain Standard. Don't forget! One last blast of mid-major mystery before we turn our attention solely to conference races, and forget that the top eight conferences exist -- a luxury we'll ...
S5 December 29, 2008 LOGAN, Utah -- Whenever I travel to this part of the country, the Tetris-stack of states that makes up the intermountain west, I feel a great sense of unease. This goes back to when I lived in western Oregon for seven years, and would occasionally come further inland, but my advancing age allows me ...
S5 December 22, 2008 Belmont at Austin Peay Winfield Dunn Center - Clarksville, TN 8:00 PM EST One crisp spring Saturday in Nashville, we shuttled between two Music City arenas to watch two conference champions crowned -- first, the Austin Peay hoopsters took out Tennessee State to win the OVC crown, then two hours la...
S5 December 17, 2008 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 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S5 December 11, 2008 Troy at Middle Tennessee (Sun Belt) Murphy Athletics Center - Murfreesboro, TN 8:00 PM EST With most schools in finals, it's a light schedule this week. But the Sun Belt has found the time to squeeze in a league preview on an eight-game Thursday, to the relief of our intrepid G!O!T!N! crew, all of...
S5 December 10, 2008 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 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S5 December 10, 2008 BALTIMORE -- Last Thursday, I saw my first conference tilt of the year. It was at the Truman-era art deco palace known as Memorial Auditorium, one of my favorite places to see a game, and the Badlands Conference clash featured the homestanding UMKC Kangaroos hosting the Oakland Super Golden Crisp Gr...
S5 December 9, 2008 LEXINGTON, Va. -- I think we can chalk up the weekend voting on the Ultimate Project contest an unqualified, unmitigated disaster. There were more complaints about the voting mechanism (clicking through either brought up a "please log in" screen or a full-screen ad to start your own poll) than actua...
S5 December 1, 2008 South Carolina-Upstate at Kennesaw State (Atlantic Sun) KSU Convocation Center - Kennesaw, GA 7:30 PM EST Unless it's the absolute beginning of the season, we don't generally spotlight games involving winless teams (such as the visiting 0-4 Spartans) in the G!O!T!N!, but in a way this really is th...
S5 November 20, 2008 NEW YORK CITY -- I didn't get a chance yesterday, but I wanted to thank all the folks who stopped by during the ESPN SportsNation chat component of the College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon. I ran the anchor leg and I held it down mid-major style for two hours, and I noticed a couple of things. First, havi...
S5 November 19, 2008 PHILADELPHIA -- This blog has been involved in several pet causes... heck, this entire thing is a pet cause. But TMM is getting involved in a new charitable campaign that strikes to the heart of what's important in Our Game. This is all about getting Drexel students to adopt proper rollout procedure...
S5 November 14, 2008 PEORIA, Ill. -- Remember back when you were a kid, it was a hot summer day out in your backyard... you had your 1980's NBA-style short-shorts on with no shirt, just hanging out in the grass your daddy just mowed fresh that morning. Not a care in the world. Then you got really thirsty, and you were t...
S4 March 21, 2008 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. The true underdo...
S4 March 20, 2008 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 a...
S4 March 17, 2008 Bullet Points In the final final in mid-majordom, Texas-Arlington emerged as surprise Southland champs. All hail! We had 78 entries into our "guess-the-play-in-matchup" contest on Saturday, and not a single correct answer. The correct pairing, as we all know now, is Coppin State (MEAC) against Moun...
S4 March 14, 2008 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- It's fitting that we're here in Jersey -- just as there were 86 episodes of The Sopranos, there were exactly that many daily weekday posts this year. This right here is the final edition of the season -- this 86th Boubacar, too, was "Made in America." Not that this is the end...
S4 March 13, 2008 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- I don't know if I'm ripping the cover off some secret clandestine something, or exposing some horrible underbelly of The Business here. But one of the best things about Championship Fortnight is the media gifts. Yes, many conferences bestow presents upon us ink- and pixel-sta...
S4 March 12, 2008 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- As we promised earlier this week, we're going to take one last look at some seasons that may not have resulted in a Dance card or a lot of national headlines, but were breakthroughs or returns to form. Here, then, are eight teams that few saw coming... in alphabetical order. ...
S4 March 11, 2008 ALBANY, N.Y. -- The thing that people don't get from television is how hot it is inside a court-storming. I mean, it's sweltering and blistering (and a little humid) in there with all the body heat and kinetic energy. Oh, and loud too. Inside a court-storming, you'll find a sound that can never be...
S4 March 9, 2008 Bullet Points Three autobids were given out yesterday. All hail mighty Winthrop of the Big South, Austin Peay of the Ohio Valley Conference, and the Atlantic Sun's Belmont. All are off to the Big Dance! One final today -- the championship of the Missouri Valley Conference. Drake and Illinois State...
S4 March 8, 2008 Bullet Points Today, three autobids to the NCAA Tournament will be awarded! The Big South, Ohio Valley and Atlantic Sun will crown champions. The No. 6 was a lucky number yesterday -- surprising Tennessee State moved to the finals of the OVC, Northern Iowa upset No. 3 Southern Illinois in the MVC, ...
S4 March 7, 2008 NASHVILLE -- There is nothing in the world more fun that this fortnight, this extended Championship Week. Days full of games, wave after wave of cheerleaders, pep bands, student sections and players' moms. Every two hours new ones come along come, a blurry time-smear of orange, red, green, blue, gol...
S4 March 7, 2008 Bullet Points There was an upset in the Atlantic Sun quarters, as No. 6 Gardner-Webb routed No. 3 Stetson. The Big South final is set: UNC Asheville and Winthrop, the league's top two seeds. The game will be played Saturday. In the MVC first round, No. 8 Indiana State and No. 7 Missouri State adva...
S4 March 6, 2008 NASHVILLE -- There's a little Fighting Camel in all of us -- that piece of our soul that's tragically misunderstood, a little out of place. It's the part of you that's told you'll never make it, never achieve your dreams. Silly camel, you aren't supposed to fight for or win anything... you're suppos...
S4 March 6, 2008 Bullet Points All four Patriot League quarters were decided by three points or less, and the round featured two upsets as No. 7 Bucknell and No. 5 Army advanced. Bucknell beat No. 2 Navy 87-86 on a John Griffin 40-foot buzzer-beater in triple overtime. In the Sun Belt, the campus-site first roun...
S4 March 5, 2008 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 F...
S4 March 5, 2008 NASHVILLE -- Our day-long drive down from our Rhode Island home down to Music City was like the 2007-08 season in intricately-styled microcosm. There were a lot of miles driven (about a thousand), hours upon hours of XM radio (we like the new "Thriller" channel) and spotty cell reception just about ...
S4 March 5, 2008 Bullet Points The first two upsets of Championship Fortnight occurred yesterday. The OVC's No. 6 Tennessee State won at No. 3 Morehead State, while Horizon No. 8 Loyola (Ill.) shocked No. 5 Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Big South's four top seeds won to set up Thursday's semifinals. OVC No. 4 Tenness...
S4 February 29, 2008 LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. -- Last night was a great evening for regular-season champions, all of which have now clinched at least a spot in the National Invitation Tournament. In addition to five crownings last night, Belmont took a share of the Atlantic Sun title with an 11-point win over Campbell. We ha...
S4 February 27, 2008 RICHMOND, Va. -- We don't do a lot of Mid-Major Mailbag action around here anymore (we get plenty interactive enough with the chats, you know). But there's something about the combination of assisted research and the last slow Wednesday of the season that makes us want to break out the blockquote ta...
S4 February 26, 2008 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 F...
S4 February 26, 2008 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- We're all just getting over the thrills of BracketBuster weekend, but there's plenty to get to as the regular season winds down to its electrifying conclusion. Just 19 days until Selection Sunday... Saint Mary's. In last night's G!O!T!N!, the Gaels proved that yes, they can ...
S4 February 24, 2008 Most basketball fans know the 7-2, 240-lb. "A-Train" as one of the greatest centers ever to play the game, a 12-time All-Star who played five seasons in the American Basketball Association before pounding the paint for 11 seasons for the Bulls and Spurs. Artis Gilmore scored a total of 15,579 points...
S4 February 20, 2008 BOCA RATON, Fla. -- We've been mentioning the Atlantic Sun prominently this season, what with all the early upsets and Belmont's run at a third straight title and all, but we haven't talked much about its most improved team. Stetson has never achieved the NCAA Tournament since Glenn Wilkes (552 wins...
S4 February 19, 2008 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 F...
S4 February 19, 2008 The two-time Atlantic Sun champion Belmont Bruins were a bit undersold last summer, as they lost two 6-10 seniors who earned the lion's share of the team's rebounds last season. The Bruins have suffered a bit on the boards, but they're getting a lot of them from a player that last year would have s...
S4 February 18, 2008 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Plenty of folks have the day off for the holiday today, but we have a patriotic duty to provide you with a Supersized Boubacar that takes into account all the action from the weekend that was. We'll get to that in a second, but I wanted to share with you my most recent fantastic...
S4 February 15, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Admittedly a little nervous this morning, we were thinking of just shutting the site down and ending with this, because there's never going to be a better post here than that one. So how do we follow up the most sublime moment in Mid-Majority history? Photoshop-manipulated pictur...
S4 February 11, 2008 HAMDEN, Conn. -- We have been, and we stand, accused. Accused! Of having too much fun around here, of shifting the focus off basketball and running too many contests, pictures of pretty girls, cartoons and snapshots of pet basketballs. So we're going to put on our super-serious faces, talk in our su...
S4 February 8, 2008 CHICAGO -- We're holding off on announcing the winner of our Hunan: Return of the Phoenix movie contest, because there are two sterling entries that we're having trouble choosing between. Right now, we're in the process of sending them to friends and asking them to tell us which one makes them laugh...
S4 February 6, 2008 As is tradition here at TMM, we've put together a full rundown of all 50 announced BracketBusters matchups. Mostly because we know that it's incredibly difficult to find a complete list of all the non-TV games, which are quietly announced by the schools after ESPN unleashes the televised matchups. T...
S4 February 4, 2008 MEADVILLE, Pa. -- It's a lot of effort trying to live a life free of American-style football, the lengths you have to go to in order to pretend it doesn't exist. It's come to this, it really has, and I can't believe it myself. But I made it through the night, Hoops Nation. I'm shacked out in a litt...
S4 January 29, 2008 HOUSTON -- It's only of those slow post-Monday Tuesdays here in Hoops Nation, a perfect opportunity to get some site housekeeping done. We have one contest in search of a winner, for those of you with long memories... the Badlands Conference logo contest from earlier this month. We'll anoint the cha...
S4 January 28, 2008 HOUSTON -- I was thinking over the weekend, while I wasn't at any games, about all the games I go to. A total of 57 games so far this year, headed for yet another 100-game season. Having done 100 twice now, it's tough to find triple-digit motivation anymore. Need to turn it into some kind of contest...
S4 January 25, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I tried to make it simple, I tried to offer the sound-bite answer. I tried to simplify things on the far side of complexity, because 'tis a gift to be simple. But I attempted to shave with Occam's razor, but ended up having to wear a small piece of toilet paper, attached with spit...
S4 January 21, 2008 It's never going to end. We might try to fight it, we may try to ignore it, but every year it's going to come back. I'm talking, of course, about the endless debate of what a "mid-major" is and what one isn't. Within the past few weeks, we've had weigh-ins here, here, here and on countless blogs. W...
S4 January 21, 2008 MORAGA, Ca. -- One of the most-asked question types I get is in regards to these datelines. Where am I? Where have I been? How many games am I up to? I know it's all pleasant small-talk, and folks are just trying to make conversation, but I've been meaning to put together a one-webpage answer to ans...
S4 January 18, 2008 Until the night of Nov. 7, 2007, most college basketball fans didn't know Gardner-Webb from a weed whacker. But with a 84-68 thumping of Kentucky at Rupp Arena, the little school in Boiling Springs, N.C. was thrust into the national spotlight. It was the first major story of the 2007-08 season, the ...
S4 January 11, 2008 GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Super-size fast-food. Big Dog t-shirts. Enzyte. This is America, and everything is big. Real big. We all want to be big-time, and some of us do it by leading pieces with the kind of stuttering, oddly conversational, and totally incomplete sentences that have vaulted hack sports...
S4 December 21, 2007 NEW YORK -- A quick few words about mid-major upsets, followed by a lot of words about mid-major upsets. I go on the electronic sports talk radio some. The hosts usually don't know who I am, don't read this site or realize that "oh, you wrote that ESPN.com story?" I don't mind any of that. What I ...
S4 December 19, 2007 AKRON, Oh. -- There are so few of us... we who overanalyze everything about college basketball, pore over pages of stats, treat our game like a gigantic 341-piece puzzle that takes five months to solve itself. Our vision is distorted because we spend so much time talking to each other; we forget tha...
S4 December 15, 2007 Thanks to the 168(!) people who played along with our second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. That's so many people, they'd have to hold this class in one of those auditoriums where the professor doesn't know you from Samuel Haanpaa, where you have to spend five minutes of your six-minutes durin...
S4 November 21, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- This season's been real warpy in terms of time... early start on the 5th, and now we're staring down Thanksgiving. The Official Wife™ and I are on the way out to go grocery-shopping for what used to be Unturkey day around here (Why, damn you, WHY!?!?!?) but I said, "Not yet,...
S4 November 20, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It's a snowy Tuesday here at the office home, but that won't depress us, not in the least. Here, for the first time ever, a 100% positive Boubacar... Belmont. "They" said it wasn't a "real" upset. Oh, it's just Cincinnati. Never mind that UC has five times more money to spend on...
S4 November 15, 2007   Gardner-Webb (Atlantic Sun) vs. Connecticut (Big East) Madison Square Garden - New York, NY (Neutral) - Coaches vs. Cancer Tourney Semifinals 7:00 PM EST This will be the first of two shots at the Huskies that Rick Scruggs and his Kentucky-conquering heroes will get, the other coming up at...
S3 March 28, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I., Mar. 28 -- All animate organisms, from the globbiest amoeba to the most intricate human machine, share one thing in common: life. Life is what keeps you going, it's the light before the beginning of the tunnel. The meaning of life is simply this: it means so much that nobody can sur...
S3 March 4, 2007 Bullet Points We have four champions on the busiest day of Championship Fortnight: all hail Winthrop of the Big South and Davidson of the SoCon, double champions both. Second seeds who rose up to claim tourney championships and dance tickets: Eastern Kentucky of the Ohio Valley and Belmont of the At...
S3 March 3, 2007 Bullet Points In the first real shocker of Championship Fortnight, Appalachian State was upset by College of Charleston in the SoCon semifinals. Four leagues crown champions today on the ESPN family of networks. The Big South, Ohio Valley, SoCon and Atlantic Sun seasons will conclude with autobids b...
S3 March 2, 2007 Bullet Points No. 6 seed Virginia Military Institute has advanced to the Big South final after defeating the tourney's Nos. 2 and 3 seeds. Furman, the No. 5 seed in the SoCon, advanced to the semifinals by defeating No. 4#North Carolina-Greensboro. The Atlantic Sun quarterfinals played according to ...
S3 March 1, 2007 Bullet Points Three top seeds survived in the Patriot League quarterfinals; the only upset was No. 6 Army upending No. 3 Lehigh. Five campus-site Sun Belt games are complete heading towards the tourney at Lafayette, La.. In a minor upset, No. 9 seed Middle Tennessee State beat No. 8 Troy. The three-...
S3 February 26, 2007 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 thei...
S3 February 23, 2007 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...
S3 February 22, 2007 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 ga...
S3 February 12, 2007 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: Ther...
S3 February 9, 2007 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 (...
S3 February 6, 2007 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 t...
S3 February 5, 2007 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...
S3 February 2, 2007 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 period...
S3 January 30, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Before we begin our supersized DP, I just want to share with you something I wrote yesterday. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition, 2004, published by Houghton Mifflin) defines the word "champion" as "One that wins first place or first prize in...
S3 January 26, 2007 CHARLOTTE -- A couple of quick housekeeping things up front: my ESPN.com chat today is at a special this-week-only time of 2 pm ET; I'm switching timeslots with Joe Lunardi. Come on by! As of Friday morning, we've had 82 entries in Bally's BracketBusters Racket, the fun game where you can win valua...
S3 January 25, 2007 BOONE, N.C. -- As of press time, 63 of the available 100 entries in Bally's BracketBusters Racket, the only contest in the world that lets you choose all 51 BB matchups, have been snapped up (the limit is in place 'cause I'll be hand-validating the entries, but call it a "soft cap"). Remember: the d...
S3 January 23, 2007 COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Over the past 20 days or so, the vast majority of my incoming hoops-related mail (and Friday chat questions) have had to do with the mid-major conference selections that I submitted to the Worldwide Leader the other week. It's great that they get people talking about mid-majors ...
S3 January 22, 2007 CULLOWHEE, N.C. -- Lots to get to today, just like every Monday. And if you haven't signed up to play Bally's BracketBusters Racket yet, you have a lot more to get to than I do. Roll the HTML! The Big Games! at Virginia Commonwealth 80, Old Dominion 75 (Colonial) (box) -- The VCU Rams are the only...
S3 January 19, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- No mailbag this week, because quite frankly most of the letters this week were way too personal. Look, I'm a basketball writer, when did my mortgage, my stock portfolio and my "size" suddenly become fair game? Oops, wrong mail folder. Anyway... Every year around this time, we sta...
S3 January 16, 2007 NEW ORLEANS -- We discussed this a little yesterday, but there's a growing drumbeat sounding across Hoops Nation; thunder in the distance, if you will. I'm talking, of course, about the potential fall from grace by the sore thumb in our midst, the eternal oddball, the one voted Most Likely To Succee...
S3 January 15, 2007 LORMAN, Miss. -- BracketBusters season starts in just under two weeks, and that's why we here at the Mid-Majority have put together this little map, so you can start scouting out the home teams (orange) and away teams (grey) and dream about matchups leading into the pairing announcement on Jan. 28. ...
S3 January 11, 2007 NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Let's begin today with dispatches from television's hottest mid-season replacement, "How Weird Was My Valley." Kyle, are the Sycamores really this good? This was a team that I thought would be with Illinois State at the bottom of The Valley, but they have a great RPI, and some ...
S3 January 9, 2007 NASHVILLE -- I guess it's basic human nature that we try to build fences and walls, to divide the included from the excluded, to protect what's inside from what's outside. There's nothing worse than the idea that the world doesn't make sense -- that's the fundamental building block of organized reli...
S3 January 8, 2007 JACKSON, Miss. -- Mondays from here on out will be busy times as we continue to track all the hot hot conference action, so let's all take a deep breath and let's get to it. Conference Shootaround! Missouri Valley: Yesterday in lovely Springfield, Missouri State broke both an eight-game losing str...
S3 January 5, 2007 I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS IS, Ala. -- Travelling the highways and byways (mostly byways) of SWAC country is always a strange adventure. One of the most odd things about Alabama is that everywhere you look, there are references to the three American Idol stars the state has produced. This morn...
S3 January 4, 2007 HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Just a reminder: make sure you get in on the action as The Mid-Majority expands its feature list in 2007 in return for warm, soft cash. We're halfway to unlocking mobile boxscores, a quarter of the way towards the team mileage maps, and we've also a chunk into the Tournament Geni...
S3 December 19, 2006 There's a debate raging in Hoops Nation, one that has very little relevance whatsoever to anything relevant. It's supposed to be about respect, honor and parity. It should be about ball control, free throws and the flex offense. And sure, it's about basketball -- a little bit -- but it's also about ...
S3 December 8, 2006 WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. -- Let's go straight to the mailbag, no delay, no bullpoop. Kyle, all these heroic recaps of "mid-over-major" results are great and everything, but what about the December games that really matter, the early conference stuff? Stan K. You're right, Stan. It's easy to get caug...
S2 April 9, 2006 INDIANAPOLIS, Apr. 2 -- There are huge signs all over town -- on airport walls, strung over streetlights, over the main gate to the RCA Dome. They all read, "The Road Ends Here." There's also a giant logo on the side of the 45,000-seat venue, a green and gold star with zag-zigging trailers that has...
S2 February 16, 2006 The Atlantic Sun race looks just like the Missouri Valley's: five teams with guady league records battling it out for conference supremacy. Well, at least until you look at the RPI numbers. Tonight is Thrill-A-Minute Thursday, as the A-Fun hosts two meaningful separation games among its elite. East ...
S2 February 3, 2006 The two Division I newbies in the Atlantic Sun have taken drastically different paths. North Florida has performed exactly how a team new to this level should. They're second-to-dead-last in the RPI (No. 333), due primarily to their ugly 2-11 conference record, 5-15 overall. That's not to say there ...
S2 January 20, 2006 Here's an alternative way to look at tonight's Battle of Music City, an enticing matchup of 6-2 Atlantic Sun squads. Belmont is the new school, Nashville 2.0, slickly-produced CMT twang. The Bruins get a lot of hits (league-leading 50.2% FG, 9th nationally), but they're disposable and quickly forgot...
S2 January 14, 2006 What can you say about Gardner-Webb? So intriguing on paper, so enticing. They beat Minnesota, and almost beat UNC! But they've looked unfocused and wobbly in losing three straight league games at home, and are providing plenty of ammunition to the argument that pundits are dumb.But then again, what...
S2 January 7, 2006 Friday evening was a night of firsts for Division I newbie Kennesaw State: they notched their first-ever road win as a member of the NCAA's top flight, and their first-ever televised win as a D1. And that it came against -- and at -- Atlantic Sun favorite Gardner-Webb was pretty neat too. After a se...
S2 December 19, 2005 There will indeed be a golf-check presented to the visitors for making the trip up from Buies Creek, but this may turn out to be a better matchup than the disparate RPI's would indicate. Neither undefeated Indiana State (No .4) and resurgent Campbell (No. 329, 3-4 coming off a 0-20 Atlantic Sun seas...
S2 December 11, 2005 Here's another chance to see relative league strength on the floor, instead of on paper - UNCG is division-winnable in the Southern Conference's North division despite having only one senior, while the Runnin' Bulldogs from Boiling Springs are scientifically engineered to win the Atlantic Sun. Even ...
S2 December 4, 2005 Down south at new D1 entry Kennesaw State, there's a Coach Tony Ingle, an assistant Tony Ingle Jr., and guards Israel Ingle and Golden Ingle. That's a lot of Ingles. But it's not a hoop sitcom like "Just the Ten of Us" or that Dick Vitale project that's in perpetual turnaround - it's damm good baske...
S2 December 2, 2005 The Atlantic Sun season, just two days old, has provided plenty of chills and spills. Last night, Kennesaw State came from behind to claim its first-ever Division I conference win; Belmont outlasted East Tennessee in last night's G!O!T!N!; and Campbell, who was 0-20 last year in conference, beat the...
S2 December 1, 2005 Some would say that starting the conference schedule early is like skipping the December holidays and going straight to the January post-holiday depression. Ridiculous, I say! Meaningful basketball should know no season.The Atlantic Sun slate got underway last night (welcome, Matt Doherty, and North...
S1 March 29, 2005 Epilogue With the notable exception of our friends in the Ivy League, very few choose to be mid-major people. It usually starts with a stumble: a spate of bad grades during a streak of teenage rebellion, or a bad night of sleep before SAT Saturday (for whatever reason). All of a sudden, there's a ...
S1 March 16, 2005 Oakland Seed: 16 1st Round Opponent: North Carolina Record: 13-18 (9-9 Mid-Continent) Big Nonconference Wins: December 30 vs. Bowling Green (77-53); it was their only non-league win over a D1 opponent. Key Players: Pierre Dukes (see below) is the folk hero, but senior forwards Rawle Marshall and Co...
S1 March 16, 2005 Why trust those Johnny-come-latelies? We've been covering these guys all season. Here, then, is the first of four capsule sets of the mid-major teams who will appear on your television screens starting on Thursday, along with a few clips of their TMM appearances. Montana Seed: 16 1st Round Opponen...
S1 March 16, 2005 Fairleigh Dickinson Seed: 16 1st Round Opponent: Illinois Record: 20-12 (16-5 Northeast Conference) Big Nonconference Wins: December 9 at eventual MAAC two-seed Rider (76-74) 100 Games Project Appearances: #65 Key Players: Big Gordon Klaiber and little Tamien Trent are the inside-outside mechanism ...
S1 March 14, 2005 In the heat of the postseason, it's easy for people to quickly sweep their preseason conference picks under the rug. What? Huh? I picked Princeton? Look over there, a birdie! But not this one; I face my failures head-on. For your amusement, here are my picks from late December. Note that I had an e...
S1 March 13, 2005 Bullet Points Six more teams are in: Vermont (America East), Ohio (MAC), UTEP (WAC), Delaware State (MEAC), George Washington (A-10), and Utah State (Big West). Championship Week concludes today with a pair of games: the SWAC and Southland finals. It's Selection Sunday, the holiest day of the colle...
S1 March 12, 2005 Bullet Points Congratulations to Bucknell, orange-clad kings of the Patriot League. Eight-seed Boise State continued to rip through the WAC bracket, knocking off Fresno State one day after dispatching 1 Nevada. Today marks the grand crescendo of the mid-major season. With finals in the America East...
S1 March 11, 2005 Bullet Points Western Athletic regular season champions Nevada dropped a shock decision to Boise State, clearing the way for a two-bid WAC. There won't likely be many other two-bid mid-major leagues except for, say, the Missouri Valley... apparently the new RPI isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'...
S1 March 10, 2005 Bullet Points Two more Dance tickets were printed and punched last night: Fairleigh-Dickinson out of the NEC, and Montana from the Big Sky. Defending champion Florida A&M was ousted from the MEAC tournament. After a last-second bracket reshuffling due to three forfeited games, the SWAC gets it ...
S1 March 9, 2005 Bullet Points Oakland of the Mid-Continent Conference pulled the low-seed surprise of the year, taking down 1 seed Oral Roberts in the league's title game by a 61-60 score. Two other proud conference champions, and two overjoyed satellite campuses: Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Louisiana-Lafayette. The P...
S1 March 8, 2005 Bullet Points Four champions are crowned: Creighton (MVC), Niagara (MAAC), Old Dominion (CAA) and UMPFN (WCC). Three more tonight: the Sun Belt, Mid-Continent, and the Horizon league matchup of Detroit and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The run of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies of the Mid-Con continued, they'...
S1 March 7, 2005 Bullet Points No finals yesterday, four tonight. The Missouri Valley, as expected since the beginning of the season, was no cookie-cutter cakewalk for top seeds. Both 1 Southern Illinois and 2 Wichita State went down, but the Salukis remain bulletproof on Selection Sunday. Two defending conference ...
S1 March 6, 2005 Bullet Points Four Dance tickets were punched: Winthrop, Eastern Kentucky, Central Florida and Chattanooga. Despite the two-digit numbers that the Selection Committee will hand them one week from today, all are champions. One-seeds fell like mighty trees. Arkansas-Little Rock, the E1 in the Sun Bel...
S1 March 5, 2005 Bullet Points Two one-seeds went down: Tennessee Tech lost in the OVC semifinals, and Davidson was eliminated in the Southern Conference semis. Four automatic bids will be handed out today, as the ESPN networks begin a schedule of court-stormings every two hours or so. We have the Big South's matc...
S1 March 4, 2005 Bracket Wrap Southern: The favorites prevailed, but all their SoCon South division-mates have been wiped out. (recaps) (S1) Davidson 67, (N4) Elon 53 (N2) North Carolina-Greensboro 73, (S3) Georgia Southern 71 (N1) Chattanooga 77, (N5) East Tennessee State 70 (N3) Appalachian State 63, (S2) Charle...
S1 March 3, 2005 Mid-American: Miami (Oh.) 70, Kent State 45 (story) - Total domination. The RedHawks (18-8, 12-5 MAC) sent a message to the rest of the league, and to the Selection Committee as well, saying that they'd sure like to be invited to that Dance thingy if there's room on the list. But they didn't ask nic...
S1 February 28, 2005 Mid-American: Bowling Green 57, Miami (Oh.) 56 (story) - Despite the fact that the game's telecast was cancelled after an hour's delay because BGSU's Mawel Soler shattered a backboard during pregame warmups, Falcon senior forward Josh Almanson's jumper with six seconds remaining was a shot heard 'ro...
S1 February 27, 2005 Ivy: Pennsylvania 80, Columbia 72 (story) - Congratulations to the Quakers! The first ticket to the NCAA Tournament was punched last night as Penn (17-8, 10-1) clinched the Ivy League regular-season title. They stormed to a win on the Lions' home court, bolstered by 68% second-half shooting and a ...
S1 February 25, 2005 Atlantic Sun: Central Florida 58, Gardner-Webb 55 (story) - G-Webb (15-11, 12-7 ASun), who finished ninth and out of the conference tournament last year, could have clinched the regular-season title and the tourney one-seed right there on their home floor. The Runnin' Bulldogs From Boiling Springs c...
S1 February 24, 2005 Mid-American: Akron 55, Miami (Oh.) 49 (OT) (story) - Six-four RedHawk guard Chet Mason had the game of his life, with 23 points and 15 rebounds... but as the sportswriters like to say, it was not enough. Despite sending the game to overtime on a last-second three by William Hatcher, Miami (17-1, 11...
S1 February 22, 2005 Northeast: St. Francis (NY) 110, Fairleigh Dickinson 103 (story) - Nope - not an overtime game, and not something straight out of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The two teams created an old-school NBA score in just 40 minutes despite each shooting just a little over 50% - needless to say, the game's ...
S1 February 21, 2005 America East: Northeastern 63, Boston University 48 (story) - It's a dog-eat-dog world, and nowhere is that more true than in this conference. The Terriers of BU (19-6, 13-3 AE) stifled junior sharpshooter and former MMBOW Jose Juan Barea (2-for-17, 10 pts) on Senior Day, and held on to a lead for n...
S1 February 18, 2005 Atlantic Sun: Gardner-Webb 67, Belmont 58 (OT) (story) - G-Webb (15-9, 12-5 ASun) used a five-minute rally to storm back from a 12-point deficit late in the second. The homestanding Bruins controlled the flow for 35 minutes, and that included a 12-0 run midway through the second half to break the ga...
S1 February 17, 2005 Colonial: George Mason 74, Old Dominion 58 (story) - Shall I compare last night's performance by the Old Dominion Monarchs to a summer day? Hell, no. The CAA leaders shot just 33 percent from the floor, because their hosts did a lot of spear-shaking on the defensive end. By handing ODU their second ...
S1 February 17, 2005 HENDERSON, KENTUCKY - There are certain things that one learns about the rhythms of the road. When a gas station claims to have "spotless" restrooms, that means that the dirt and gunk areas are too big to be classified as spots anymore. Also, fast food restaurants do not offer baseboard outlets in t...
S1 February 8, 2005 Letters. Who doesn't love 'em? I read each one, answer a few directly, and on a good day am able to post a "Mid-Majority Mailbag" entry. Here, then, are the results from my second good day. Wanted to say that I appreciate your site. I graduated from Albany 20 years ago. Went to almost every game ...
S1 February 6, 2005 Western Athletic: Nevada 76, Louisiana Tech 58 (story) - In the most decisive result of Really, Really Exciting Saturday, Nick Fazekas scored 27 points and Nevada (15-5, 9-2 WAC) dominated the previously surging LTU Bulldogs, who were led by former MMBOW Paul Millsap with his 20 and 8. Insodoing, th...
S1 February 4, 2005 Western Athletic: Tulsa 65, Texas-El Paso 54 (story) - The Golden Hurricane (5-14, 2-8 WAC), playing for nothing but pride, had this one in hand early on, leading by as many as 17 in the first half. UTEP made their run, but the knife-twist was delivered with two minutes to go and Tulsa leading 56-53...
S1 February 1, 2005 Southern: Davidson 67, Chattanooga 53 (story) - Davidson built a fourteen-point lead going into halftime, and both teams treaded water for the second half. Despite outrebounding their hosts, the Mocs shot themselves in the foot by shooting just 30% from the floor. Davidson (14-7, 10-0 SoCon) tighten...
S1 January 30, 2005 Results from Shakedown Saturday are in! And here they are! Mid-Continent: Missouri-Kansas City 88, Oral Roberts 74 (story) - Okay, UMKC Kangaroos, here's your "for real" tag. Wear it proudly. With four minutes left, they were up by only four and had lost their entire two-man backcourt to foul disqu...
S1 January 24, 2005 Patriot: Army 63, Navy 43 (story) - I've been talking so much about the Academies lately, might as well share the biggest upset of the day. Having observed the wide gulf of talent between Army (3-14, 1-4 PL) and Navy (3-15, 0-5 PL) within the past week, I'm in slackjawed disbelief at a result that s...
S1 January 23, 2005 Missouri Valley: Wichita State 58, Southern Illinois 56 (story) - The Shockers had the boards (42-32) and the defense (held SIU to 32% shooting in the second half), but the Salukis had enough streaks and runs to keep it close. WSU's Illinois transfer forward (and possible "evil twin" of your humble ...
S1 January 19, 2005 Mid-American: Ball State 86, Bowling Green 62 (story) - BSU went into the break with 49 points and a 12-point lead, and magically doubled the margin despite shooting 30% in the second half. The Ball State Basketball Cardinals (8-5, 3-2 MAC) executed their first-half battle plan perfectly, driving an...
S1 January 18, 2005 Southern: Georgia Southern 102, Chattanooga 84 (story | play-by-play) - Throw out the record book! The SoCon team record for three-point goals made in a game was set last night in Statesboro, Georgia, where the Eagles (8-7, 4-2 SoCon) nailed 22 to bring down the North division-leading Mocs. Diminuti...
S1 January 14, 2005 There is no question that that this is a deeply divided nation, this America. The election last November showed a country split between Republicans and Democrats, retro and metro, blue states and red. And across those thin black battle lines flew the arrows of misunderstanding, hate and prejudice. J...
S1 January 11, 2005 Mid-Continent: Western IIlinois 85, Oral Roberts 83 (story) - I said last week that we wouldn't be bothering to mention WIU that much this year, but I was brutally incorrect. ORU (11-4, 2-1 Mid-Con) couldn't get through their first conference road trip perfect, and 1,291 Leatherneck fans saw it happ...
S1 January 6, 2005 Colonial: Old Dominion 60, Drexel 59 (story) - You can't tell much about this game from the boxscore - both teams shot around 40%, were even on rebounds, and neither club turned the ball over that much. But ask one of the 2,000 or so who showed up at Drexel's DAC, and they'll tell you how truly ugly...
S1 January 5, 2005 Hoops Nation rejoice! College football season is finally over! Mid-Continent: Oral Roberts 73, Southern Utah 67 (story) - It was a ho-hum night for the Golden Eagles' wonder twin powers: pocket-sized guard Ken Tutt dropped 22 points, and Caleb Green dub-dubbed with 14 points and 11 rebounds. ORU al...
S1 January 4, 2005 Mid-Continent: Missouri-Kansas City 77, IUPUI 61 (story) - If anyone's going to catch Oral Roberts in the Mid-Con this year it's IUPUI, who made a name for themselves (errr, make that an acronym for themselves) by going to the Tournament in 2003, then coming five points short last year. UMKC, whose ...
S1 December 31, 2004 Missouri Valley: IIlinois State 62, Southwest Missouri State 61 (story) - I apologize in advance if this site goes through January and February stretches where it seems like the All-Valley Blog, but this league is going to be red-hot. Illinois State (8-3, 1-1 MVC) is rising Phoenix-like from a disas...
S1 December 20, 2004 Boston College 82, Yale 80 (2OT) (story) - When Holy Cross pushed Boston College to overtime in a 63-60 thriller back on December 9, Chris over at Hoop Time suggested that maybe, just maybe, friendly officials had too much of a hand in the outcome. After all, HC outrebounded BC 41-39 and 34 of their...
S1 December 19, 2004 When I put together the Finals Week quiz, I thought that it would be some nice blog-filler for a light week of hoops. I had no idea that people would actually complete it and send it in, and that I'd find myself "grading" 32 tests despite my total lack of teaching experience. I talked to the Officia...
S1 December 18, 2004 Winthrop 70, East Carolina 55 (story) - With embarrassing losses to D2 teams and potential school-poaching by the Atlantic Sun, it hasn't been the Big South's day, their week, their month, or even their year. But Winthrop has been a big bright spot, running out to a 7-2 record that includes two wins...
S1 December 14, 2004 Welcome to Mid-Majority Finals Week) are suffering through final examinations, we're taking advantage of the dearth of ballgames this week to offer an exciting mid-major quiz. And fill blog space. So here's the deal. For the next four days, I'll be posting four ten-question quizzes about various as...
S1 December 7, 2004 The U.S. Postal Service recommends that folks get their holiday mailing done early, because an estimated 20 billion pieces of mail will be sent through the pipes during these next few weeks. That's a lot of mail. So just because there are 16 whole shopping days left until Christmas doesn't mean you ...
S1 December 3, 2004 Indiana State 62, Birmingham Southern 55 (story) - The prohibitive favorites in the Big South - and champions of the recent Marist Classic - went to Indiana and got beat by the worst team in the Valley. The Sycamores (or the "Trees" if you're cool) did the Panthers in with stingy perimeter defense, ...
S1 November 30, 2004 Georgia State 85, Louisiana-Lafayette 78 (story) - A good Atlantic Sun club beat a bigger and stronger Ragin' Cajun team - one picked by many to storm through the Sun Belt Conference this year - by making their free throws down the stretch. It was the front end of a rare non-conference home-and-home...
S1 November 24, 2004 It's time once again for the Great Alaska Shootout (not to be confused with the Top Of The World Classic). I'm sure it's difficult to be at least 4,000 miles far away from home on Thanksgiving, but I hope the players don't get too bored between games and do stupid things, like, say, getting lost in ...
S1 November 16, 2004 The Magnificent Spitlers: USA Today profiles four brothers who all gained spots on Division I basketball teams (Saint Peter's, Stony Brook,Canisius and Holy Cross) the walk-on way. Says Chris Spitler, "What's amazing to me is that all of us could be mediocre enough not to get a scholarship." Air Fo...
S1 November 11, 2004 To the baseball fan, a long winter of hot stove leagues and hibernation is rendered tolerable by that most optimistic of sporting phrases, those two words that warm the soul like sunshine on the coldest of January mornings: "Opening Day." The football fan can summon the bracing chill of September w...
Sunday Funnies: Media Day!|Sunday Funnies: In Training!|Sunday Funnies: ...Strikes Back!|Sunday Funnies: Conspiracy?|Sunday Funnies: Balltamont|