#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 DeadButler and Us
Donning the Black and Gold
Challenge 10: Tourney Memories
The Madness of the Horizon LeagueThe Rare Ivy League Conference Tournament
MAC Madness
Anything Can Happen in the MAAC
Challenge 9: Shock The Neighborhood
A Youthful SurpriseFrom Worst to First
Peers and Seers
Sorted by date
| S9 March 29, 2013 The NCAA Tournament can make you famous. It made Bryce Drew into a folk hero. It probably made Stephen Curry millions of dollars in NBA Draft money. For the first time all season, March Madness combines Our Game with The Game, catapulting mid-major stars onto the national scene in front of viewers ... [more] |
| S9 March 17, 2013 "Or watch the things you gave your life to broken;And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools." - If, Rudyard KiplingBROOKLYN, N.Y. - Because you get oblivious to such things in March, I was totally unaware New York City was having its St. Patrick's Day parade on Saturday instead of Sunday this ... [more] |
| S9 March 17, 2013 Butler got its third shot at Saint Louis this season in the A-10 semifinal. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Billikens were determined to be their "local rival," so that they were the one team that Butler played twice in conference play. Gee, thanks a lot! Saint Louis blasted Butler at their ... [more] |
| S9 March 16, 2013 "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves."- Philippians 2:3BROOKLYN, N.Y. - No matter your beliefs, there's a reason why jealousy is mentioned so many times in The Bible, and why envy made the cut to be included in the seven cardinal or dead... [more] |
| S9 March 16, 2013 Heading into Butler's quarterfinal matchup against LaSalle, I had a relatively high (for me) comfort level about this game. I didn't attribute this to any particular overconfidence on my part, especially since LaSalle had won the prior meeting between the teams, but there's a certain stigma when y... [more] |
| S9 March 15, 2013 Can you imagine the excitement that can be generated from a Thursday mid-afternoon game at a neutral site? After sitting through one, I'd give it a less than hearty endorsement. Nevertheless, the schedule dictated that Butler and Dayton would square off here in Brooklyn among a largely empty hou... [more] |
| S9 March 12, 2013 growth (n.) - development from a lower or simpler form to a higher or more complex form; evolutionIf we are to accept the above as a reasonable definition of the word, then how should we feel about growth? Should we celebrate growth in others or should we resent it? When given an opportunity for... [more] |
| S9 March 8, 2013 AMHERST, Mass. - They came in out of the snow by the hundreds and thousands. The students filled their allotted seats and spilled over into other sections of the Mullins Center nearly an hour before tip-off. The building, which is rarely full these days for much of anything these days, almost got t... [more] |
| S9 March 3, 2013 As the end of February approached, we finally reached the first conference home game on the schedule that all Butler fans had circled - the rematch against Saint Louis. The Bulldogs were embarrassed by the Billikens in late January, and this game would allow them the opportunity to avenge that loss... [more] |
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10. Rematch at Hinkle by James Squire
S9 February 25, 2013 After the beat-down I witnessed at Chaifetz Arena 3 weeks ago, I was hoping to see a much better game tonight in the rematch. I regret that I failed to give myself plenty of time to get there. I had meant to give myself an extra hour, in case there were traffic problems, but once I hit the road, I ... [more]
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| S9 February 23, 2013 INDIANAPOLIS - The biggest dilemma in writing, no matter what the genre, often doesn't come down to what to include, but what to omit.Wonderful scribes sometimes get bogged down in detail, leaving their audience moving one way than another, never quite wrapping the seemingly wonderful details into ... [more] |
| S9 February 21, 2013 It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fightRisin' up to the challenge of our rivalAnd the last known survivor stalks his prey in the nightAnd he's watchin' us all with the eye of the tigerAt the second media timeout of Butler's home game against Duquesne, with the Bulldogs leading 13-9,... [more] |
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13. Those Darn Kids by Daniel Spewak
S9 February 19, 2013 Kids these days. The worst, right? No respect for authority. No maturity. Always need something handed to them, don't know the meaning of hard work, never had to fight for anything in their lives. They play too many video games. They don't read enough books. They are too overweight. They don't vote... [more]
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14. Days Like This by Craig Hanford
S9 February 16, 2013 When you don't need to worry, there'll be days like thisWhen no one's in a hurry, there'll be days like thisWhen all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fitThen I must remember there'll be days like this Van Morrison - Days Like ThisButler returned home after a shaky weekend trip to Ge... [more]
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| S9 February 10, 2013 After a string of three straight Saturday sellouts at Hinkle Fieldhouse (Gonzaga, Temple, Rhode Island), the Bulldogs hosted St. Bonaventure this past Wednesday night, and attendance at the old barn was at about two-thirds capacity as a result. The resultant relatively low energy level in the bui... [more] |
| S9 February 5, 2013 So said, St. Louis' own Bob Ramsey, who ritually announces a Billiken 3 with "BANG!" As I pulled out of the parking garage next to Chaifetz Arena, Ramsey wanted to make sure SLU fans knew that this was no cupcake win. Either that, or he was just so blown away by what he had seen that his Hype-O-Me... [more] |
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17. The Hurley Bowl by Craig Hanford
S9 February 4, 2013 I was fortunate enough to have tickets to this week's big game, featuring the two brothers who are following the coaching legacy started by their father, one a veritable coaching lifer, the other a former star player who came into coaching after a high-profile playing career. Yes, I was able to w... [more]
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18. Rotnei's Return by Craig Hanford
S9 February 3, 2013 January's schedule provided Butler with an unusual opportunity to become almost a temporarily adopted member of the famed Philadelphia Big 5. After a win over Penn at Hinkle on the 2nd, a road win over Saint Joseph's on the 9th, and a road loss at LaSalle on the 23rd that broke the Bulldogs' 13-g... [more]
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| S9 January 30, 2013 I've seen many games inside UD Arena. It was often the host of the sectional that my high school played in. I've also witnessed several Dayton and NCAA tournament games inside the venue as well. The one thing I hadn't seen is my college alma mater, Butler, play there.For a few years in the late 80s... [more] |
| S9 January 22, 2013 There was a great deal of excitement this past summer around the Butler community when rumors started to fly that ESPN's College GameDay was considering a visit to Hinkle Fieldhouse for the upcoming basketball season. When it was confirmed that they'd be doing so for the Gonzaga game on January 19,... [more] |
| S9 January 11, 2013 When word got out last season that Butler would be playing a home-and-home series with Vanderbilt starting in 2012, I knew that it would be a must go road trip if I could make it. Having seen Vanderbilt's Memorial Gymnasium on television, I knew it was one of the most unique venues in college baske... [more] |
| S9 January 7, 2013 "If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed."Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar In the second of its two post-New Year, pre-Atlantic 10 contests, Butler hosted the Privateers of New Orleans. New Orleans was fresh off a 51-point loss at Mississippi State less than 48 hours before this ... [more] |
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23. The Antitype by Craig Hanford
S9 January 6, 2013 Growing up in Indiana, it was an annual ritual to try to identify, whether by reading magazines or newspapers or by listening to some wise old sage, The Next Great One. The Next Great One referred to the state's next great high school basketball star. While the talents of relative giants and freak... [more]
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| S9 January 6, 2013 It's a little strange to plan a basketball trip for a game that you don't even know will happen, but such is the lot of the pilgrim, I guess.When it was announced last March that Butler and Penn would play a #ghostbracket game in the Palestra (which gave rise to one of my favorite 800GP essays), I ... [more] |
| S9 December 26, 2012 Saturday was "Hoosier Hysteria Day at Hinkle", honoring the legacy of Indiana High School Basketball, particularly those events held at the old fieldhouse. When Butler Fieldhouse was built in 1928, it was partially funded by the Indiana High School Athletic Association to serve as the home site for... [more] |
| S9 December 5, 2012 Game #9-123: Ball State Cardinals at Butler BulldogsDecember 1, 2012 2:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/Recap What constitutes a rivalry? Usually two teams need to be in the same general geographic area to fuel a rivalry, and they need to play each other on a regular basis in order to keep it re... [more] |
| S9 November 30, 2012 Game #9-110: Hanover at Butler BulldogsNovember 27, 2012 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/Recap After returning from a fairly successful trip to the Maui Invitational, Butler hosted Division III foe Hanover College Tuesday night. This matchup was scheduled late in the summer after Butler's rat... [more] |
| S9 November 20, 2012 Game #9-056: Butler Bulldogs at Xavier MusketeersNovember 13, 2012 4:00 pmCintas CenterBBState Stats/Recap Since around this time last year, Butler fans and Xavier fans knew that their teams would meet on November 13, 2012 at 4 p.m. in Cintas Center. Both schools had agreed to play a home-and-home s... [more] |
| S9 November 14, 2012 Game #9-030: Elon Phoenix at Butler BulldogsNovember 10, 2012 2:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapFor me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. ... [more] |
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30. It Ends As It Began by Craig Hanford
S8 March 25, 2012 Game #8-786: Pittsburgh Panthers at Butler BulldogsMarch 21, 2012 9:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapThe CBI semi-final provided a rare opportunity for Butler to host to Big East opponent, with the Pittsburgh Panthers visiting Hinkle Fieldhouse. My review of the records indica... [more]
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| S8 March 23, 2012 Game #8-784: Butler Bulldogs at Pennsylvania QuakersMarch 19, 2012 9:00 pmThe PalestraBBState Stats/RecapDear Editor:Diet books are always hot. There are ones by doctors and chefs, amateurs and professionals, savants and charlatans. But there is no diet book yet that allows you to lose weight by wat... [more] |
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32. The Parting Glass by Ty Clark
S8 March 22, 2012 Game #8-784: Butler Bulldogs at Pennsylvania QuakersMarch 19, 2012 9:00 pmThe PalestraBBState Stats/RecapEverything comes and goesMarked by lovers and styles of clothesThings that you once held highAnd told yourself were trueLost or changing as the days come down to you. -Joni MitchellI've thought a... [more]
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33. Dogs in Heat by Craig Hanford
S8 March 16, 2012 Game #8-762: Delaware Blue Hens at Butler BulldogsMarch 14, 2012 9:00 pmYBBState Stats/Recap When it comes to matters of science, I guess that I am a rather simple man. Whenever I had to fulfill a science requirement in school, I always sought (in vain) the easiest potential course. Biology, Chemis... [more]
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34. Make It Count by James Squire
S8 March 5, 2012 Game #8-697: Butler Bulldogs vs. Valparaiso CrusadersMarch 3, 2012 8:30 pmValparaiso, INBBState Stats/RecapThis, of course, is the one game this weekend where court neutrality has been thrown out the window. The #1 seed is tasked with defending their home court on national TV. This is another one of... [more]
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| S8 March 4, 2012 Game #8-697: Butler Bulldogs vs. Valparaiso CrusadersMarch 3, 2012 8:30 pmValparaiso, INBBState Stats/RecapThe second semi-final of the Horizon League tournament featured the regular season champion Valparaiso Crusaders hosting the Butler Bulldogs. Butler advanced to this round with impressive wins ... [more] |
| S8 March 4, 2012 Game #8-677: Butler Bulldogs vs. Milwaukee PanthersMarch 2, 2012 8:30 pmValparaiso, INBBState Stats/RecapFor tonight’s second game, the Milwaukee Panthers take on the Butler Bulldogs. The Panthers are the higher seed (4 vs. 5), but you would never know it looking at the fan sections. Not only are th... [more] |
| S8 March 3, 2012 Game #8-677: Butler Bulldogs vs. Milwaukee PanthersMarch 2, 2012 8:30 pmValparaiso, INBBState Stats/Recap As has been widely discussed, Butler has had some recent success in the month of March. However, as CBS-proclaimed college basketball "expert" Charles Barkley might say, “Gordon Hayward (or does... [more] |
| S8 March 1, 2012 Game #8-650: Wright State Raiders at Butler BulldogsFebruary 28, 2012 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapI entered Hinkle Fieldhouse to find a nearly funeral atmosphere Tuesday night for the first round of the Horizon League tournament, or as it now seems to be known, the Horizon League Tour... [more] |
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39. Bring it On by James Squire
S8 February 29, 2012 Game #8-643: Butler Bulldogs at Valparaiso CrusadersFebruary 24, 2012 7:00 pmAthletics-Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapIt still feels strange. Butler comes to the Athletics Recreation Center (ARC) to close out the season. That much is not strange, it happened in 2010. But what still feels strang... [more]
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40. Farewell Party by Craig Hanford
S8 February 24, 2012 Game #8-614: Illinois-Chicago Flames at Butler BulldogsFebruary 21, 2012 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapSenior night can be an evening with a very unusual vibe. For teams like Butler who choose to honor their seniors after the game, there’s a strange pressure throughout the night to avoi... [more]
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| S8 February 19, 2012 Game #8-589: Indiana State Sycamores at Butler BulldogsFebruary 18, 2012 2:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapBy April of 2005, my sixteen year-old daughter had nearly completed her first round of college visits. On a whim, I suggested that she visit Butler University before narrowing her lis... [more] |
| S8 February 11, 2012 Game #8-545: Detroit Titans at Butler BulldogsFebruary 4, 2012 12:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapThere was a big sporting event going on in Indianapolis last weekend, and it wasn’t at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Indeed, the city’s attention was transfixed on downtown and Sports Bubble Stadium for t... [more] |
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43. I`m Glad You Asked by Donovan Potts
S8 January 17, 2012 Game #8-408: Youngstown State Penguins at Butler BulldogsJanuary 15, 2012 2:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapIt’s walking through a neighborhood of quaint houses on a brisk January afternoon, turning the corner and coming face to face with history made of brick and glass. It’s hearing the ... [more]
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| S8 January 9, 2012 Game #8-369: Butler Bulldogs at Detroit TitansJanuary 8, 2012 4:00 pmCalihan HallBBState Stats/RecapNormally when we do these write ups, themes and bi-lines in the game have a tendency to appear on their own. These themes are what make for good writing and what make out game recaps so fun to write. ... [more] |
| S8 January 8, 2012 Game #8-362: Butler Bulldogs at Wright State RaidersJanuary 6, 2012 7:00 pmErvin J. Nutter CenterBBState Stats/RecapIf you ever attend a game between Wright State and Butler, you may want to bring a mouthpiece. Just in case. Last year’s game at the Nutter Center seemed more like a mixed martial-art... [more] |
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46. I Am the 83 Percent by Kevin Danna
S8 December 26, 2011 Game #8-297: Butler Bulldogs at Stanford CardinalDecember 22, 2011 9:00 pmMaples PavilionBBState Stats/Recap Sometimes I hate journalism. Thursday night was one of those times.Not that what I do for my job with Stanford’s Scout website is hard-hitting investigative reporting, but I’m trying to make ... [more]
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| S8 December 8, 2011 Game #8-204: Xavier Musketeers at Butler BulldogsDecember 7, 2011 9:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/RecapTGHT – “The Game Honors Toughness”. This has been one of the core tenets of Brad Stevens’ program at Butler University, and was referenced frequently as the Bulldogs progressed through the NC... [more] |
| S8 November 28, 2011 Game #8-143: Butler Bulldogs at Indiana HoosiersNovember 27, 2011 7:00 pmAssembly HallBBState Stats/RecapBLOOMINGTON, Ind. — In a state that is synonymous with basketball, the Indiana Hoosiers have, for decades, been the benchmark for success. But in the last two seasons, the Butler Bulldogs have tw... [more] |
| S8 November 16, 2011 Game #8-039: Chattanooga Mocs at Butler BulldogsNovember 15, 2011 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/Recap Twice upon a time, a time not long ago, a team from below the red line made great marches throughout the NCAA Tournament. Those occasions were filled with a number of great moments for Butl... [more] |
| S8 November 13, 2011 Game #8-011: Butler Bulldogs at Evansville AcesNovember 12, 2011 3:05 pmRoberts Municipal StadiumBBState Stats/RecapChange. Change is a constant in our game. Each season a new group of incoming freshman become the next great hope to lead the program to one shining moment come March. As t... [more] |
| S7 April 5, 2011 I. I Believe That We Will Win HOUSTON, April 5 -- When Adam Walsh was in his twenties, he climbed up the coaching ladder through the juco and small-college ranks as an assistant. All throughout, he had the following bullet point at the top of his résumé, under Career Goals: To be a Division I head c... [more] |
| S7 April 5, 2011 Butler Bulldogs vs. Connecticut HuskiesApril 4, 2011 9:23 pmHouston, TXBBState Stats/Recap Here's how the story ends. @midmajority Game Tweets21:00RT @mlandes1536 @midmajority the season doesn't always end in a loss....it can't #godawgsRT @fangsbites I'm loving @midmajority's tweets from the Fina... [more] |
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53. This Is Tomorrow by Kyle Whelliston
S7 April 4, 2011
HOUSTON -- Win or lose, this is it. Today, April 4, is the 154th and final day of The Mid-Majority's Season 7. As of this writing, the ultimate final result remains unknown. We do know two things: there is a basketball game tonight at 9:23 p.m. ET, Butler will fight hard for all of us and each of ... [more]
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| S7 April 3, 2011 AP HOUSTON -- In the early morning of January 20, 2009, after watching South Carolina State and Howard play a MEAC regular season game, I slept for two hours, grabbed my stuffed basketball, and made my way through the spaghetti tangle of Beltways and Metro lines to be on the Washington Mall to witn... [more] |
| S7 April 2, 2011 Virginia Commonwealth Rams vs. Butler BulldogsApril 2, 2011 6:09 pmHouston, TXBBState Stats/Recap VCU from the Colonial, Butler from the Horizon League. Bulldogs and Rams. Black and gold against @ButlerBlue2. It was nothing less than the unprecedented, unbelievable Mid-Major National Championship.... [more] |
| S7 April 2, 2011 SAB HOUSTON -- For the past five months and one day, I've been very careful about making as few forward-looking statements as possible -- except when specifically hired to. This business, this "sports writing," is filthy with predictions about future events that we writers have no control over, and... [more] |
| S7 April 2, 2011 HOUSTON -- For the record, Jack Swiger said "Houston, we've had a problem." A present-perfect report of the recent past, not an implication of overwhelm -- as per the endlessly repeated "we have" or "we've got" misquote. Big difference between the bottom of the valley and the first steps out of it... [more] |
| S7 April 1, 2011 By now, most TMM readers are familiar with Chris "Pavarotti" Crowley, the self-described "that VCU guy" and the Rowdiest Ram of all. He's been a mainstay at Rams basketball games, through thick and thin, with his gold shirt and ever-present horn-helmet ever since his days as a student and a team man... [more] |
| S7 April 1, 2011 At some point around the #ALLCAPSGAME, a big shiny Robot began appearing at Butler's Horizon League contests games. A Ron5Robot! Ron5Robot is a tribute to Ronald Nored, the Bulldogs' exceedingly unselfish Secretary of Defense, whose battered legs contain surgically implanted metal rods, making No. 5... [more] |
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60. The Beautiful by Kyle Whelliston
S7 March 31, 2011 AP
HARTFORD, Conn. -- I remember my first fixed game. It was five seasons ago. In the final minute of a body-bag guarantee matchup in an ACC arena, with the home team up by 14, a player on the home team broke away for a transition layup. But before he could rise to the hoop, players on the bench ye... [more]
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61. Commonwealth by Kyle Whelliston
S7 March 30, 2011
CHICAGO -- Outside the art deco-inspired and quickly-aging United Center is a statue of Michael Jordan, eternally suspended in flight above a roiling sea of overmatched defenders. Underneath, an inscription: "The Best There Ever Was, The Best There Ever Will Be." On the grey afternoon of Sunday, M... [more]
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62. "Star Power" by Kyle Whelliston
S7 March 30, 2011
Last year, around this time, we talked about the need for The Document, a comprehensive encapsulation of current glory that could be properly referenced and recalled later. It's one thing to offer a rote retelling of events, but it's more important and more difficult to be able to remember how it ... [more]
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63. The Low Point by Kyle Whelliston
S7 March 29, 2011
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- On the evening of February 15, 2011, the Siegel Center at Virginia Commonwealth University was packed to capacity, but the home fans were solemn and silent. The visiting team from George Mason had jumped out to a 34-19 halftime lead. The Patriot guards had rained down three-po... [more]
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64. Don't Know Mind by Kyle Whelliston
S7 March 28, 2011 SAN ANTONIO -- All media is local, and it's been that way since the beginning: the rumor mill, the town crier, the news bulletin printed on a hand-cranked press. The more technology is involved, the wider a message's potential reach. Distribution networks, moving pictures, automation, and any tool t... [more]
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| S7 March 28, 2011 [11] Virginia Commonwealth Rams vs. [1] Kansas JayhawksMarch 27, 2011 2:20 pmSan Antonio, TXBBState Stats/Recap After a second overnight drive, a second reward: a second member of the Other 25 in the Final Four. Virginia Commonwealth, one of the last teams in the door with the selection committee,... [more] |
| S7 March 27, 2011 [8] Butler Bulldogs vs. [2] Florida GatorsMarch 26, 2011 4:20 pmNew Orleans, LABBState Stats/Recap It started with a crazy idea. Since VCU and Butler were in the Elite Eight, with the sites just 550 miles away and nine hours from each other in San Antonio and New Orleans, why not go to both? After... [more] |
| S7 March 27, 2011 [11] Virginia Commonwealth Rams vs. [10] Florida State SeminolesMarch 25, 2011 9:57 pmSan Antonio, TXBBState Stats/Recap 30fps There is no feeling in the world like wanting something to happen so badly that's right there in front of you but out of your direct control. There's no better feeling tha... [more] |
| S7 March 27, 2011 [12] Richmond Spiders vs. [1] Kansas JayhawksMarch 25, 2011 7:27 pmSan Antonio, TXBBState Stats/Recap The distance between the Round of 32 and the Sweet Sixteen is so long, the possibilities so tantalizing. The hopes of an upstart No. 12 seed become outsized, and an Atlantic One's dreams can grow ... [more] |
| S7 March 25, 2011 Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 720 Butler is back in the Elite Eight, there is no Curse of Dick Bennett (although he certainly wouldn't have approved of Wisconsin's performance last night), and the only thing surprising about it is a.) the lack of general public shock and b.) that this video has ... [more] |
| S7 March 25, 2011 SAN ANTONIO -- In March of 2005, during the original 100 Games Project, I felt like it couldn't hurt to ask. I called up Brian McCann, the sports information director at Cleveland State, a school that was organizing an NCAA subregional at the Wolstein Center. I explained that I ran a website about c... [more] |
| S7 March 24, 2011 SAN ANTONIO -- A single basketball play is made up of two opposing strategies hatched by two opposing coaches, ten free-agent entities of varying skill and experience levels who can choose to fall in with the chosen plan or not, hundreds of in-the-moment decision points by players and game officials... [more] |
| S7 March 24, 2011 Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 719 Yee-haw! We are in San Antonio, Texas. So are VCU and Richmond. The weather is great, the Alamodome is weird, and we're ready to chat this afternoon on a special date but a regular time (4 PM ET). Come by and talk about the three remaining teams, the Butler-Wisc... [more] |
| S7 March 22, 2011 Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 718 In this week between 32 and 16, only Butler, Richmond and VCU remain. What do they have to do to continue on and keep their lights lit? And what of all the fallen teams around Hoops Nation, what's next for them? New coaches, new players, or old patterns? Come ch... [more] |
| S7 March 21, 2011 CHICAGO -- It may be a week from now, and it may be two weeks from now, but this is certin: no matter what, the Epilogue is coming. Judging from the outlines and drafts, this season's final post will be the longest yet. There's a lot of complicated information about the future to package as a downlo... [more] |
| S7 March 20, 2011 [11] Virginia Commonwealth Rams vs. [3] Purdue BoilermakersMarch 20, 2011 7:10 pmChicago, ILBBState Stats/Recap On Saturday night, we left Cleveland and headed west to Chicago to catch back up with the VCU Rams, the first PIG team to win a Round of 64 game. And we saw them become the first PIG tea... [more] |
| S7 March 19, 2011 Charleston Cougars at Cleveland State VikingsMarch 19, 2011 2:00 pmH. J. Goodman ArenaBBState Stats/Recap There is one National Championship. Everything else is just low-rated cable programming. Lose the wrong game at the wrong time, and you end up here -- in basketball purgatory. At the Wolstein ... [more] |
| S7 March 19, 2011 CLEVELAND -- From 26 at the start of the week, there are only six teams left from the Other 25 conferences. Three games of local interest today, and while we're assured of one from our side of the Line to move forward, we cannot have more than three of the four advance. It happens. In this case, i... [more] |
| S7 March 19, 2011 [11] Marquette Golden Eagles vs. [6] Xavier MusketeersMarch 18, 2011 7:27 pmCleveland, OHBBState Stats/Recap Hello, Xavier!! Our recently excepted friends were here in Cleveland with us, and Bally had trouble seeing over the mascot's hat from our seats in the front row corner. As the Musketeers ge... [more] |
| S7 March 19, 2011 [16] Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners vs. [1] Ohio State BuckeyesMarch 18, 2011 4:40 pmCleveland, OHBBState Stats/Recap While the teams in this Tournament dream of replicating the feat that the Harvard women's team once pulled off, we're not getting any closer to seeing one of the 60th through 68th t... [more] |
| S7 March 19, 2011 [9] Villanova Wildcats vs. [8] George Mason PatriotsMarch 18, 2011 2:10 pmCleveland, OHBBState Stats/Recap Getty Images > TMM360 Mason never wore white during the 2006 run. They also didn't awesome have glowing Kryptonite Nikes. They certainly weren't mercurial like this, didn't trade offense for d... [more] |
| S7 March 17, 2011 CLEVELAND -- We'd be remiss if we didn't give you The Diff. Especially considering where we are this weekend! We do this every season during the NCAA Tournament: We sidestep the boilerplate game previews and give you the only numbers that really matter. For the games involving teams in Other 25 conf... [more] |
| S7 March 17, 2011 [16] Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners vs. [16] Alabama State HornetsMarch 16, 2011 6:30 pmDayton, OHBBState Stats/Recap It's the second day of the inaugural First Four, and the kind of matchup Dayton is used to: between a SWAC No. 4 seed and a Southland No. 7. Bally lands the greatest temp job in the... [more] |
| S7 March 16, 2011 [16] North Carolina-Asheville Bulldogs vs. [16] Arkansas-Little Rock TrojansMarch 15, 2011 7:30 pmDayton, OHBBState Stats/Recap It's a day of first firsts. The first day of the 2011 NCAA Tournament, the first night of the 68-team future, the first First Four, the first this. This now is not like t... [more] |
| S7 March 13, 2011 If college basketball has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing that becomes irrelevant more suddenly than Championship Fortnight. Once the NCAA Tournament bracket is released, the previous two weeks slip into history... very quickly. But one thing that has to be remembered: the teams that w... [more] |
| S7 March 10, 2011 Robert Morris Colonials at Long Island BlackbirdsMarch 9, 2011 7:00 pmAthletic CenterBBState Stats/Recap A classic championship game in the Northeast Conference, as Long Island defeated two-time defending champions Robert Morris in overtime. LIU would be one of the greatest programs in the history... [more] |
| S7 March 9, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsThree more cha... [more] |
| S7 March 8, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsCongratulation... [more] |
| S7 March 6, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsCongratulation... [more] |
| S7 March 6, 2011 [5] Stony Brook Seawolves vs. [4] Albany Great DanesMarch 5, 2011 12:05 pmBBState Stats/Recap [9] Binghamton Bearcats vs. [1] Vermont CatamountsMarch 5, 2011 2:15 pmBBState Stats/Recap [7] New Hampshire Wildcats vs. [2] Boston University TerriersMarch 5, 2011 6:05 pmBBState Stats/Recap [6] Hartford... [more] |
| S7 March 5, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsNow it's mad, ... [more] |
| S7 March 4, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsOn the third d... [more] |
| S7 February 28, 2011 BOSTON -- There was never any master plan to any of it. The four-stage season and its familiar rhythms were formed by generations of pushes and pulls, and the best concepts became traditions. Putting the non-conference games at the beginning, holding separate league round-robins and eliminators, t... [more] |
| S7 February 26, 2011 Saint Bonaventure Bonnies at Saint Joseph's HawksFebruary 26, 2011 4:00 pmHagan ArenaBBState Stats/Recap Phil Martelli: don't call him Coach? Hard times on City Line, Hawk funerals, welding Saint Bonaventure back together after a decade of adversity, buff mascots, and THE BELLYFILLERS. @midmajori... [more] |
| S7 February 25, 2011 PHILADELPHIA -- Earlier this week, Caltech ended a 26-year, 310-game conference losing streak by beating Occidental 46-45. Last night in Shreveport, previously winless Centenary ended a 33-game skid (one away from the Division I record) by beating Western Illinois at home. It sure is tempting to f... [more] |
| S7 February 24, 2011 CLEVELAND -- Once upon a time, there was this really thick book, and it had a bunch of stuff about college basketball in it. No, not the book you're thinking of, I'm talking about One Beautiful Season. I wrote that, last summer! A few thousand people went ahead and bought it (perhaps you?), and it... [more] |
| S7 February 23, 2011 CHICAGO -- Every single one of the conference games going on tonight, and tomorrow, and Friday and Saturday too, were scheduled months in advance by a league office (or, in some cases, years ago). Some were circled rivalry games worth driving a day for, others were just-anothers. In early March, t... [more] |
| S7 February 22, 2011 CHICAGO -- BracketBusters 2011 can be summed up tidily in one paragraph. Utah State came back from 10 down at Saint Mary's to earn a résumé win. As the Missouri Valley -- the most successful conference in the short and strange history of BracketBusters -- bombed out with a 3-7 showing, three top t... [more] |
| S7 February 20, 2011 Missouri State Bears at Valparaiso CrusadersFebruary 19, 2011 5:00 pmAthletics-Recreation CenterBBState Stats/Recap Dickie V visits Valpo, BracketBusters balloon madness, lime green accents, and Horizon League dick jokes. @midmajority Game Tweets17:21 Game No. 7-061: Missouri State at Valparaiso.... [more] |
| S7 February 20, 2011 Butler Bulldogs at Illinois-Chicago FlamesFebruary 19, 2011 2:00 pmUIC PavillionBBState Stats/Recap The power, passion and glory of #ALLCAPSGAME 2011. @midmajority Game Tweets14:11 ROBO KREPS HAS SCORED THE FIRST BASKET OF THE #ALLCAPSGAME #BEEP #BOOP14:13 COREY GRAY HITS A #SUPERHOOP AND UIC IS ... [more] |
| S7 February 18, 2011 CHICAGO -- Once upon a time in a city of big windy shoulders, there was a basketball game between two schools at the bottom of the Horizon League. Loyola (Ill.) beat the University of Illinois at Chicago 55-50. This wasn't any ordinary game. will go down in history as the first game ever broadcast... [more] |
| S7 February 18, 2011 Southern Utah Thunderbirds at IUPUI JaguarsFebruary 17, 2011 7:00 pmThe JungleBBState Stats/Recap Bally goes college, the most Caucasian And 1 Mixtape Tour stop ever, Badlands swimming and diving, Mid-Con Appreciation Night, and a return to the scene of an old temp job. @midmajority Game Tweets18... [more] |
| S7 February 17, 2011 INDIANAPOLIS -- Things were different eight years ago. Folks were afraid of SARS. Valerie Plame was still anonymous. People still had AOL e-mail addresses. This website, Bally Basketball, and Willow Smith's recording career weren't even figments of imagination yet. But in 2003, a huge TV sports ne... [more] |
| S7 February 16, 2011 HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- March really is here before we know it, because there's half a week missing out of February. This month wasn't designed that way -- and nothing was adjusted for our benefit or anything -- but it's still disorienting and disruptive to look at a calendar and realize that in two ... [more] |
| S7 February 14, 2011 Saint Joseph's Hawks vs. Fordham RamsFebruary 13, 2011 4:00 pmEast Rutherford, NJBBState Stats/Recap They had a ... [more] |
| S7 February 11, 2011 It's Friday, so that means it's time to check in on preparations for next season's 800 Games Project, the crowdsourced game reporting that will take the place of our own hundreds of attended games and thousands of driven miles. It's pretty much the same thing as we've been doing -- go to a game and ... [more] |
| S7 February 8, 2011 ??????, ?.?. -- The game of Last Man continues into its second full day in the secret bunker. Follow along with as I slowly descend into madness. No, David, I have not heard about Pittsburgh, P. A., and don't tell me! Conference ShootaroundConference USA: Fact: the ex-Metro won 68 percent of its... [more] |
| S7 February 7, 2011 ?????, ?.?. -- Hello from back here on Sunday evening. As for the future present, we are playing our annual game of Last Man, and avoiding The Knowledge as best as possible. But we must always attend to our regular duties, which is sharing the good kind of knowledge with Hoops Nation. What a crazy... [more] |
| S7 February 7, 2011 American Eagles at Lehigh Mountain HawksFebruary 6, 2011 2:00 pmStabler ArenaBBState Stats/Recap In which we prepare to bunker down for Last Man. @midmajority Game Tweets13:55 Game No. 7-049: American at Lehigh. You are here. http://img.ly/2WtR13:57 Nothing makes for a better pregame show than...... [more] |
| S7 February 7, 2011 Rhode Island Rams at Temple OwlsFebruary 5, 2011 2:00 pmThe Liacouras CenterBBState Stats/Recap Hooter's birthday, and fake Zooperstars. @midmajority Game Tweets13:48 Game No. 7-047: Rhode Island at Temple. Temple University welcomes you and your family.13:50 This, friends, is a band. http://img... [more] |
| S7 February 4, 2011 Friday mornings have become extra-enjoyable, because these game reports that are coming in are really great. While there's a lot of Season 7 left, I'm excited about Season 8, and the prospect of having well-written, well-executed student and passionate fan accounts of games across Hoops Nation to re... [more] |
| S7 February 3, 2011 Today is National Pixelvision Day, and the festivities will last from 7 pm ET to after midnight. If you'd like to get involved, shuttle down. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- An old hippie once proclaimed that information wants to be free. He was a publisher whose bound publication eventually folded. Me, I thi... [more] |
| S7 February 1, 2011 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- So much has changed in a single calendar year. On February 1, 2010, the iPad had just been announced, and no mere civilian had touched one yet. Now, they're on press row at college basketball games. The Robot has grown a soul, exhibited feelings, taken a name. (It's "Doctor Thun... [more] |
| S7 January 31, 2011 How does a 100 Games Project come together? First, before Christmas, you have to get to as many Multi-Team Events as you can. Rack up games like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter. The next key benchmark is the halfway point; if you make 50 by early February, you're in pretty good shape. The ... [more] |
| S7 January 31, 2011 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- What is madness? Back up, let's start this way: the reason and order necessary for understanding and mastery of one's surroundings has no room or space for such anarchic disruption. Madness is the danger where once things were safe, displacing sense and destroying sensibilities.... [more] |
| S7 January 30, 2011 Georgia State Panthers at Northeastern HuskiesJanuary 29, 2011 1:00 pmMatthews ArenaBBState Stats/Recap Northeastern has always been frustrating. Back at Drexel, the team always helped make the America East hell for the Dragons. It's got to be frustrating to be a sports fan there, too. The school i... [more] |
| S7 January 24, 2011 Illinois-Chicago Flames at Loyola (Ill.) RamblersJanuary 22, 2011 4:00 pmJoseph Gentile CenterBBState Stats/Recap In a century of progress, college basketball has proven to be infinitely scalable: from the cramped quarters of the 3,400-seat oldest living Division I gymnasium at Fordham to a 90,000... [more] |
| S7 January 24, 2011 CHICAGO -- American higher learning dates back to before the whole "United States" thing. But until the Civil War was over, no college had a fight song. That idea coincided with the idea of college athletics, and school-specific tunes were written for the purposes of intimidation and inspiration. Ma... [more] |
| S7 January 21, 2011 If you're just joining us, or re-joining us, 2011-12 at The Mid-Majority (a/k/a Season 8) will feature an experiment in college basketball crowdsourcing. We're calling it the 800 Game Project, and we're going to try to put together the biggest cross-referenced national spectator game report database... [more] |
| S7 January 20, 2011 CHICAGO -- It can't be said enough: most of what we do as college basketball fans is try to figure out exactly what it is we're looking at. Keeping proper perspective during the season is difficult, impossible sometimes. Up there, north of the Red Line, it's easier because ranked and regarded team... [more] |
| S7 January 19, 2011 CHICAGO -- Patterns develop as the season goes on; one seems to be that Wednesday is a perfect day to open up The Form™ and publicly respond to a few letters, many of which have been quite heartfelt lately. There have also been some seriously great game reports, and I think Fridays (before c... [more] |
| S7 January 18, 2011 Missouri State Bears at Bradley BravesJanuary 16, 2011 8:00 pmCarver ArenaBBState Stats/Recap If one were to choose the city in the United States most victimized in jokes and anecdotes by theatrical personalities, the selection of Peoria, Illinois, would be a popular, if not likely choice. Two of ... [more] |
| S7 January 18, 2011 CHICAGO -- What if the shot went in? BUTLER 62, DUKE 6104/05/2010DUKE 34-5 (13-3) -- K. Singler 7-13 2-2 19; N. Smith 5-15 2-5 13; J. Scheyer 5-12 4-5 15; L. Thomas 3-5 0-0 6; B. Zoubek 3-4 2-4 8; M. Plumlee 0-2 0-0 0; A. Dawkins 0-1 0-0 0; M. Plumlee 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-52 10-16 61.BUTLER 34-4... [more] |
| S7 January 11, 2011 Cleveland State Vikings at Valparaiso CrusadersJanuary 9, 2011 2:35 pmAthletics-Recreation CenterBBState Stats/Recap Sometimes Our Game is so difficult to understand. Can you wrap your head around the concept of retractable bleachers? Somehow, with hydraulics and sparklepony magic, a wall transfo... [more] |
| S7 January 10, 2011 VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Now that January has reached double-digits, the slow transition is, in full essence, complete. It's conference season, and even the teams in the Ivy League are starting to play each other. This is definitely the second part of the beautiful season, the third best of the four. N... [more] |
| S7 January 8, 2011 Cleveland State Vikings at Butler BulldogsJanuary 7, 2011 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/Recap Much of what passes for sports wisdom in enlightened 2011 is so linear and transitive. With so much information to sift and process, the human brain goes into panic mode. It must break matters do... [more] |
| S7 January 7, 2011 Detroit Titans at Loyola (Ill.) RamblersJanuary 6, 2011 8:00 pmJoseph Gentile CenterBBState Stats/Recap So good to be back to work. @midmajority Game Tweets 20:05 Game 7-032: Detroit at Loyola (Ill). Oh-oh, back on the chain gang. http://img.ly/2LlN20:09 RT @HorizonLeague: Detroit @ Loyola Men's... [more] |
| S7 January 5, 2011 I felt like I ought to write in about the end of the 100GP, since I have to admit I felt a pretty big sense of disappointment (though not surprise) when you said it wasn't going to happen in the future...I think the road is an important part of the site. In general, I think a good outcome would b... [more] |
| S7 January 4, 2011 Kyle, I just returned home from my first college basketball double header not involving a conference tournament. I drove for about six hours today to watch UNCG play in front of a couple hundred fans at Greensboro Coliseum against Richmond at noon. Followed a few hours later by a UNCW game against... [more] |
| S7 January 3, 2011 CHICAGO -- Coaches talk a lot about taking things away from an opponent; indeed, one of the objects of basketball is exert enough force and will as to displace identity. If the other team is slow and methodical, you might try to speed them up, or vice-versa. If there's a dynamic star who scores an... [more] |
| S7 December 31, 2010 CHICAGO -- Here at The Mid-Majority, the calendar is off-kilter. New Year's Day is November 1, and Auld Lang Syne is a refrain for March or April, not now. Most other people, however, strictly follow the more traditional Julian calendar, a grid of 12 months and not five. Still, December 31st is a ... [more] |
| S7 December 23, 2010 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- This is the last Stardate until 52-20101229 (a Wednesday), at which time we'll turn our attention away from Red Line Upsets to conference play. There will be a Chat Block on Christmas Eve at 4 pm Eastern, and if there's anybody around, we'll talk about whatever you want to talk ... [more] |
| S7 December 21, 2010 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at Murray State RacersDecember 18, 2010 8:30 pmCFSB CenterBBState Stats/Recap There is nothing like the sight of a college basketball arena on a December night, white beacons beckoning. Groups of shadows move towards the light, arms rigid, hands in pockets against the ... [more] |
| S7 December 21, 2010 Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders at Evansville AcesDecember 18, 2010 3:05 pmRoberts Municipal StadiumBBState Stats/Recap Roberts Municipal Stadium was built in 1956, back when indoor arenas were called "stadiums" and it didn't sound kind of awkward. It has seen a lot of Evansville Purple Aces basket... [more] |
| S7 December 21, 2010 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- When do Red Line Upsets happen? Well, one timeframe when they don't is January and February. That's when everybody's playing conference games. So that means we are closing in on the end of rooting for the little guys, surprise @RedLineUpsets alerts on Twitter, and all of the oth... [more] |
| S7 December 20, 2010 Kyle, I remember reading your "Lombardi" piece when you first posted it, but since you referenced it, I re-read it. What strikes me now, is what separates the game you talk about, compared to what's covered by the larger sports media. To them wins and losses adds to the entertainment. Basketball (... [more] |
| S7 December 15, 2010 In 1996, Malik Rose recruited me to Drexel University. Not in person, but through a 17-inch TV set. The invite came in the form of slam dunks and jump shots. I was living in Oregon, looking for an east coast school to attend, and there was this 6-foot-7 guy, leading the Dragons to a 12-over-5 upset... [more] |
| S7 December 15, 2010 Trinity International (NAIA) at Chicago State CougarsDecember 14, 2010 8:00 pmDickens CenterBBState Stats/Recap Chicago State is one of the weirdest ongoing stories in Division I, much less higher education. And while framing a New York Times story by using a nearly-empty basketball arena as a meta... [more] |
| S7 December 13, 2010 CHICAGO -- Necessity is the mother of invention, but another thing that Mom does is feeds and cares for you. On Saturday night at Hinkle Fieldhouse, as "Underdawgs" author-slash-Indianapolis Star superwriter David Woods and I competed to see who could close the press room (he won), I experienced a... [more] |
| S7 December 13, 2010 Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils at Butler BulldogsDecember 11, 2010 7:00 pmHinkle FieldhouseBBState Stats/Recap Hinkle Fieldhouse. The very name oozes basketball history, if letters could ooze. For the first time in Season 7, we went to the home of the Butler Bulldogs on a mid-December Satu... [more] |
| S7 December 10, 2010 Butler Bulldogs at Xavier MusketeersDecember 9, 2010 9:00 pmCintas CenterBBState Stats/Recap A story: once upon a time, there were two brothers. As sometimes happens with brothers, they could not have been any more different from each other. The older was the mild-mannered and cerebral one, shrew... [more] |
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141. The Moment by Kyle Whelliston
S7 December 10, 2010
Last week, we asked you to submit a short essay about a college basketball moment that altered your life's course. To some, that meant a real shift, and to others it was a play that closed a circle and instilled something deep in the heart. We received 26 entries, and they were all great, but we h... [more]
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| S7 December 9, 2010 Toledo Rockets at IPFW MastodonsDecember 8, 2010 6:00 pmAllen County War Memorial ColiseumBBState Stats/Recap Fort Wayne, Indiana is one of hundreds of far-inland American cities struggling to find an identity in the post-crash New Economy. For now, "sports tourism" will do. And we are sports tour... [more] |
| S7 December 9, 2010 CINCINNATI -- Recently, at a game, I sat next to a "national columnist" as I tapped away at my keyboard, scribbling notes in a notebook, wearing my suit with sneakers, accompanied by my stuffed basketball companion. Afterwards, as I was packing up, he extended his hand tentatively. "Kyle, right?" he... [more] |
| S7 December 8, 2010 Purdue Boilermakers at Valparaiso CrusadersDecember 7, 2010 9:00 pmAthletics-Recreation CenterBBState Stats/Recap Hope. (via 30fps) @midmajority Game Tweets 20:54 Game 7-021: Purdue at Valparaiso. Hail Crusaders who rise to glory.20:57 RT @cmlrun: @midmajority Our colors are unfurled.21:00 Awes... [more] |
| S7 December 7, 2010 @midmajority there have been 59 red line upsets, @TempleUniv has three of them. What is the single-school single-season record?- @clivedaddy (via Twitter)CHICAGO -- That's a fantastic question, Mr. Daddy! We've gone into our six-year archive of RLU history and discovered that the two seasons with th... [more] |
| S7 December 6, 2010 Valparaiso Crusaders at Loyola (Ill.) RamblersDecember 4, 2010 4:00 pmJoseph Gentile CenterBBState Stats/Recap Think of Chicago. Cold city. Dark. Dark in the winter. But not cold and dark enough for a dude in the LU Wolf suit not to walk around slapping high fives with fans arriving for an early ... [more] |
| S7 December 2, 2010 Columbia Lions at Bucknell BisonDecember 1, 2010 7:00 pmSojka PavillionBBState Stats/Recap It's amazing to think that back in Season 2, there was serious talk about Bucknell being "the next Gonzaga," another academics-first school that would use the NCAA Tournament to transcend mid-majordom foreve... [more] |
| S7 December 2, 2010 I received Bally #20 after creating the awesome superhero, but I regret to inform you that his whereabouts as of now are unknown. After he came into my life, it was clear that my girlfriend’s two cats didn’t really care for #20’s constant boinging. A couple months later, #20 lost his voice and I ... [more] |
| S7 November 29, 2010 PHILADELPHIA - The holidays, then. In the distant past, this was a time to gather around fires, which was important enough for physical and psychological survival that people would rearrange birthdays just for the excuse to do so. Over the centuries, this time of year became a giant magnet that pu... [more] |
| S7 November 27, 2010 Bucknell Bison vs. Princeton TigersNovember 23, 2010 4:30 pmHarrisonburg, VABBState Stats/Recap Presbyterian Blue Hose at James Madison DukesNovember 23, 2010 7:00 pmJMU Convocation CenterBBState Stats/Recap Princeton Tigers vs. Presbyterian Blue HoseNovember 24, 2010 4:30 pmHarrisonburg, VABBState ... [more] |
| S7 November 26, 2010 Green Bay Phoenix vs. San Diego State AztecsNovember 20, 2010 5:30 pmOxford, OHBBState Stats/RecapIUPUI Jaguars at Miami (Oh.) RedhawksNovember 20, 2010 8:00 pmMillett HallBBState Stats/RecapSan Diego State Aztecs at Miami (Oh.) RedhawksNovember 22, 2010 7:00 pmMillett HallBBState Stats/Recap Mil... [more] |
| S7 November 24, 2010 Hi Kyle, I'm a graphic communications major at a school above the Red Line (Clemson) but I love the Mid-Majority and I read it every day during the season. One of my favorite aspects of the site is all the symbolism and how it changes from year to year. You answered a question about the Robots, so I... [more] |
| S7 November 23, 2010 @midmajority @RedLineUpsets is it really an upset if wake loses?(via Twitter)BECKLEY, W. Va. -- As many of you are aware, a good percentage of what happens on The Mid-Majority doesn't happen here. A lot of the action is in real time, on the Twitter. Back in the 1980s, when people had hair like that ... [more] |
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154. Heartbreak City by Kyle Whelliston
S7 November 22, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS -- Nearly every location on earth is just a geocode. Memories serve to transform places into something more, and the accumulation of experiences constantly shift and change them into important places. Cutting through the middle of the city on a Sunday morning on Interstate 70, I notic... [more]
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| S7 November 19, 2010 Austin Peay Governors at Lipscomb BisonsNovember 18, 2010 8:15 pmAllen ArenaBBState Stats/Recap During the conference season, Fridays are the ones out of the seven with the fewest games. Usually, there are Ivy League games, a couple Patriot tilts, and whatever ESPNU has convinced the Horizon or M... [more] |
| S6 April 5, 2010 INDIANAPOLIS -- At this point, there really isn't anything that hasn't been said. You know 1 Samuel 17:49, and you've heard the one about brick walls, and you know everything that's at stake tonight. Nothing less than the National Flippin' Championship, and one of our own is playing for it. All of... [more] |
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157. Storming The Bubble by Kyle Whelliston
S6 April 4, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS -- It's even uglier up close. I mean, the architecture of it isn't offensive; its tall flat surfaces of impossibly smooth brickface appear as out of a three-dimensional CAD drawing, a simulation come to life. But Lucas Oil Stadium (or "Sports Bubble Stadium," if you prefer) is repulsi... [more]
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158. #thanksdawgs by Kyle Whelliston
S6 April 4, 2010 :
INDIANAPOLIS -- At this point, the random logic of the heart is far ahead of the reasoning of raw numbers. Of course a little private school with non-scholarship football can beat a mammoth sports machine that spends almost as much on men's basketball ($9 million) as it does on all sports ($11 m... [more]
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| S6 April 3, 2010 INDIANAPOLIS -- Day broke over Indianapolis with a hazy grey so light it could have been mistaken for silver. The streets, still relatively lazy and quiet on Thursday, exploded in a thousand team colors as basketball people took over downtown -- a slow-motion floor storming of citywide proportions... [more] |
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160. This Is Our Town by Kyle Whelliston
S6 April 2, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS -- Here at the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport, there's magic in the air. Mid-Majority headquarters, usually empty on account of the airport moving away two years ago, has turned into a bonafide basketball mecca. The median height has shot up past the 6-foot mark, and the number of ... [more]
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| S6 April 1, 2010 Final Four Chat Block No. 3 This is the last Chat Block. Why? Because we're shutting down the site forever! We're out of money! Everything must go! Alright, Fooly-wooly Day, whatever. It's just amazing that TMM is still operational on April 1st. With the guaranteed finish coming within the week, we... [more] |
| S6 April 1, 2010 INDIANAPOLIS -- Gordon "G-Time" Hayward has officially gone platinum. The "Too Big Yo" smac rap surfaced on YouTube two weeks ago, was taken down quickly when the track went national, and then the rescued audio was posted here on this site. We've made attempts to offload some of the traffic to other... [more] |
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163. Pep Rally! by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 31, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS -- The sky above was blue, the concrete below was grey, and Butler fans streamed into Monument Circle to celebrate their team's return home to play in the Final Four. Bally and I headed downtown to see what all the fuss was about! The players and coaches weren't there (they were in cl... [more]
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| S6 March 31, 2010 This is it. Now it's up to you. Our remaining seven As-You-Go Bracketeers have done their work, now you must pass judgment. At the bottom of this post is a voting mechanism, and the winner will receive a most-expenses paid trip to Indianapolis this summer (estimated cash value: $650). It's all on th... [more] |
| S6 March 31, 2010 Final Four Chat Block No. 2 Bally and I are headed to the big Butler pep rally at noon on the square today! We'll bring back plenty of sights and sounds for you. There will also be another Chat Block at 3 p.m. EDT live from our headquarters here in Hoops Nation's capital city Indianapolis, so stop ... [more] |
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166. The Document by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 30, 2010
Downtown Vancouver, February 2010
MINNEAPOLIS -- I've been thinking a lot about the Kent State team from 2002, the one that went to the Elite Eight, during these last couple of days. No specific reason, really, because I've been too busy straining to remember the particulars. This all happened eig... [more]
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167. Final Four Chat Block by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 29, 2010 Final Four Chat Block
We still boingin'. Come by at 2 p.m. EDT to talk about the Butler Bulldogs, Indianapolis, Sports Bubble Stadium, #horchata4mids and the coaching carousel.
Also, we are trying to put together a FYNNAL FOR horchata and cupcake party at our Indianapolis headquarters this Thursd... [more]
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168. The Way Back Home by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 28, 2010
HOUSTON -- We will speak of invisible architecture later. We will fully consider the way that stories are constructed for public consumption in this new and strange century. But in any era, past or present or future, every satisfying path must end at home. Just as the dominant seventh must resolv... [more]
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| S6 March 28, 2010 HOUSTON -- Living weekend to weekend is certainly exciting, but "going Sharpie" on the calendar is preferable. The life of Season 6 has been extended, thanks to Butler; we're going to have some extra time together, you and I. We have nine beautiful breathing-room days to celebrate and wrap up our bu... [more] |
| S6 March 27, 2010 HOUSTON -- Bally and I won't be there in Salt Lake City today. We're still in Texas, in the expansive and quiet Reliant Stadium media room. There are so many moving logistical chutes and ladders with something like this, and there simply wasn't enough time to change course. I can't tell you how mu... [more] |
| S6 March 26, 2010 Last night, Butler overcame a $5 million gap in men's basketball budgets and eliminated Syracuse. Seriously, why spend all that extra money if it's not going to help you win? Tonight here in Houston, Saint Mary's will go up against another BCS school, attempting to keep its beautiful game going for ... [more] |
| S6 March 25, 2010 The now-famous "TMM 5" have basked in basketball glory for three days now. Tonight three of them will face another rigorous test each, at higher stakes, under hotter lights. Nervous times. And Butler, Xavier and Cornell have the same disadvantage going in as they had in the first two tests: financia... [more] |
| S6 March 25, 2010 What's a mid-major? What isn't? Have you had enough of this crap? Yeah, we have too, since Season 3 or so. It's an impossible discussion to have, especially when one-third of the people in the debate think it's a snapshot measure of basketball quality, another third insist it's about intangibles l... [more] |
| S6 March 24, 2010 HOUSTON -- We're heading into the second weekend. Are there any people left still playing that office pool bracket stuff anymore? I think everybody's entries are busted, because I haven't heard people talking about it for days. But for our nine brave As-You-Goers, their brackets are totally, 100 per... [more] |
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175. Butler: Continuum by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 24, 2010
It always ends in a loss; that is cold fact. Back in 2008, on a warm Sunday afternoon in Birmingham, Alabama, Butler's season came to a close in the NCAA Tournament's Round of 32. That squad's terminal drop came in overtime, to a Tennessee team it was superior to, on borderline calls and bad break... [more]
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| S6 March 23, 2010 The passage of time is what usually grants college basketball its mystique and aura; witness memory fades and history takes over. Players become larger than life, coaches change into infallible titans of the mind, and single contests transcend the game itself. The words, and the numbers, never fit... [more] |
| S6 March 21, 2010 Now, we would have preferrrred that the NCAA powers-that-is would have spread the first round upsets more equitably between Thursday and Friday. That would have made for an emotional rollercoaster of far simpler convexity, no? But it shook down like this, and we had six dogs, cats and dudes in the f... [more] |
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178. Idols by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 21, 2010
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- What strange psychology is this? The nation at large usually loves a Goliath. America seeks out the commanding and the dominant, places them in high matrices of "best ever" and "all time," all the while ignoring the struggles of the anonymous and faceless David Does below. Unti... [more]
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| S6 March 20, 2010 "Cinderella" is such a dumb metaphor for all of this. For one thing, this isn't women's basketball; where I come from, calling a dude a lady will get you into a knife fight. Also, none of our teams get to ride a magical McDonald's All American to the Dance who turns into a pumpkin at midnight. I thi... [more] |
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180. Little Picture by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 20, 2010
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- In the big picture, the really big picture, it doesn't mean much at all. It's a basketball show. This is entertainment for rich people, a diversion for any remaining members of the American middle class with disposable time. The performers are judged on whether their effort ple... [more]
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181. Emotional Geography by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 19, 2010
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- I have a bobblehead doll of Bryce Drew releasing The Shot that beat Ole Miss in 1998, and a picture on my wall of Northwestern State's Jermaine Wallace uncorking the three-pointer that eliminated Iowa in 2006. I'll admit that I have to think for a minute to remember the names o... [more]
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| S6 March 18, 2010 We do this every year around this time, and here again are the differences in athletic and basketball budgets between the teams in today's mid-versus-notso games. Our Red Line that separates those above and us here below is based on average athletic budgets, and teams in the Upper 8 beat the Other 2... [more] |
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183. Too Big Yo by Kyle Whelliston
S6 March 16, 2010 You've heard the old story before. A bunch of crazy college kids record a silly rap on someone's laptop, one of them just so happens to be a star player for a NCAA Tournament-bound mid-major team, and they upload it to YouTube. Then, some fans find it. Then it goes national, yadda yadda yadda, and t... [more]
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| S6 March 10, 2010 Bullet Points Three champions were crowned on Tuesday night. Please give it up for: Butler of the Horizon League, which crushed Wright State in that league's title game; the Sun Belt's North Texas, which has now split the last four championships with Western Kentucky; and Oakland, long-suffering G'... [more] |
| S6 March 9, 2010 Bullet Points A might victory whoop! for our four newest Hoops Nation champions. Old Dominion dropped William & Mary in the Colonial, to return to the Dance after three years away. Siena won the Metro Atlantic for the third straight year, but the Saints needed overtime to fight off brave Fairfield.... [more] |
| S6 March 7, 2010 Bullet Points A mighty congratulations to the first three conference tourney winners. Winthrop is the Big South representative for the ninth time in 12 seasons. East Tennessee State repeated in the Atlantic Sun, out of a No. 5 seed. And dangerous Murray State won the championship of the Ohio Valley... [more] |
| S6 March 7, 2010 This is the final Hoops National of the 2009-10 season. Big Games Atlantic 14: at Massachusetts 69, Rhode Island 67 MASS - 11-19 (5-11) [RPI: 200, State: 205] URI - 21-8 (9-7) [RPI: 30, State: 48] Star of the Game: Ricky Harris 28 Pts (10-21 FG, 6-11 FT), 7 Reb UMass Into A-14s With 69-67 Win O... [more] |
| S6 March 6, 2010 NOTE: The Hoops National will only cover regular-season games for the remainder of the week. Big Games Ivy League: Cornell 95, at Brown 76 CORN - 26-4 (12-1) [RPI: 46, State: 50] BRWN - 11-19 (5-8) [RPI: 250, State: 281] Star of the Game: Jon Jaques 20 Pts (7-9 FG), 7 Reb Men's Hoops Claims Thir... [more] |
| S6 March 3, 2010 NOTE: The Hoops National will only cover regular-season games for the remainder of the week. Games of Note at Gonzaga 78, Cal State Bakersfield 59 GONZ - 25-5 (12-2) [RPI: 30, State: 33] CSB - 7-22 (0-0) [RPI: 321, State: 295] Star of the Game: Matt Bouldin 15 Pts (5-11 FG, 3-3 FT), 6 Reb No. 1... [more] |
| S6 March 2, 2010 NOTE: The Hoops National will only cover regular-season games for the remainder of the week. Big Games Western Athletic: at Utah State 76, Fresno State 39 USU - 24-6 (13-2) [RPI: 33, State: 32] FRES - 14-17 (6-9) [RPI: 199, State: 191] Star of the Game: Tai Wesley 21 Pts (10-13 FG, 1-2 FT), 7 Reb... [more] |
| S6 February 27, 2010 Big Games Ivy League: at Cornell 50, Princeton 47 CORN - 24-4 (10-1) [RPI: 48, State: 52] PRIN - 16-8 (7-3) [RPI: 161, State: 120] Star of the Game: Jeff Foote 19 Pts (6-7 FG, 7-8 FT) Men's Basketball Tops Princeton, 50-47 - Cornell fought off a feisty Princeton team to claim its fourth stra... [more] |
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192. My School: Idaho by Travis Mason-Bushman
S6 February 24, 2010 The first time I came to the Idaho Palouse, a California kid on a college tour of the middle of nowhere, the Kibbie Dome was the first thing I saw of the University of Idaho. Driving east on Highway 8 and rounding the bend at the Washington state line, its grand, curving arch pops out of the monoton... [more]
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| S6 February 21, 2010 Big Games BracketBusters: at Butler (HL) 70, Siena (MAAC) 53 BUTL - 25-4 (17-0) [RPI: 21, State: 12] SIE - 22-6 (15-1) [RPI: 31, State: 46] Star of the Game: Shelvin Mack 23 Pts (8-14 FG, 4-5 FT), 6 Reb Mack and Hayward lead way to Bracketbuster win on Senior Day - Shelvin Mack scored 23 point... [more] |
| S6 February 18, 2010 John's guest-hosting this week while Kyle's in Vancouver. Which of course stands for the Temporary Help's Evaluation of Mid-Major Achievement. Is it presumptuous to dish out awards from the Olympian (you know, that adjective is much more situation-neutral and less confusing 99 percent of the time) ... [more] |
| S6 February 17, 2010 John's guest-hosting this week while Kyle's in Vancouver. The NCAA is considering expanding the D-I men's basketball tournament to either 68 or 96 teams, and it is the latter scenario that has occasioned the most discussion and debate. After all, adding three more teams is less interesting and not... [more] |
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196. My School: Butler by Mike Miller
S6 February 15, 2010 When Kyle proposed the series of fan essays about various schools in the Mid-Majority, I hesitated about writing about mine. It's not like Butler has been starved of column inches by the national media or TMM. Butler has almost reached a Gonzaga-esque point where some folks might prefer calling th... [more]
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| S6 February 12, 2010 Big Games West Coast: at Gonzaga 80, Saint Mary`s 61 GONZ - 20-4 (8-1) [RPI: 24, State: 20] SMC - 21-4 (8-2) [RPI: 41, State: 47] Star of the Game: Matt Bouldin 18 Pts (8-14 FG) Bulldogs Regain WCC Lead With Victory Over Saint Mary's - The No. 16 Zags are still in first place in the West Coast ... [more] |
| S6 February 11, 2010 The State of College Basketball is a 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 Final Four ... [more] |
| S6 February 11, 2010 Big Games Atlantic 14: Richmond 69, at Rhode Island 67 RICH - 19-6 (8-2) [RPI: 31, State: 39] URI - 19-4 (7-3) [RPI: 14, State: 25] Star of the Game: David Gonzalvez 19 Pts (7-12 FG, 2-3 FT), 2 Stl Surging Spiders Grind Out Road Win At Rhody, Move Into A-14 First-Place Tie - KINSTON, R.I. - Dav... [more] |
| S6 February 10, 2010 Colonial: at George Mason 82, Virginia Commonwealth 77 (OT) GMU - 16-9 (11-3) [RPI: 132, State: 104] VCU - 17-6 (9-5) [RPI: 49, State: 41] Star of the Game: Michael Morrison 18 Pts (8-10 FG, 2-3 FT), 10 Reb Men's Basketball Rallies Late, Downs VCU in Overtime - Cam Long hit a pair of free throws ... [more] |
| S6 February 9, 2010 Big Games Western Athletic: at New Mexico State 70, Louisiana Tech 68 NMSU - 15-8 (8-2) [RPI: 78, State: 94] LTU - 19-5 (7-3) [RPI: 71, State: 67] Star of the Game: Troy Gillenwater 19 Pts (7-12 FG, 4-4 FT), 8 Reb, 2 Stl Laroche Hits Game Winner over LA Tech, 70-68 - New Mexico State sophomore ... [more] |
| S6 February 8, 2010 Big Games Atlantic 14: at Richmond 71, Temple 54 RICH - 18-6 (7-2) [RPI: 31, State: 41] TU - 19-5 (7-2) [RPI: 17, State: 35] Star of the Game: Kevin Anderson 29 Pts (11-17 FG, 5-5 FT) Richmond Topples Temple, 71-54 (via Richmond) Atlantic 14: at Dayton 90, Xavier 65 UD - 16-6 (5-3) [RPI: 33, S... [more] |
| S6 February 4, 2010 The State of College Basketball is a 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 Final Four ... [more] |
| S6 February 2, 2010 Rider figured to be one of the teams that would step up challenge Siena's two-year stranglehold on the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference -- heck, a single first-place vote for the Broncs was what kept the Saints from being a full-consensus top pick on media day back in October. And Rider, not Siena... [more] |
| S6 February 1, 2010 TMM Shortattentionspantheater! Siena (19-4, 12-0) has won 13 in a row now, and Butler (18-4, 11-0 Horizon) has a 10-game streak! And they could play each other in the Busters, yeah! (Don't forget, matchups are announced tonight!) Northern Iowa (19-2, 10-1 MVC) remains two games clear in the Valle... [more] |
| S6 December 29, 2009 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- One more drinker's holiday, and the calendar will flip. Many Americans are spending this week in silent fear of what's on the other side: a return to the bleak routine of five-day workweeks, the gray skies of short days, and January bills from December's illusions of prosperity. O... [more] |
| S6 December 10, 2009 Game No. 024 - Dayton at Miami Wednesday, December 2, 2009 OXFORD, Oh. -- Treble does not exist in Millett Hall; the building is literally made of pure bass. When the public address announcer calls out the name of a player who's scored a basket, you feel the announcement deep in your stomach. Eve... [more] |
| S5 March 22, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- You work in an office. It's a big office with hundreds of people. You all have hard jobs: everyone toils at their stations every day, struggling to put in efforts that will be recognized. When you get a pat on the back and a "good job," it always seems so fleeting... nobody remembers... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 March 19, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- Not to get all Jean Shepherd on you, but when I started as an undergrad at the University of Oregon there were no coffee shops near campus. Then one opened up on the corner near the bookstore, and it had couches and soft music and 50 different ways to drink coffee. It was the hottest ... [more] |
| S5 March 18, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- The year 2006 wasn't really all that long ago. Sure, we're dealing with problems light years beyond those we faced back then, and anybody would trade in total world financial meltdown for another "bird flu" scare. But Nelly Furtado's "Loose" feels like it just came out yesterday, inn... [more] |
| S5 March 16, 2009 CLEVELAND -- Lately I've been reading When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball by Seth Davis, a man I'm privileged to know and lucky to share a bond of mutual respect with. It's a tremendously fantastic book by a supremely talented writer, one that documents the famous 1979 national... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 March 15, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a decrepit old 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 th... [more] |
| 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 ... [more] |
| S5 March 11, 2009 Bullet Points Congratulations to North Dakota State (Badlands/Summit), Western Kentucky (Sun Belt) and Cleveland State (Horizon League). All three have reserved space on the Big Bracket with title game victories last night. Two championships tonight: the Northeast Conference and Big Sky will d... [more] |
| S5 March 10, 2009 Some are still under the impression that this is just another blog, that I'm sitting at home and ranting about mid-major basketball from my couch. That is definitely not the case. TMM Mobile HQ is very real, and has already logged over 22,000 miles and over 90 games this season. Put that in your pa... [more] |
| S5 March 10, 2009 Bullet Points Four more champions were crowned last night, teams that will automatically continue on to the NCAA Tournament. Congratulations to Virginia Commonwealth (Colonial), Siena (Metro Atlantic), Chattanooga (SoCon) and Gonzaga (West Coast). Three autobids will be granted tonight: the Su... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| 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.... [more] |
| S5 March 6, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a rapidly-aging 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 t... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 March 4, 2009 NASHVILLE -- They're the greatest two weeks in Hoops Nation, these. Conference teams are racked up in brackets according to regular-season performance, we determine a championship for each league on the court, and the ultimate winner gets to go all the way to March Madness, the kind on CBS. League t... [more] |
| S5 March 3, 2009 Bullet Points Here we go again: it's Championship Fortnight. Three leagues kick off with campus-site first rounds: the Horizon League, Ohio Valley, and Big South. There are 12 games on tap this evening. On Tap Tonight Big South Radford will begin its quest for its first championship since 19... [more] |
| 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 ... [more] |
| S5 February 27, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a relatively 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 ... [more] |
| S5 February 27, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Though nobody has time to read them anymore, and the economy's so bad that folks are burning them for heat, writers aren't really considered "writers" until there's a stack of dead tree scrapings covered with their scribblings available for general purchase. Especially since writing ... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 February 24, 2009 In honor of Fat Tuesday, here's Bally with a king cake on a recent Louisiana trip to Northwestern State. The plastic baby is usually hidden in the cake somewhere, and whomever gets the piece containing it is the king and has to buy the cake for the next party as proof of his (or her) ultimate Mardi... [more] |
| S5 February 24, 2009 LYNCHBURG, Va. -- In the late stages of a Sunday flight from Raleigh to Nashville, after the announcement about portable electronic devices, I did what most people in need of an info-fix do: page through the Sky Mall catalog. It's only in those 20 minutes at the end when full-size Lord of the Rings... [more] |
| S5 February 23, 2009 Slumdog Millionaire (a film we saw in Indianapolis hours after penning this paper plane), was easy enough to predict as a Best Picture winner, although others of these supposed lead-pipe locks would have lost you your mortgage money. And so it is with predicting the machinations of another academy. ... [more] |
| S5 February 23, 2009 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- BracketBusters VII is safely in the history books now. It was more fulfilling than a Dave & Buster's appetizer (six chips do not qualify as "nachos"), and fell somewhere between Buster the crash-test dummy and Buster Bluth on the entertainment scale. Longtime readers will r... [more] |
| S5 February 21, 2009 So here we are again, it's late February and it's time for Mid-Major Christmas... BracketBusters VII, brought to you locally by Flying J Travel Plazas and Ballito's Powdered Horchata. Here's a handy clip-n'-save list of all Saturday's televised games, with links to handy print-n'-collect Basketball ... [more] |
| S5 February 20, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a somewhat 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 th... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 February 19, 2009 MORAGA, Cal. -- I've come to avidly dislike "bracketology" in all its forms, I don't make any bones or excuses about that. I can't stand bubble watching or seed projecting. I respect Joe Lunardi for combining computer power and over-the-top braggadocio to single-handedly ignite a cottage industry, a... [more] |
| S5 February 18, 2009 SAN LUIS OBISPO, Cal. -- Morning really is a relative concept, isn't it? It's always morning somewhere, or 5 p.m., or the night time (a/k/a "the right time"). And it just might be Morning in America all over again, depending on what economic time zone you're in. I write this to you as the a.m. hours... [more] |
| S5 February 17, 2009 SAN JOSE -- Hundreds of votes have been counted, and Lester Hudson now has a nickname. (Figures it would be the one with the cool poem attached to it.) In this space, all future references to Tennessee-Martin's future NBA star will include "Done Ruthless," which is a fantastic anagram of his name, o... [more] |
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239. Mock Selection 2009 by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 13, 2009
Thursday, 1:05 PM -- I don't know what made me think this, but I went to the Hyatt Regency first and looked for anything that said "Mock Selection." There was an NCAA Life Skills conference on the second and third floor, so I asked somebody at the ballroom reception where it was. "Who are you, and ... [more]
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| S5 February 12, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a kinda-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... [more] |
| S5 February 12, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Well, here we are. Today is Mock Selection III, and I still have no idea what I did to deserve an invitation -- or why I've been listed as representing Basketball State all along. It's a real thrill, even though we've had to detour from our regularly scheduled travel and will be goin... [more] |
| S5 February 10, 2009 NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Tomorrow I'll drive the four hours back up to Little Rock, jump on a jetliner and return to the hub-and-spoke center of Hoops Nation, the city of Indianapolis. On Thursday at 1:30 p.m., I'll walk into the Hyatt Regency with 19 other journalists and engage in the third annual NC... [more] |
| S5 February 9, 2009 BATON ROUGE -- When the ax started falling in the SEC last month with midseason firings, the thought around here was that it was kinda cute. Four such severances in four years seemed like another indication that the pressures of BCS basketball were getting to be more in line with those of the pros, ... [more] |
| S5 February 6, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a gracefully-aging 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 o... [more] |
| S5 February 4, 2009 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- A bit late, but I just wanted to thank everybody who showed up for our first Mid-Majority chat last Friday. There were over 200 questions, just as many as my final chat over the MLK holiday at the other place. It blows my mind that so much of the regular audience found its way ove... [more] |
| S5 February 3, 2009 Northern Iowa at Bradley (Missouri Valley) Carver Arena - Peoria, IL 8:05 PM EST The Great Unknown is a scary thing, isn't it? We pattern-seeking creatures require some sort of assurance that future events will mirror the results we've already seen. Staring into the anti-void of endless possibilit... [more] |
| S5 February 3, 2009 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- BracketBusters pairings are out, and we're temporarily reunited with our own bed and desktop computer, so it's a good time for a game reset. Who am I? Why am I here? Seventy-five percent of what The Mid-Majority is about during the regular season is analysis. There are check-ins o... [more] |
| S5 February 3, 2009 As is annual tradition here at TMM, we've put together a full rundown of all 51 announced BracketBusters matchups, and this will likely be the most clicked-on page of the season once again. It's incredibly difficult to find a complete list of all the non-TV games, which are quietly announced by the ... [more] |
| 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... [more] |
| S5 January 31, 2009 Saint Mary's at Portland (West Coast) Chiles Center - Portland, OR Saturday, 9:00 PM EST Most of the games we feature on G!O!T!N! are the sorts of contests that feature interesting matchups or players, or tilts that will determine the direction of league races. But once or twice a season, there's ... [more] |
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