• 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: Holy Cross Crusaders
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S9 March 10, 2013 One of the things I've noticed about the games that I've been to this season that is many of them have not been very competitive. Part of this is simply the teams that I'm watching. While there have been a couple of exceptions, many of the teams that I'm watching are between two teams that are on op...
S9 March 2, 2013 "People always clap for the wrong things." - J.D. SalingerWEST POINT, N.Y. - It was the end of my high school soccer practice one day last fall when one of my players asked to talk to me after practice. If you've been around enough, you start to understand that "Can I talk to you?" usually has ...
S9 January 13, 2013 "Baseball is ninety percent mental, and the rest is physical." - Yogi BerraBETHLEHEM, Pa. - C.J. McCollum was not walking through the Stabler Arena door Saturday afternoon for Lehigh's Saturday afternoon Patriot League opener against Holy Cross.Well, yea, he did walk through the door. But he was on...
S9 December 9, 2012 Game #9-141: Holy Cross Crusaders at Hartford HawksDecember 1, 2012 7:00 pmThe Sports CenterBBState Stats/Recap I am 44, and I haven't held a baby in a long time. But Johan puts his youngest daughter in my arms after we've finished eating on Raymond Avenue so he can bring the car around. The calmest...
S9 December 7, 2012 Game #9-134: Holy Cross Crusaders at Sacred Heart PioneersDecember 5, 2012 7:00 pmWilliam Pitt CenterBBState Stats/Recap FAIRFIELD, Conn. - We all love it when a plan comes together. Everything just falls into place, and it's just magic from the beginning to the end. You all know that feeling, righ...
S9 November 15, 2012 Game #9-033: Maine Black Bears at Holy Cross CrusadersNovember 14, 2012 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/Recap WORCESTER, Mass. - Even though he went to a couple of prep schools and now plies his trade pretty darn close to the Terrestrial Middle of Nowhere, surely Maine sophomore Xavier Po...
S8 March 6, 2012 Game #8-705: Lafayette Leopards at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 29, 2012 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapThe 3-point game has changed everything, at every level, and it’s strictly a matter of taste whether you believe this is a good thing. I do not. I think the 3-point shot has disto...
S8 February 29, 2012 Game #8-646: Army Black Knights at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 22, 2012 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapEvery story needs a villain. It’s good to have someone to root against.As a fan below the red line, one of the great things about conference play is getting to know – and dislike ...
S8 February 24, 2012 Game #8-605: Bucknell Bison at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 18, 2012 4:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapLegacy leg·a·cy / leg-uh-see noun, plural -cies. 1. Law. a gift of property, especially personal property, as money, by will; a bequest. 2. anything handed down from the past, as from...
S8 February 22, 2012 Game #8-605: Bucknell Bison at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 18, 2012 4:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapIan and I came once again to the Hart Center in Worcester, Mass., on top of the hill where it always feels four or five degrees colder than the rest of the city. We walked past the st...
S8 February 12, 2012 Game #8-552: American Eagles at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 11, 2012 2:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapI am a Holy Cross graduate and a Worcester native. I have skipped all of my reunions. But I have attended games in the Hart Center since it opened in 1975 when I was seven. I come ba...
S8 February 12, 2012 Game #8-552: American Eagles at Holy Cross CrusadersFebruary 11, 2012 2:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapIn a very unpatriotic performance, the Holy Cross Crusaders were able to repel the American University forces and withstand a furious second half charge to emerge victorious 59-52.Th...
S8 January 22, 2012 Game #8-428: Lafayette Leopards at Holy Cross CrusadersJanuary 19, 2012 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapIf you could not make it to Worcester, Mass., for the Patriot League game between Lafayette and Holy Cross, if, say, you were in the hospital about to have your gall bladder remove...
S8 January 17, 2012 Game #8-391: Holy Cross Crusaders at American EaglesJanuary 14, 2012 2:00 pmBender ArenaBBState Stats/RecapIf you had made me guess which of my friends would have been most likely to join me for a game during the 800 Games Project, my died-in-the-wool Ohio State Buckeye fan of a co-worker probably w...
S8 January 14, 2012 Game #8-391: Holy Cross Crusaders at American EaglesJanuary 14, 2012 2:00 pmBender ArenaBBState Stats/RecapConference play has always been much more exciting for me than non-conference games. It always seems to me like the games mean so much more when January rolls around and, consequently, are much...
S8 January 8, 2012 Game #8-367: Lehigh Mountain Hawks at Holy Cross CrusadersJanuary 7, 2012 3:30 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapSeven nights after the city of Worcester put together a fantastic fireworks display from the roof of the downtown parking garage, the Holy Cross basketball team put on an explosi...
S8 December 23, 2011 Game #8-290: San Francisco Dons at Holy Cross CrusadersDecember 22, 2011 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapIf the 83 year old "Houdini of the Hardwood" has his hands on a smartphone, you can bet that around 9:30 Thursday night, he was texting old friend Bill Russell and poking fun at h...
S8 December 7, 2011 Game #8-196: New Hampshire Wildcats at Holy Cross CrusadersDecember 3, 2011 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapSports Illustrated’s Andy Glockner wrote a piece earlier this summer about Division I basketball's “unluckiest” team, Holy Cross. The crown of unluckiest was granted to the Cru...
S8 November 30, 2011 Game #8-158: Holy Cross Crusaders at Providence FriarsNovember 29, 2011 7:00 pmDunkin Donuts CenterBBState Stats/Recap“If you see charity, you see the Trinity.” - Augustine, De trinitate ('On the Trinity') VIII. 8. 12. If I were to use the word ‘overwhelming’ to describe my initial reaction to seein...
S8 November 28, 2011 Game #8-142: Hartford Hawks at Holy Cross CrusadersNovember 23, 2011 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapThanksgiving is an unusual part of the college calendar, which makes it an unusual part of the college basketball calendar. I suspect it’s similar elsewhere, but at a small liberal ar...
S8 November 19, 2011 Game #8-065: Boston College Eagles at Holy Cross CrusadersNovember 18, 2011 7:30 pmWorcester, MABBState Stats/Recap“God is like a spectator at a chariot race; He watches the action the charioteers perform, but this does not cause them.” - J.E. Watts on Boethius, Introduction to ‘De consolatio phil...
S8 November 17, 2011 Game #8-048: Harvard Crimson at Holy Cross CrusadersNovember 15, 2011 7:00 pmHart Recreation CenterBBState Stats/RecapCollege basketball fans expect change each season. Players arrive. Players leave. The competition experiences the same. The cast of heroes and villains will turnover completely every...
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...
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...
S7 March 11, 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 PointsThere were no ...
S7 March 3, 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 PointsIn Day Two...
S7 March 3, 2011 George Washington Colonials at Rhode Island RamsMarch 2, 2011 7:00 pmRyan CenterBBState Stats/Recap There's a bye on the line! Atlantic 14 tiebreakers and scoreboard-watching, another Senior Night (with the student section), A-14 Title R compliance, small amounts on giant checks, Jack Kvancz's ret...
S7 March 2, 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 PointsThe Big South ...
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...
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 ...
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......
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...
S6 March 4, 2010 Bullet Points Day 2 saw the first major upset of this year's conference tourneys, as Atlantic Sun No. 8 Kennesaw State beat No. 1 Lipscomb. Kurtis Woods hit a layup with 10.8 seconds left to seal a 72-69 win for the Owls. It was Kennesaw's first game as a postseason-eligible team, and the first No....
S6 February 22, 2010 Big Games Atlantic 14: at Duquesne 73, Dayton 71 DUQ - 15-12 (6-7) [RPI: 98, State: 118] UD - 18-8 (7-5) [RPI: 37, State: 48] Star of the Game: Eric Evans 14 Pts (6-9 FG, 2-2 FT) Dukes Down Dayton, 73-71 - Damian Saunders, who scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half, hit a driving layup w...
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 ...
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 Bullet Points American won its second consecutive Patriot League championship, and is on to the NCAA Tournament once again. Dayton and Xavier, the two higher seeds, went down in the Atlantic 14 semifinals; this sets up an improbable 4/7 matchup between Temple and Duquesne. Other semifinal w...
S5 March 13, 2009 Bullet Points One championship to be decided this afternoon: that of the Patriot League, which has been winnowing down its field verrrry slowly since Tuesday, March 3rd. The Atlantic 14, MEAC, MAC, Big West, Southland, SWAC and WAC are down to final fours as the last weekend of Championship Fo...
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 9, 2009 Bullet Points Northern Iowa has qualified for the NCAA Tournament by winning the Missouri Valley championship. Davidson was eliminated in the Southern Conference semifinals by the College of Charleston. After semifinal rounds yesterday, finals are set in seven leagues: the CAA (George Mason...
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 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 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...
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 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 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 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 ...
S5 February 12, 2009 Temple vs. Saint Joseph's (Atlantic 10) The Palestra - Philadelphia, PA 7:00 PM EST It's super-exciting in the grand old Atlantic 14 this week, no? Those who tuned into ESPN Classic last night looking for a rerun of the Cheap Seats Superdogs/Superjocks episode were treated to a thrilling ballgame ...
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...
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...
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...
S5 January 26, 2009 OMAHA -- You know what I don't understand? Hubris. How anybody could believe that they're the center of the universe, or better than everybody else, or the owner of unassailable opinion, has always been beyond my comprehension. Walking the world demands humility, and is full of reminders why our liv...
S5 January 22, 2009 EMMITSBURG, Md. -- They call them the blues because of blue notes, those tones hidden in between the in-between places there on the pristine straight streets of the music scale. Each one of us has had the blues at one time or another, stuck in the gutter, the ditch, the rut, been down soooo loonnngg...
S5 January 15, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- It is so cold, so unstoppably frigid, that the view outside the window is completely frozen in place like a badly composed painting: the skyline, the cars on the roads, the birds in the sky, the smokestack steam. All perfectly still. Also suspended in invisible amber is our weekly Ba...
S5 January 9, 2009 Lehigh at American (Patriot League) Bender Arena - Washington, DC Saturday, 2:00 PM EST Looking back at the first two months of our fifth season here at TMM, we've only referenced the Patriot League in passing, if at all. There are reasons for that; things have changed over the years. The Formerly...
S5 December 31, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a 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 Final F...
S5 November 5, 2008 Fifth in a series of nine daily essays leading up to the 2008-09 college basketball season. In case you haven't heard, our great nation recently concluded a long and protracted and polarizing popularity contest that decided, among other things, our heads of state and guiding ideologies for the fore...
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 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 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 27, 2008   American at Navy (Patriot League) Alumni Hall - Annapolis, MD 7:00 PM EST Perhaps it has something to do with the Presidential race or something, but the balance of power in the Patriot League has definitely tilted towards America's capitol region. The champions of recent years, Bucknell a...
S4 February 7, 2008 CLEVELAND -- There are a lot of subtle differences between higher-strata conferences and the leagues at our level. For instance, when a team in the ACC or Pac 10 is having a bad year, the media is still going to write about it, no matter what. The stories usually come with the angle of, "what's goin...
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 There's more than one Bally, and that's because we occasionally hold contests here and give away real-life versions of the cartoon buddy who goes everywhere with me on my travels. Like, for instance, our Hunan: Return Of The Phoenix movie treatment contest, which might be extended an extra day bec...
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 25, 2008   Quinnipiac at Sacred Heart (NEC) William Pitt Center - Fairfield, CT 4:05 PM EST There are a lot of great games this weekend, but precious few mindbendingly awesome ones that will set tones for weeks to come. We're going to be tracking the Cleveland State at Wisconsin-Milwaukee clash in th...
S4 January 24, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I never meant this to be Philosophy Week, and I apologize for all the thoughtful treatises on insignificance I've spilled recently. I'm going to blame it on jet lag, and leave it at that. I've made a key decision, and I post it here for you now primarily to point to it later once...
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 16, 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 January 14, 2008 CHARLESTON, S.C. -- It's Monday, which means no cutesy-cutesy, no how-do-ya-do, no warm-up act jokes. Nearly every one of the 245 teams in Hoops Nation played over the weekend, and we're totally committed to mention at least two percent of those. It's all basketball today. Drake. No leading score...
S4 January 11, 2008   Siena at Niagara (Metro Atlantic) Gallagher Center - Niagara University, NY 9:00 PM EST Playing most of its weekend games on Fridays instead of Saturdays has been a shrewd move for the MAAC -- there are more TV windows (ESPNUUUuuuuu!), and they get the good Big East refs who want to make a...
S4 January 8, 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 January 2, 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 January 2, 2008   Akron (Mid-American) at Dayton (Atlantic 10) U. of Dayton Arena - Dayton, OH 7:00 PM EST OK, remind me how to do this thing again. There's a premier spotlight game between mid-major schools, lots of exclamation points, and at least two exploratory paragraphs about key storylines and player...
S4 December 27, 2007 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 December 21, 2007   Holy Cross (Patriot) at Siena (Metro Atlantic) Times Union Center - Albany, NY 1:00 PM EST You may be able to find a more exciting, more meaningful or more televised contest this weekend. And bully for you if you do. This one's for the true hoops geeks, who love watching contrasting styles...
S4 December 18, 2007 And now, the last entry concerned with the second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. The 40th and final question was an essay question: What is your favorite mid-major NCAA Tournament memory, and where were you when it happened? We received 84 completed essays, and here are six of the best ones -...
S4 December 18, 2007 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 December 16, 2007 You usually meet the best people by accident, and often in the strangest places. I made the acquaintance of John Kuchar in a PayPal complaint box -- he had subscribed to Basketball State last month but some stray binaries kept his account from being activated. Once that was ironed out, he told me ab...
S4 December 11, 2007 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 December 5, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- First of all this morning, a big hello-and-thank-you to the 213 members of the Upset Club. We got you one (a result, surely, of all the Northern Illinois love from yesterday) or two last night, but those e-mail boxes should be lighting up soon with lots more Upset Alerts. Maybe ev...
S4 November 30, 2007   Hampton vs. Howard (MEAC) Madison Square Garden -- New York, NY (Big Apple Classic) 9:00 PM EST We figure you already know about the big mid-major vs. major games on Saturday's docket (Duke-Davidson in Charlotte, Indiana @ SIU, Michigan @ Harvard, Seton Hall @ Saint Mary's, Texas Tech @ Ce...
S4 November 27, 2007 I know, I know, I promised to do this last week. I didn't. I'm doing it now. Welcome to the first edition of The State Of The Other 22, a weekly look at the best and hottest mids in convenient top-ten form. There is no Week 1. The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses ...
S4 November 27, 2007 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The leftovers are already running out in your fridge, but they're always stocked up here at the Bread Restaurant. Personally, I recommend the cinnamon crunch bagel with hazelnut cream cheese, and perhaps a veggie grilled panini sandwich later. I'd better finish this Boubacar u...
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 19, 2007 In light of this great WaPo article about relative quality of hotels in the NCAA tournament's first weekend, might as well bring out the dist-o-meter again. How far from home did the committee send teams? (Distances are from campus to city center) (East 11) George Washington -- 2372 mi. to Sacramen...
S3 March 14, 2007 So what are the real upsets? When it comes to college sports, it's all about the Benjamins. Here, then, are the first round matchups with the participating schools' 2005-06 athletic budgets. "Differences" are based on the high seed's budget. As always, expense data from the Office of Postsecondary E...
S3 March 12, 2007 Bullet Points http://schools.basketballstate.com/TAMCC class=optn>Texas A&M-Corpus Christi won the Southland final, and Championship Fortnight has come to a close. It's Tournament Time! The Last Bracket All brackets on the Bracket City page have been replaced with the completed versions. ...
S3 March 11, 2007 Bullet Points Albany, Long Beach State, Miami (Oh.), Florida A&M, Jackson State and New Mexico State, welcome to the dance. All won their respective conference tournament championships, and are all super-great. LBSU is the only double-champion from Saturday, following up a regular-season title w...
S3 March 10, 2007 Bullet Points Holy Cross is back in the NCAA Tournament after beating Bucknell in the third consecutive Bison-Crusader title game. It's not a rivalry unless both teams get to win. Nevada was sent out of the WAC tourney with a freaky foul moment against Utah State. In other No. 4-over-1 action, Toled...
S3 March 9, 2007 Bullet Points Most action played according to seed yesterday, but there were a few upsets: Morgan State over South Carolina State in the MEAC's 4-5 game, and both low seeds won in the SWAC, including No. 6 Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Yeah, there were a couple of pretty surprising upsets too. Lamar knocked ...
S3 March 5, 2007 Bullet Points In Sunday's only championship game, Creighton beat Southern Illinois to win the Missouri Valley autobid. Cinderella 2: Electric Boogaloo... George Mason upset Old Dominion in the CAA semis out of the No. 6 seed. Siena upset Marist in a No.5-over-1 job in the Metro Atlantic semis, and S...
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 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 16, 2007 INDIANAPOLIS -- It's the eve of mid-majordom's national holiday, and for this fifth edition of the event we're getting the whole family involved. Yo dad, those repairs on the car can wait. There are 14 great televised mid-major matchups to watch! It's the perfect time to bring Junior onto the couc...
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 January 31, 2007 Here, then, are all the pairings for BracketBusters 2007. You can click on a matchup to learn more about the two teams and how they, well, match up. Albany at Boise State (TV) Appalachian State at Wichita State (TV) http://bbstate.com/games/66467>Austin Peay at Akron http://bbstate.com/games/664...
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 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 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 18, 2007 NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- It's a seasonably warm Thursday morning in Mid-Majorland, let's get right to it! Conference Shootaround! Colonial: Virginia Commonwealth stretched its CAA record to 7-0 (15-3 overall) at the expense of North Carolina-Wilmington on Wednesday, and The Dub stands for Woeful righ...
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 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 November 14, 2006 ROANOKE, Va. (en route to Charlotte) -- Hello again, friends, and welcome to your mid-major Pre-Hump Day. Before we get to yesterday's action, though, something's been bugging me. I was driving through Maryland this morning, and out of nowhere a beer ad jingle from the Eighties jumped from the dee...
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 March 10, 2006 One of the great clichés of Championship Week is that it's difficult to beat a team three times. And it's true that familiarity breeds a lot of game tape, but in today's only game featuring a black bid binder and net-cutting, it should be one of the easier trifectas to accomplish. Buckn...
S2 February 22, 2006 Short odds that there would be a game like this this late in the Patriot League season; you'd be right if you guessed that 12-0 Bucknell would be one of the participants, but traditional power Holy Cross' losses (three) means that the 'Saders could make this particular party. Nobody expected Lehigh ...
S2 January 2, 2006 Like a new day finally dawning, a sunburst of conference play breaks over Hoops Nation on January 2. We've got games in the SWAC, Valley, A-Sun, NEC and Mid-Con on tap. But we're going to focus our G!O!T!N! cameras on Boston tonight. The Colonial was a major disappointment in the 2005 portion of the...
S2 December 27, 2005 Grab your funny tricorner hat and your flute, we've got the Patriot League regular-season champions against the Patriots at the Patriot Center. Both teams have toiled in the shadows of preseason favorites early on (Bucknell and Old Dominion, respectively). But a convincing win here, against relative...
S2 December 20, 2005 When Morihei Ueshiba, a/k/a O Sensei, developed the martial art of aikido to neutralize and eliminate great size advantages. Using throws and locks and flowing movement, a little guy can use the energy of a larger opponent against himself and emerge victorious from a battle.Yesterday afternoon, the ...
S2 December 5, 2005 Some pictures from the first few weeks of the season. Harvard-Vermont handshake line (Game 101) Creepy close encounter with the Providence Friar (Game 102) Burlington, VT Catamount Country (Game 104) The Wolf Pack (Game 104) Bucknell's Sojka Pavilion (Game 105) Bison chair (Game 105) The Mi...
S2 December 5, 2005 Game 106: at Holy Cross 71, Fordham 63 (2OT) Sunday, December 4, 2005 Hart Center - Worcester, MA The first snowfall is like the first seasonal anything - the first skinned knee of the summer, the first sniffle of the autumn. There's a little bit of a shock, and then when it happens again you're ...
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 Delaware State Seed: 16 1st Round Opponent: Duke Record: 19-13 (17-4 Mid-Eastern) Big Nonconference Wins: A 71-56 win in November versus Jackson State (14-17, 10-9 SWAC) in Las Vegas will have to do. 100 Games Project Appearances: #29, #52 Key Players: You won't find a more unselfish crew in the ...
S1 March 14, 2005 MAC, Knifed: A lot of watercooler talk this morning is and will be centered around the Mid-American Conference, more specifically the lack of at-large teams from such. Even Dickie V, who was born on Exit 16W but made his coaching hay in the MAC's geographical sphere of influence, was all over the c...
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 13, 2005 T1. Southern Illinois, Missouri Valley (23-10, 13-7 MWC, 18 RPI) Chicago 7 T1. Nevada, Western Athletic (24-6, 16-3 WAC, 33) Chicago 9 3. Pacific, Big West (26-3, 19-1 BWC, 22) Albuquerque 8 4. Miami (Oh.), Mid-American (19-10, 13-7 MAC, 43) 5. St. Mary's, Western Athletic (25-8, 12-4 WCC, 30) Chica...
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 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 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 Game 070: at New Hampshire 76, Stony Brook 66 Sunday, February 28, 2005 Lundholm Gymnasium - Durham, NH On a cold and clear Senior Day just off the New Hampshire seacoast, the 100 Games Project entered the seventies. The 100GP tied Mark McGwire's single-season home run record, an aesthetically plea...
S1 March 2, 2005 Game 068: at Holy Cross 66, Army 49 Saturday, February 27, 2005 Hart Center - Worcester, MA Nothing lasts forever, and that certainly includes one's youth. Religions and tribes often mark a young person's passage out of the slow and careful rhythms of the salad days into jangled, unpredictable adul...
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 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 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 14, 2005 So it turns out that Hot Sh*t Saturday was a great success. Six games, all good. Thrillers, comebacks, overtime, great shooting, great defense... HSS had something for everyone. Let's review: Big West: Pacific 64, Utah State 63 (story) - With 31 seconds left, homestanding Utah State was leading 61-...
S1 February 7, 2005 When the final gun sounded at the Super Bowl yesterday, the city of Philadelphia was again spared the property-damaging bonfire a quarter-century in the making. While the majority of American sports fans will be spending the day mourning and mothballing their screen-printed replica jerseys, a few of...
S1 January 31, 2005 Mid-American: Miami (Oh.) 74, Akron 63 (story) - It was a bonus Shakedown Saturday game that happened to fall on Sunday. The RedHawks of Miami were up by 20 and had the game well in hand going into the final five minutes, but the zippy Zips zipped off an 18-1 run to cut the lead to four. In a rare g...
S1 January 26, 2005 Game 041: Pennsylvania 67, St. Joseph's 59 Tuesday, January 26, 2005 The Palestra - Philadelphia, PA Let me tell you, those 27-game road trips are the worst. It seems like I've been traveling forever, hopping from arena to arena on my silly little quest to see a hundred college basketball games bef...
S1 January 25, 2005 Missouri Valley: Wichita State 65, Northern Iowa 57 (story) - The Shockers went on an early game-breaker of a run, but UNI fought back to take the lead just after halftime. Big Paul Miller hit a shot to make it 31-30, and WSU never looked back. Wichita State (14-2, 7-1 MVC) takes a half-game lead ov...
S1 January 25, 2005 Game 040: at Holy Cross 80, American 56 Monday, January 24, 2005 Hart Center - Worcester, MA ...
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 Game 039: at Holy Cross 79, Navy 56 Friday, January 21, 2005 Hart Center - Worcester, MA Just a little over 98 years ago, Navy basketball was born. After a well-attended intramural scrimmage at the U.S. Naval Academy, played a mere decade and a half after the peach-basket birth of the sport, the lo...
S1 January 20, 2005 Game 037: at Northeastern 77, Boston University 75 Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Matthews Arena - Boston, MA Folks might think that when your humble narrator married The Official Wife Of The Mid-Majority™, it would have been a big hoops-themed ceremony - you know, with a wedding cake shaped lik...
S1 January 13, 2005 Game 031: at Lehigh 63, Lafayette 57 Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Stabler Arena - Bethlehem, PA February 14th, 2004 broke cold and clear in the slumbering burg of Easton, Pennsylvania, but the love in the Kirby Sports Center was powerful enough to warm the whole town. Lafayette's basketball team sat...
S1 January 9, 2005 West Coast: St. Mary's 66, UMPFN 61 (story) - Well, that didn't take long - now the folks who compile those goofy "mid-major polls" have to pick someone else. Homestanding St. Mary's used Mr. Three to take down the Unnamed Major Program From the Northwest, knocking down 16 of them. Senior guard Paul...
S1 January 8, 2005 West Coast: Loyola Marymount 68, San Francisco 65 (story) - It does indeed rain in Southern California - man, it pours. While the water came down outside Hank's House, two up-and-coming WCC teams played soggy ball in the first conference tilt for both. Both teams traded baskets and shot poorly, and ...
S1 January 4, 2005 Game 024: Boston University 72, at Albany 69 Sunday, January 2, 2005 Recreation and Convocation Center - Albany, New York When you play college hoops on your PlayStation or XBox, you have the option to enter something called "legacy mode." As you take the reins of a bottom-feeding school and try to...
S1 December 28, 2004 Iona 77, Rhode Island 62 (story) - URI has made two straight trips to the NIT, but their 1-7 start must be reminding fans of the bleak three seasons that constituted the post-Lamar Odom era. "Murphy's Rams" just can't seem to score points or catch a break this year. In addition to losing 23 points p...
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 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 17, 2004 No recap-worthy games or newsworthy news in the college hoops world on Thursday, so we're really "faking the funk" today. In August 2003, the Connecticut Post printed a story based on an anonymous letter that charged that Fairfield's basketball program was a cesspool of cash, third-party schoolwork...
S1 December 11, 2004 Cal State Fullerton 70, Eastern Washington 68 (OT) (story) - Fullerton, an afterthought in the Big West, was leading by as many as 18 in the second half. But the defending Big Sky champion Eagles narrowed the gap in a free throw festival down the stretch, and forced overtime when EWU's Marc Axton wa...
S1 December 10, 2004 Massachusetts 61, Connecticut 59 (story) - There were "Fire Lappas" T-shirts here in Philly too, back when Steve coached Villanova... but the folks in Amherst can put theirs in the closet for a while. Last night saw the best thing to happen to UMass since the Pixies reunion - a squeak win over the d...
S1 December 6, 2004 Metro Atlantic: Loyola (Md.) 97, Niagara 89 (story) - Bottom beat top in the MAAC. Shane James, a member of the Canadian junior national team, went 9-for-9 to lead Loyola, who outshot the Purple Eagles 55%-39% and scored 37 of their points on 58 free throws. Despite the fact that Niagara's bruising ...
S1 November 22, 2004 OK, so there are the headline upsets of this past weekend, like Santa Clara over North Carolina and Virginia over Arizona. But here are some other first-weekend results that stick out from the thicket. Long Island over Lehigh, 66-56 (story) - Patriot League defending champs give Penn State a game o...
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 9, 2004 One Sunday afternoon in early February, I found myself sitting in a cold, half-empty gymnasium in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. I was watching Rider and Loyola - two of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference's perennial doormats - fall all over each other. It was halftime, and the two squads had barely...
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