#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: Illinois-Chicago Flames
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S9 March 10, 2013 This was a very entertaining game, much more entertaining than last year's 4-5 game. In fact both quarterfinal games this year were much more exciting than last year.For the 2nd year in a row, the 5 seed has more fan support than the 4 seed. UIC brought a healthy contingent of students along with t...
S9 February 17, 2013 "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat." - Ralph EllisonCHICAGO - No one likes to cede control. Think of a facet of your life, maybe the place you work, or even something you're going to do today. Control is paramount to your s...
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...
S8 February 15, 2012 Game #8-571: Illinois-Chicago Flames at Loyola (Ill.) RamblersFebruary 11, 2012 2:00 pmJoseph Gentile CenterBBState Stats/RecapOn Thursday, three days before the Loyola-UIC Crosstown Classic, Brian Sisson, the Loyola University Ticket Manager, called me at work and asked me how my new seats were tre...
S8 January 6, 2012 Game #8-348: Illinois-Chicago Flames at Cleveland State VikingsJanuary 5, 2012 7:00 pmH. J. Goodman ArenaBBState Stats/RecapIn as much as change is a constant variable in most every facet of society, the Greater Cleveland area has found a way to defy the odds and remain impervious to what may be ben...
S8 December 27, 2011 Game #8-298: Illinois-Chicago Flames at Dayton FlyersDecember 23, 2011 7:00 pmU. of Dayton ArenaBBState Stats/Recap‘Twas the game before Christmas and through UD Arena,12,000 people were cackling, like laughing hyenas. The fans were decked in their blue and their red, Excited for a victory that la...
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 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 March 1, 2011 Bullet Points The calendar says March 1. Repeat: March 1. Elimination games begin this evening on the first day of Championship Fortnight. For the fourth straight year, we will be providing daily updates to the tourney brackets, an avalanche of Basketball State information, and links to resources fr...
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 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 ...
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 ?????, ?.?. -- 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...
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...
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...
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...
S7 January 8, 2011 Detroit Titans at Illinois-Chicago FlamesJanuary 8, 2011 2:00 pmUIC PavillionBBState Stats/Recap The five-game, four-day, three-city Horizon League tour continued with a Chicagoland doubleheader. First up, it was a trip to the Near West to see Detroit go up against UIC. At UIC Pavilion, you ca...
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...
S7 November 20, 2010 Rhode Island Rams vs. Charleston CougarsNovember 19, 2010 4:30 pmToledo, OHBBState Stats/Recap Illinois-Chicago Flames at Toledo RocketsNovember 19, 2010 7:00 pmJohn F. Savage HallBBState Stats/Recap On Thursday night, the Universities of Pittsburgh and Maryland were at Madison Square Garden in Ne...
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...
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...
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 7, 2009 Bullet Points Cornell became the first school to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament. For the second straight year, the Big Red claimed the Ivy League title, beating Penn 83-59. The upsets began in earnest on Friday. Ohio Valley No. 4 Morehead State took out No. 1 Tennessee-Martin. CAA No....
S5 March 6, 2009 Bullet Points Four-time Atlantic Sun champion Belmont barely escaped Mercer, and Big South top seed Radford fought off a strong challenge from No. 4 UNC Asheville in that league's semifinals. The Big South final on Saturday is set: VMI at Radford. The three top seeds in the Northeast Confer...
S5 March 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 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...
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 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 ...
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 ...
S5 December 31, 2008 LOGAN, Utah -- It's the final day of the year, the end of the holidays, and a bad day to buy a calendar (they'll be 50 percent off tomorrow). Here in college basketball world, the ringing out of the old has more to do with crossing the bridge between nonconference and league play -- happily so -- an...
S5 December 19, 2008 Illinois-Chicago at Illinois State Redbird Arena - Normal, IL 8:05 PM EST Here's a very interesting tilt between two Illinois programs who have been dormant in recent years, but are having breakout seasons heading into play in their respective conferences. If the NCAA field ends up being littered ...
S5 December 17, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S5 December 15, 2008 CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Let's get this out of the way first: the Atlantic 14 owned this weekend. Pwned it. The A-14 was in yr weekend, steelin yr basketballz. This conference put such a stamp on the last two days that the second weekend in December should be a three-day hoops holiday, by proclamation of...
S5 December 4, 2008 KANSAS CITY -- Later today, I'll be posting the first version of the State of the Other 22, the mid-major (and A-14) subset of the complicated ratings system I put together last year (with the help of some great coaches who helped define the important ingredients) on the Basketball State site. The r...
S5 November 14, 2008 PEORIA, Ill. -- Remember back when you were a kid, it was a hot summer day out in your backyard... you had your 1980's NBA-style short-shorts on with no shirt, just hanging out in the grass your daddy just mowed fresh that morning. Not a care in the world. Then you got really thirsty, and you were t...
S4 March 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 9, 2008 Bullet Points Three autobids were given out yesterday. All hail mighty Winthrop of the Big South, Austin Peay of the Ohio Valley Conference, and the Atlantic Sun's Belmont. All are off to the Big Dance! One final today -- the championship of the Missouri Valley Conference. Drake and Illinois State...
S4 March 8, 2008 Bullet Points Today, three autobids to the NCAA Tournament will be awarded! The Big South, Ohio Valley and Atlantic Sun will crown champions. The No. 6 was a lucky number yesterday -- surprising Tennessee State moved to the finals of the OVC, Northern Iowa upset No. 3 Southern Illinois in the MVC, ...
S4 March 7, 2008 Bullet Points There was an upset in the Atlantic Sun quarters, as No. 6 Gardner-Webb routed No. 3 Stetson. The Big South final is set: UNC Asheville and Winthrop, the league's top two seeds. The game will be played Saturday. In the MVC first round, No. 8 Indiana State and No. 7 Missouri State adva...
S4 March 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 March 4, 2008 Bullet Points Championship Week, which is technically 13 days long, begins tonight. You can call it Championship Fortnight if you prefer. The OVC and Big South will hold campus-site quarterfinals, while the Horizon League will stage four low-seed qualifiers for this weekend's rounds at regular-seas...
S4 February 12, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- We'll get to all the Bally ephemera tomorrow, promise, but we're mulling over the BracketBusters TV announcement from yesterday. We wanted to share it with you if you didn't get the memo or are on the wrong mailing list. So here, then, is the final lineup for Mid-Majorpalooza 2008...
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 December 17, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN, Oh. -- It takes me so long to write these Boubacar intros, you can't even imagine. The pressure to write something clever and erudite is just... so immense. Usually takes about an hour just to have an idea, and that's after banging my forehead on the table until something figuraliterally...
S4 December 15, 2007 Thanks to the 168(!) people who played along with our second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. That's so many people, they'd have to hold this class in one of those auditoriums where the professor doesn't know you from Samuel Haanpaa, where you have to spend five minutes of your six-minutes durin...
S4 November 13, 2007 But, how do we SAY "Boubacar"... is it "BOW buh car", "Boo buh car", or something else?? If we're going to properly use this in the future, we need to know.... Rod, Asheville NC COLUMBUS, Oh. -- "Boubacar," as I've heard it on TV, is "BOO-buh-car." It's a highly exalted name of West African origi...
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 3, 2007 Bullet Points In the first real shocker of Championship Fortnight, Appalachian State was upset by College of Charleston in the SoCon semifinals. Four leagues crown champions today on the ESPN family of networks. The Big South, Ohio Valley, SoCon and Atlantic Sun seasons will conclude with autobids b...
S3 March 2, 2007 Bullet Points No. 6 seed Virginia Military Institute has advanced to the Big South final after defeating the tourney's Nos. 2 and 3 seeds. Furman, the No. 5 seed in the SoCon, advanced to the semifinals by defeating No. 4#North Carolina-Greensboro. The Atlantic Sun quarterfinals played according to ...
S3 February 28, 2007 Bullet Points Two defending champions were eliminated: Wisconsin-Milwaukee of the Horizon League and Murray State of the OVC. Two upsets in the Big South: the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds, Liberty and Coastal Carolina, fell at home in the quarterfinals. A minor upset in the Ohio Valley quarters, as Samford...
S3 February 27, 2007 Bullet Points Today is the first day of Championship Fortnight, with three leagues getting under way with elimination games. The Big South and Ohio Valley kick off with campus-site quarterfinals, and the Horizon League begins with a three-game first round. Brackets The intriguing thing in the Big...
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 8, 2007 ARLINGTON, Tex. -- It's true what they say, everything's bigger in Texas. The hats, the Cadillacs, the stars at night, people's butts, the food. I went into a convenience store this morning and saw an 84-ounce fountain soda for sale, I couldn't even get my hand around it much less fit it in a cuphol...
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 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 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 4, 2007 HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Just a reminder: make sure you get in on the action as The Mid-Majority expands its feature list in 2007 in return for warm, soft cash. We're halfway to unlocking mobile boxscores, a quarter of the way towards the team mileage maps, and we've also a chunk into the Tournament Geni...
S3 December 28, 2006 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- If you're a native New Yorker, or just someone who lives in a town with a Tribune-owned television station, you probably know about the Yule Log. It's that close-up shot of a fireplace that goes on for a commercial-free two hours and plays Christmas music. I've loved The Log for y...
S1 March 16, 2005 Fairleigh Dickinson Seed: 16 1st Round Opponent: Illinois Record: 20-12 (16-5 Northeast Conference) Big Nonconference Wins: December 9 at eventual MAAC two-seed Rider (76-74) 100 Games Project Appearances: #65 Key Players: Big Gordon Klaiber and little Tamien Trent are the inside-outside mechanism ...
S1 March 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 3, 2005 Mid-American: Miami (Oh.) 70, Kent State 45 (story) - Total domination. The RedHawks (18-8, 12-5 MAC) sent a message to the rest of the league, and to the Selection Committee as well, saying that they'd sure like to be invited to that Dance thingy if there's room on the list. But they didn't ask nic...
S1 February 28, 2005 Mid-American: Bowling Green 57, Miami (Oh.) 56 (story) - Despite the fact that the game's telecast was cancelled after an hour's delay because BGSU's Mawel Soler shattered a backboard during pregame warmups, Falcon senior forward Josh Almanson's jumper with six seconds remaining was a shot heard 'ro...
S1 February 4, 2005 Western Athletic: Tulsa 65, Texas-El Paso 54 (story) - The Golden Hurricane (5-14, 2-8 WAC), playing for nothing but pride, had this one in hand early on, leading by as many as 17 in the first half. UTEP made their run, but the knife-twist was delivered with two minutes to go and Tulsa leading 56-53...
S1 February 2, 2005 Game 047: at Pennsylvania 83, Brown 60 Saturday, January 29, 2005 The Palestra - Philadelphia, PA When stripped to its essence, the object of our game is to score more points than the opposition. When the contest is over, the point totals of the two competing teams are compared, then the officials ...
S1 February 1, 2005 Southern: Davidson 67, Chattanooga 53 (story) - Davidson built a fourteen-point lead going into halftime, and both teams treaded water for the second half. Despite outrebounding their hosts, the Mocs shot themselves in the foot by shooting just 30% from the floor. Davidson (14-7, 10-0 SoCon) tighten...
S1 January 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 November 23, 2004 So if you're not following the controversy over the checkered college career of Wal-Mart heiress and Missouri basketball arena namesake Paige Laurie, or are just having trouble figuring out why her accuser is coming forward years after the fact, here's about getting you up to speed. OK, so there's ...
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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