• 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

Tag: Mid-Eastern
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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 ...
S5 March 16, 2009 Aside from reality show winners and one-hit wonders, nothing is forgotten quite as quickly as Championship Fortnight when the NCAA Tournament brackets are released. Some of the teams we've been following all season are destined for great and lasting glory, which will be fulfilled and certified once ...
S5 March 16, 2009 Bullet Points Stephen F. Austin punched Hoops Nation's final NCAA Tournament ticket Sunday afternoon, its first appearance ever. Championship Fortnight is over, and the national postseason is just ahead. Completed brackets and scores for all 23 TMM leagues are included below. Southland Texas...
S5 March 15, 2009 Bullet Points Seven championships were awarded on Saturday. Binghamton won its first-ever America East title; Morgan State is in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever out of the MEAC. Temple repeated as Atlantic 14 champions; Akron is on the Big Bracket for the first time since 1986. Alabam...
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 12, 2009 Bullet Points Two more titlists after last night's action. Portland State defended its Big Sky title, and Robert Morris will return to the NCAA Tournament out of the Northeast Conference. The Southland Conference begins today with quarterfinals in Katy, Tex.. It's the last of our 23 conference...
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...
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...
S5 March 9, 2009 HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- Our year is a blur of quick-cut transitions: from total silence to Midnight Madness, pre-season to regular season, games outside conferences to games inside parentheses. Standings grids give way to brackets, and before you know it, campaigns are cut short in early elimination ro...
S5 March 8, 2009 With the end of the regular season today, all conference tournament brackets on our side of the Red Line have been finalized. After the jump, opening brackets for the second week of Championship Fortnight: the MEAC, SWAC, Mid-American, Big West, Atlantic 14, WAC and Southland. Atlantic 12 Begins We...
S5 March 3, 2009 HOUSTON -- Think of it this way: this is the only time when team rankings are based in reality. It's all posturing and conjecture in November, it's a popularity contest every Monday afternoon, and it's not necessary to hash over the imperfection of a convoluted process that will take place in downto...
S5 March 2, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Every day we get just a little more physically vulnerable, every day another step closer to the inevitable finish line of life. The positive trade-off is that whether we've cheated the reaper by strengthening our bodies or not, our minds are always increasing in power. Every day, we ...
S5 February 26, 2009 ATHENS, Ohio -- As was noted in this kind piece by the newspaper I spent my college career wishing I could work for, next week marks the beginning of what we're really here for, what this is really all about. The conference tourneys mark the third of the four seasons within a season in college baske...
S5 February 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 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...
S5 February 14, 2009 Quinnipiac at Robert Morris (Northeast) Charles L. Sewall Center - Moon Township, PA Saturday, 7:00 PM EST The Northeast Conference has always been a favorite, and it's one of the key collectives that deepened my love for mid-major college basketball. Big metropolitan areas, tiny schools, and high...
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 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 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, ...
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 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 February 2, 2009 CHICAGO -- So much of modern life is blocking, filtering, limiting. There is so much information coming at us every day that we must become fighters of information, lest it overwhelm and submerge us completely. We battle back with fast-forward buttons, delete keys, spam-guards, RSS newsreaders, trus...
S5 January 28, 2009 Silver Jews - "People" CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- Since 2004, I've gone through a lot of different bags, pens, cell phones, cameras, iPods and Moleskines. The only item that I currently carry around the country that came with me on trips four years ago is a taped-together copy of "Actual Air" by poet and...
S5 January 27, 2009 OMAHA -- It's been half a forever since we gave away a Bally. It's mostly due to a backorder situation, something that will be rectified when we head home for a couple of days next week. There are two people out there still waiting on their orange globular friends, and those will be forthcoming. Sor...
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 20, 2009 WASHINGTON -- In the next several days, you're likely to read many accounts of these days by special columnists (even some sportswriters) who have spent the last few days being whisked from inaugural ball to celebrity gala, who've worn tuxedos to fine restaurants and will sit in special boxes watchi...
S5 January 19, 2009 Jackson State at Prairie View A&M (SWAC) Baby Dome - Prairie View, TX 8:30 PM EST Last Monday was Laundry Day, the regular weekly laundromat trip an endless road trip like this requires. I stopped off at a faded old strip-mall laundromat in Gastonia, N.C., just west of Charlotte, before drivin...
S5 January 8, 2009 BIRMINGHAM -- Normally in this space, I'll meander on about some philosophical thing or some other non-basketball topic, and then field a pile of back-channel comments about what a horrible job I'm doing and how I should just give up. This is exciting for me, because I get to play out this daily scr...
S5 January 7, 2009 ATLANTA -- One of the upsides to spending so much time in basketball arenas is that my connection to popular music remains simple, true and direct. In this atmosphere, with athletic competition on the floor and fans demanding two hours' worth of entertainment, organized payola can't find purchase. I...
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 GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Just a reminder that there's a chat today at 4 pm over at ESPN, so come on by. Mediocrity is a touchy subject around here, generally because the word mediocre shares the same Latin root as mid-major, which confuses people into thinking that basketball at our level is just, you kn...
S5 December 16, 2008 CLEMSON, S.C. -- It's Tuesday, which means that we give away a Bally. Last week's question was an intermediate-level brain buster that a lot of people got right: name a team that lost twice to a conference regular-seaosn champion in January and/or February, then took its revenge at the conference to...
S5 December 11, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Not to get all Good N' Plenty on you, but I am at home for the first day in 17, the last day I'll be home for 56. I've severely cut down on a lot of the deeply personal oversharing from previous years, which has resulted in a sharp and welcome decline in the number of creepy lette...
S5 December 10, 2008 BALTIMORE -- Last Thursday, I saw my first conference tilt of the year. It was at the Truman-era art deco palace known as Memorial Auditorium, one of my favorite places to see a game, and the Badlands Conference clash featured the homestanding UMKC Kangaroos hosting the Oakland Super Golden Crisp Gr...
S5 December 9, 2008 LEXINGTON, Va. -- I think we can chalk up the weekend voting on the Ultimate Project contest an unqualified, unmitigated disaster. There were more complaints about the voting mechanism (clicking through either brought up a "please log in" screen or a full-screen ad to start your own poll) than actua...
S5 November 17, 2008 Maryland-Baltimore County at Morgan StateHill Field House - Baltimore, MD7:00 PM EST The Beltway area enjoyed a mid-major hoops renaissance last season. UMBC won the America East for the first time ever, American claimed the Patriot League title after years of being defined by its runner-up finish...
S4 March 19, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S4 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 16, 2008 Bullet Points The autobid picture is nearly complete, as seven champions were named on Saturday. Kent State and UMBC followed up their regular-season trophies with tourney rings, in the MAC and America East respectively. In a low-seed shocker, No. 7 Coppin State upset No. 1 Morgan State in the MEA...
S4 March 15, 2008 Bullet Points Bow down before the altar of American, poxy fules. The Eagles are going dancing out of the Patriot League for the first time in school history. Today will see the crowning glory in seven conferences. The America East, Atlantic 14, MAC, SWAC, MEAC, WAC and Big West will all have champi...
S4 March 14, 2008 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- It's fitting that we're here in Jersey -- just as there were 86 episodes of The Sopranos, there were exactly that many daily weekday posts this year. This right here is the final edition of the season -- this 86th Boubacar, too, was "Made in America." Not that this is the end...
S4 March 14, 2008 Bullet Points No autobids given out on Thursday, but high seeds fell like falling things. Texas-Arlington showed No. 2 Lamar the door in the Southland quarterfinals. In the Atlantic 14, No. 6 Charlotte defeated No. 3 UMass, and there was a six-over-three in the SWAC, as Arkansas-Pine Bluff dumped A...
S4 March 13, 2008 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- I don't know if I'm ripping the cover off some secret clandestine something, or exposing some horrible underbelly of The Business here. But one of the best things about Championship Fortnight is the media gifts. Yes, many conferences bestow presents upon us ink- and pixel-sta...
S4 March 13, 2008 Bullet Points Make way on the big bracket for two more mid-major champions: Mount Saint Mary's, surprise winners of the NEC out of a No. 4 seed, and Portland State, double-champions of the Big Sky. There were three exciting finishes in the Atlantic 14, with La Salle, Dayton and Charlotte pulling ou...
S4 March 12, 2008 Bullet Points Three more automatic bids were awarded last night. Full 100 percent congratulations to Butler, double-champions of the Horizon League, as well as Oral Roberts, three-time titlists of the Mid-Con cum Summit cum Badlands Conference. Western Kentucky is back in the Dance from the Sun B...
S4 March 11, 2008 Bullet Points Scissors and ladders were indeed used last night, as four mid-major champions ascended to thrones. Davidson streaked to a third consecutive title in the SoCon, George Mason survived the Colonial tourney, Siena is the double-champ in the MAAC, and San Diego stole the WCC title from Gon...
S4 March 9, 2008 With the end of the regular season today, all conference tournament brackets in the mid-major (and A-14) domain have been finalized. After the jump, opening brackets for this week's events: the MEAC, SWAC, Mid-American, Big West, Atlantic 14, WAC and Southland. Mid-Eastern Begins Tuesday in Raleig...
S4 March 5, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S4 March 3, 2008   North Carolina A&T at Hampton (MEAC) Convocation Center - Hampton, VA 8:00 PM EST Morgan State has pretty much run away with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference race, clinching the No. 1 seed last week and winning a 39-36 American-style football game at defending regular-season titlist...
S4 February 28, 2008 The picture above is not of our travelin' hoops buddy. This is Bally's distant cousin Orangey, who retired to Fort Myers a few years back, let himself go, and took a job at a tourist-trap fruit stand near the Minnesota Twins' spring-training camp. What a sell-out. Here are some other snapshots of ...
S4 February 26, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S4 February 26, 2008 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- We're all just getting over the thrills of BracketBuster weekend, but there's plenty to get to as the regular season winds down to its electrifying conclusion. Just 19 days until Selection Sunday... Saint Mary's. In last night's G!O!T!N!, the Gaels proved that yes, they can ...
S4 February 19, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F...
S4 February 19, 2008 DELAND, Fla. -- Last night on press row at Florida A&M in Tallahassee, my inbox full of nasty notes from Penn fans (more about that later on), I was reminded once again about the key differences between Ivy League and MEAC basketball. And there are differences, even though both conferences would...
S4 February 18, 2008 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Plenty of folks have the day off for the holiday today, but we have a patriotic duty to provide you with a Supersized Boubacar that takes into account all the action from the weekend that was. We'll get to that in a second, but I wanted to share with you my most recent fantastic...
S4 February 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 4, 2008 MEADVILLE, Pa. -- It's a lot of effort trying to live a life free of American-style football, the lengths you have to go to in order to pretend it doesn't exist. It's come to this, it really has, and I can't believe it myself. But I made it through the night, Hoops Nation. I'm shacked out in a litt...
S4 January 29, 2008 HOUSTON -- It's only of those slow post-Monday Tuesdays here in Hoops Nation, a perfect opportunity to get some site housekeeping done. We have one contest in search of a winner, for those of you with long memories... the Badlands Conference logo contest from earlier this month. We'll anoint the cha...
S4 January 28, 2008   Morgan State at Hampton (MEAC) Convocation Center - Hampton, VA 8:00 PM EST Tonight, we have a real treat, a Chesapeake Bay battle at the top of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Representing Virginia is Hampton, the hottest team in the conference at 6-0, winners of six straight. In the...
S4 January 25, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I tried to make it simple, I tried to offer the sound-bite answer. I tried to simplify things on the far side of complexity, because 'tis a gift to be simple. But I attempted to shave with Occam's razor, but ended up having to wear a small piece of toilet paper, attached with spit...
S4 January 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 22, 2008 SAN JOSE -- We were too busy putting the weekend's results into a semi-digestible package, as is Monday tradition, so we're hopelessly late on the latest big coaching news from the WCC. If you haven't heard already, Vance Walberg "resigned" suddenly on Jan. 18. Since then, more of the story's come o...
S4 January 21, 2008 It's never going to end. We might try to fight it, we may try to ignore it, but every year it's going to come back. I'm talking, of course, about the endless debate of what a "mid-major" is and what one isn't. Within the past few weeks, we've had weigh-ins here, here, here and on countless blogs. W...
S4 January 21, 2008   North Carolina A&T at Delaware State (MEAC) Memorial Hall - Dover, DE 7:30 PM EST The news channels say that this is a day for "remembering" and "celebrating" the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. which has always struck me as a superficial invitation that may or may not include par...
S4 January 18, 2008 RENO, Nev. -- I'm sorry, what was that? This post is late somehow, not nearly early enough, making me tardy, irresponsible, untrustworthy? Well, from where I'm sitting, it's still morning, all bright and bushy-tailed like a Tahoe snow-bunny. TMM Mobile HQ is on Pacific time, b#%*&s! Sure, inte...
S4 January 15, 2008 ROCK HILL, S.C. -- Tuesdays are generally going to be a bit slow around here during conference season. For all its presupposed "Big"-ness, Mondays are nearly as slight as Fridays schedule-wise, with only the MEAC, SWAC and a few WCC and SoCon games reporting. So that gives us here at The Mid-Majorit...
S4 January 14, 2008   Morgan State at Norfolk State Echols Arena - Norfolk, VA 9:00 PM EST Just another MEAC Monday. There are four remaining 2-0 teams in the conference, and two of them will be on display for your enjoyment if you're a member of the tight-knit family of ESPNU subscribers. It's part of the netw...
S4 December 27, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Hey y'all, hope you had a great holiday. We sure did here at the version of TMM Mobile HQ that has its own basement. And with the lack of actual games these past three days, we also have the chance to catch our breaths and look at a few off-court stories in Hoops Nation lately. ...
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 11, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Folks sometimes come up and ask me how they can get started with their very own mid-major college basketball blog. "Read mine all the way through, then do it better," I tell them. "Put me out of business, so I can go back to what I really love... 18-hour days of cross-checking my ...
S4 December 7, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It's taken a week, but I believe we have all the entries in our Pop Loser contest, most of which took as much time as media mail to arrive because of e-mail clog on this end. And of our 22 entries, I had to eliminate 15 of them. The point was not to point out an instance of refere...
S4 December 3, 2007 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The "e" in e-mail was supposed to stand for "emproved" and "enstant." It was designed to be better than regular mail, because it would arrive there the second you sent it and you can feel confident enough in the system that every e-mail will be properly received. Sure, you can't ...
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 28, 2007 NORFOLK, Va. -- Sorry about the late post today. Full story later on, but in most of Southern Virginia, the internet is something to catch bass with. Not a slight against those good people, mind you, I'd trade it all in for a life in a place like Skippers. Life down there brought to mind a modern to...
S4 November 26, 2007 BOONE, N.C. -- The problem with taking the holiday off from posting is that things happen, build up, force a gigantic Monday post. Here, then, is your long weekend in mid-major land. Saturday, November 24, 2007. After the pitch-blah of Black Friday came a sunburst of brightness, as hungry mids ove...
S4 November 21, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- This season's been real warpy in terms of time... early start on the 5th, and now we're staring down Thanksgiving. The Official Wife™ and I are on the way out to go grocery-shopping for what used to be Unturkey day around here (Why, damn you, WHY!?!?!?) but I said, "Not yet,...
S4 November 12, 2007 COLUMBUS, Oh. -- Daily roundups have been a Mid-Majority staple over the past three-plus years. They were known as "Daily Dribblings" during the first season, weren't given titles in Year Two -- an open pander to the surrealist Samuel Beckett fans who make up a good portion of my audience. Finally, ...
S4 November 9, 2007 Once upon a time there was a tiny little cell, one among a million billion, sloshing and sliding inside a gigantic and vibrant and heaving body. The tiny little cell did its tiny little job as well as it tiny little could, and during its time off it had fun bouncing around with other tiny little lik...
S4 November 2, 2007 There's an annual event -- if that's a phrase suitable and grey enough to describe something that doesn't cut it as a tradition -- here in our household. Every year around this time, the satellite television company beams in a solid week of unlimited American professional basketball in a free previe...
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 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 8, 2007 Bullet Points Central Connecticut State from the NEC is going dancing, and so is Weber State of the Big Sky. Both are double champions of their respective leagues, and both just plain rock. No autobids tonight. Deep breath... No surprises in the MAC quarters, or the SWAC and MEAC early rounds, but ...
S3 March 7, 2007 Bullet Points Wright State are double-champions of the Horizon League, having beaten a Butler team that's been all up in the national grill this season. Do you take the Raiders seriously yet? Oral Roberts, repeat double champions of the mighty mighty Mid-Con, and North Texas has claimed the champion...
S3 March 6, 2007 Bullet Points Three championships were settled yesterday. All hail Virginia Commonwealth, double champions of the grand old Colonial, who held off a pesky George Mason team. And congratulations to Niagara, which beat Siena to claim the MAAC tournament championship. Oh yeah, andUnnamed Major Program ...
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 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 20, 2007 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- We all love BracketBusters, and there's no denying that the event had a gigantic impact on the college basketball-o-sphere over the weekend. Southern Illinois was able to make a big road statement in a showcase game (a win at Butler that would have been 44-41 without all the fr...
S3 February 14, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I've been talking to folks around the country these past few days, and have had a really hard time convincing them that the Northeast is where it's at. It's not all Friends and the Hamptons and day trips to Times Square... you pay for all that glamour with high gas prices, frost h...
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 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 23, 2007 COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Over the past 20 days or so, the vast majority of my incoming hoops-related mail (and Friday chat questions) have had to do with the mid-major conference selections that I submitted to the Worldwide Leader the other week. It's great that they get people talking about mid-majors ...
S3 January 22, 2007 CULLOWHEE, N.C. -- Lots to get to today, just like every Monday. And if you haven't signed up to play Bally's BracketBusters Racket yet, you have a lot more to get to than I do. Roll the HTML! The Big Games! at Virginia Commonwealth 80, Old Dominion 75 (Colonial) (box) -- The VCU Rams are the only...
S3 January 16, 2007 NEW ORLEANS -- We discussed this a little yesterday, but there's a growing drumbeat sounding across Hoops Nation; thunder in the distance, if you will. I'm talking, of course, about the potential fall from grace by the sore thumb in our midst, the eternal oddball, the one voted Most Likely To Succee...
S3 January 15, 2007 LORMAN, Miss. -- BracketBusters season starts in just under two weeks, and that's why we here at the Mid-Majority have put together this little map, so you can start scouting out the home teams (orange) and away teams (grey) and dream about matchups leading into the pairing announcement on Jan. 28. ...
S3 January 9, 2007 NASHVILLE -- I guess it's basic human nature that we try to build fences and walls, to divide the included from the excluded, to protect what's inside from what's outside. There's nothing worse than the idea that the world doesn't make sense -- that's the fundamental building block of organized reli...
S3 January 8, 2007 JACKSON, Miss. -- Mondays from here on out will be busy times as we continue to track all the hot hot conference action, so let's all take a deep breath and let's get to it. Conference Shootaround! Missouri Valley: Yesterday in lovely Springfield, Missouri State broke both an eight-game losing str...
S3 January 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 22, 2006 BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- First, a few noteworthy results from the past couple of days, and after that a couple of quick mailbags. Delaware State 65, at Buffalo 62 Yo, Andy! A win at Buffalo is good, especially if you're from the MEAC! The Hornets shot 63%, and won despite the fact that Buffalo outrebo...
S3 December 19, 2006 There's a debate raging in Hoops Nation, one that has very little relevance whatsoever to anything relevant. It's supposed to be about respect, honor and parity. It should be about ball control, free throws and the flex offense. And sure, it's about basketball -- a little bit -- but it's also about ...
S3 December 8, 2006 WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. -- Let's go straight to the mailbag, no delay, no bullpoop. Kyle, all these heroic recaps of "mid-over-major" results are great and everything, but what about the December games that really matter, the early conference stuff? Stan K. You're right, Stan. It's easy to get caug...
S3 November 28, 2006 VALPARAISO, Ind. -- For every upset of a major program by a mid-major (and there have been 44 so far this season, as compared to 36 at this time a year ago), there's a tantalizing near-miss. Like last night at the venerable old Athletics and Recreation Center, where the Brown and Gold of Valpo nearl...
S2 February 27, 2006 The farthest-flung teams in the MEAC go at it tonight in sunny Florida; northeast corner Delaware State (15-1, six straight wins) and far southeastern representative Bethune-Cookman (10-5, four straight) also happen to be the two hottest teams in the league. DSU has dominated the league for the seco...
S2 January 22, 2006 There's a division of opinion as to whether current military operations are doing anything to truly protect this homeland of ours, but the fact remains that without the past efforts of our armed forces, we don't get to enjoy fun diversions like college basketball. No matter where I travel across Hoo...
S2 December 29, 2005 ...
S2 December 23, 2005 No, not that "Rumble in the Bronx," it's just the Rams and Jaspers renewing their ancient rivalry. The Manhattans are coming off a Dakota roadie to NDSU, SDSU and Wall Drug, and offer one of the most exciting underclassmen in the MEAC - team points/rebounds/assists leader C.J. Anderson. Fordham (3-6...
S2 December 21, 2005 When the second-leading scorer on the worst team in Division I announced his intention to test the NBA Draft waters, lots of folks said, "Are you serious?" Sure, the 6-9, 240 specimen attended a camp or two this spring, but Tim Parham was simply dreaming big. He just wanted to find out if he had any...
S2 December 15, 2005 Time to check in with Buzzball On The Coast, Mr. Peterson's seaside rebuilding project in scenic Conway, S.C.. Coastal Carolina led for a half in Minnesota and beat MEAC power S.C. State yesterday, a matchup they probably lose last season. The 3-3 Chanticleers have a nice little tandem going in 2005...
S2 November 30, 2005 This is 8 in a series of 10 early-season essays.Yeah, you, buster. You're as guilty as the next one. There's nobody around, it's okay to admit it - it's happened to you too. Here's the scene: you're sitting at the sports bar, watching the sports ticker out of the corner. There it is - a score that...
S2 November 25, 2005 Thanksgiving is the day to dig into a tableful of glorious bounty. With that in mind, I'd like to look past all the exciting and exotic tourney action on the tube today and focus on a game that's all about leftovers.By applying rational and scientific techniques, the MEAC's football-free Maryland-Ea...
S2 November 21, 2005 "Feast Week" is great and all, but there's too much poi and squid for my tastes. Instead, why don't you come on down to the Old Country Buffet of mid-major hoops?Scheduled league season is six weeks away, but the Miami Valley Conference is in full swing. Tonight we have two squads trying to find ou...
S2 November 3, 2005 This is 2 in a series of 10 early-season essays.I think we can all agree that progress is a good thing: forward is preferable to back, and up is a hell of a lot better than down. Progress is all about development, advancement, evolution. If you examine our history as a planet, you'll notice that a...
S1 March 21, 2005 Game 100: (5) Michigan State 72, (13) Vermont 61 NCAA Tournament, Second Round (Austin Bracket) Sunday, March 20, 2005 DCU Center - Worcester, MA Fitting then, that this is the final chapter: the Vermont Catamounts, the feel-good story of the year, fell to the Michigan State Spartans. It's a happy ...
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 In the heat of the postseason, it's easy for people to quickly sweep their preseason conference picks under the rug. What? Huh? I picked Princeton? Look over there, a birdie! But not this one; I face my failures head-on. For your amusement, here are my picks from late December. Note that I had an e...
S1 March 13, 2005 Bullet Points Six more teams are in: Vermont (America East), Ohio (MAC), UTEP (WAC), Delaware State (MEAC), George Washington (A-10), and Utah State (Big West). Championship Week concludes today with a pair of games: the SWAC and Southland finals. It's Selection Sunday, the holiest day of the colle...
S1 March 12, 2005 Bullet Points Congratulations to Bucknell, orange-clad kings of the Patriot League. Eight-seed Boise State continued to rip through the WAC bracket, knocking off Fresno State one day after dispatching 1 Nevada. Today marks the grand crescendo of the mid-major season. With finals in the America East...
S1 March 11, 2005 Bullet Points Western Athletic regular season champions Nevada dropped a shock decision to Boise State, clearing the way for a two-bid WAC. There won't likely be many other two-bid mid-major leagues except for, say, the Missouri Valley... apparently the new RPI isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'...
S1 March 10, 2005 Bullet Points Two more Dance tickets were printed and punched last night: Fairleigh-Dickinson out of the NEC, and Montana from the Big Sky. Defending champion Florida A&M was ousted from the MEAC tournament. After a last-second bracket reshuffling due to three forfeited games, the SWAC gets it ...
S1 March 9, 2005 Bullet Points Oakland of the Mid-Continent Conference pulled the low-seed surprise of the year, taking down 1 seed Oral Roberts in the league's title game by a 61-60 score. Two other proud conference champions, and two overjoyed satellite campuses: Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Louisiana-Lafayette. The P...
S1 March 8, 2005 Bullet Points Four champions are crowned: Creighton (MVC), Niagara (MAAC), Old Dominion (CAA) and UMPFN (WCC). Three more tonight: the Sun Belt, Mid-Continent, and the Horizon league matchup of Detroit and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The run of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies of the Mid-Con continued, they'...
S1 March 8, 2005 Game 082: (8) Bethune-Cookman 76, (9) North Carolina A&T 62 MEAC First Round Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Arthur Ashe Center - Richmond, VA "Games held at home of higher seed." For a mid-major conference, it's the ultimate surrender. Many leagues in the lower third of the scale have gone this way,...
S1 March 8, 2005 Game 080: (6) Morgan State 77, (11) Maryland-Eastern Shore 56 MEAC First Round Monday, March 7, 2005 Arthur Ashe Center - Richmond, VA In recent years, the fine city of Richmond, Virginia has hosted two Division I basketball tournaments - that of the Colonial Athletic Association, as well as the...
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 3, 2005 When I told a friend of mine - let's call him Jack - that I was taking the week off from basketball, I received the expected response. "You're never going to make 100!" he exclaimed. "Never! Never! Woooohahahaha!" Well, "Jack," you don't know... Before there was a Mid-Majority, before there was...
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 22, 2005 Northeast: St. Francis (NY) 110, Fairleigh Dickinson 103 (story) - Nope - not an overtime game, and not something straight out of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The two teams created an old-school NBA score in just 40 minutes despite each shooting just a little over 50% - needless to say, the game's ...
S1 February 21, 2005 America East: Northeastern 63, Boston University 48 (story) - It's a dog-eat-dog world, and nowhere is that more true than in this conference. The Terriers of BU (19-6, 13-3 AE) stifled junior sharpshooter and former MMBOW Jose Juan Barea (2-for-17, 10 pts) on Senior Day, and held on to a lead for n...
S1 February 15, 2005 Mid-American: Akron 81, Toledo 79 (OT) (story) - It was a clash between teams with MAC high-seed aspirations. But most games this year in this league are like that. Eight of the 13 teams currently have winning records, mostly because Marshall and Central Michigan are so awful. But this was no Valent...
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 11, 2005 Big South: Winthrop 69, Liberty 61 (story) - I'd like to introduce you to a young man named Torrell Martin. He's a 6'5" sophomore shooting guard for the Winthrop Eagles who can shoot. During the Winthrop Gauntlet - a six-day, four-game stretch from hell - Martin has been completely lights out: 19 po...
S1 February 8, 2005 Missouri Valley: Southern Illinois 58, Drake 57 (story) - Faraway, so close. Sure, SIU's RPI is great, but they're really struggling right now. At Drake, they had to be bailed out by bigman Josh Warren's last-minute jumper - they shot 40% and only made two free throws all evening. The Bulldogs' seas...
S1 February 7, 2005 Game 052: at Delaware State 71, Maryland-Eastern Shore 45 Saturday, February 5, 2005 Memorial Hall - Dover, DE To determine where their favorite school stands during the regular season, most college basketball fans are conditioned to use a bizarre and ultimately flawed reference point. With no reli...
S1 February 6, 2005 Western Athletic: Nevada 76, Louisiana Tech 58 (story) - In the most decisive result of Really, Really Exciting Saturday, Nick Fazekas scored 27 points and Nevada (15-5, 9-2 WAC) dominated the previously surging LTU Bulldogs, who were led by former MMBOW Paul Millsap with his 20 and 8. Insodoing, th...
S1 February 4, 2005 Western Athletic: Tulsa 65, Texas-El Paso 54 (story) - The Golden Hurricane (5-14, 2-8 WAC), playing for nothing but pride, had this one in hand early on, leading by as many as 17 in the first half. UTEP made their run, but the knife-twist was delivered with two minutes to go and Tulsa leading 56-53...
S1 February 2, 2005 Missouri Valley: Creighton 73, Wichita State 69 (story) - If ever there was a year when Wichita fans believed they could end their decade-long curse and win a game at Creighton, this was it. But in the land of big steaks, the Bluejays ran off a big 19-3 streak after finding themselves in a halftime ...
S1 February 1, 2005 Southern: Davidson 67, Chattanooga 53 (story) - Davidson built a fourteen-point lead going into halftime, and both teams treaded water for the second half. Despite outrebounding their hosts, the Mocs shot themselves in the foot by shooting just 30% from the floor. Davidson (14-7, 10-0 SoCon) tighten...
S1 January 30, 2005 Results from Shakedown Saturday are in! And here they are! Mid-Continent: Missouri-Kansas City 88, Oral Roberts 74 (story) - Okay, UMKC Kangaroos, here's your "for real" tag. Wear it proudly. With four minutes left, they were up by only four and had lost their entire two-man backcourt to foul disqu...
S1 January 27, 2005 Missouri Valley: Southwest Missouri State 92, Southern Illinois 77 (story) - The homestanding Bears took a 14-point lead into halftime, and stepped on the gas out of the break with an 11-4 run. Despite what the two teams' records would indicate, this was a classically-styled "romp" - a 57%-38% field...
S1 January 26, 2005 Missouri Valley: Illinois State 77, Evansville 58 (story) - The Redbirds have overachieved this season with explosive offense and discipline - they used a 50-point second half and extreme ball control to sink the Aces. Three-point specialist Trey Guidry scored 25 points in just 21 minutes. So what n...
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 23, 2005 Missouri Valley: Wichita State 58, Southern Illinois 56 (story) - The Shockers had the boards (42-32) and the defense (held SIU to 32% shooting in the second half), but the Salukis had enough streaks and runs to keep it close. WSU's Illinois transfer forward (and possible "evil twin" of your humble ...
S1 January 19, 2005 Mid-American: Ball State 86, Bowling Green 62 (story) - BSU went into the break with 49 points and a 12-point lead, and magically doubled the margin despite shooting 30% in the second half. The Ball State Basketball Cardinals (8-5, 3-2 MAC) executed their first-half battle plan perfectly, driving an...
S1 January 18, 2005 Southern: Georgia Southern 102, Chattanooga 84 (story | play-by-play) - Throw out the record book! The SoCon team record for three-point goals made in a game was set last night in Statesboro, Georgia, where the Eagles (8-7, 4-2 SoCon) nailed 22 to bring down the North division-leading Mocs. Diminuti...
S1 January 13, 2005 Western Athletic: Texas-El Paso 83, Nevada 80 (OT) (story) - UTEP (11-2, 4-0 WAC) has passed its early tests against Rice and Nevada, and have established themselves as the true team to beat in the conference. But it wasn't easy on this night, against the team with whom they shared last year's regul...
S1 January 11, 2005 Mid-Continent: Western IIlinois 85, Oral Roberts 83 (story) - I said last week that we wouldn't be bothering to mention WIU that much this year, but I was brutally incorrect. ORU (11-4, 2-1 Mid-Con) couldn't get through their first conference road trip perfect, and 1,291 Leatherneck fans saw it happ...
S1 January 11, 2005 Game 029: at Delaware State 68, Morgan State 53 Monday, January 10, 2005 Memorial Hall - Dover, Delaware On December 18, Delaware State traveled to Michigan State's Breslin Events Center to pick up a routine five-figure guarantee check and a whoopin'. But they had grander aspirations: out of the ga...
S1 December 31, 2004 Missouri Valley: IIlinois State 62, Southwest Missouri State 61 (story) - I apologize in advance if this site goes through January and February stretches where it seems like the All-Valley Blog, but this league is going to be red-hot. Illinois State (8-3, 1-1 MVC) is rising Phoenix-like from a disas...
S1 December 19, 2004 The West Coast Conference and Missouri Valley have a lot in common these days: both are inspiring mid-major geeks almost to the point of bad poetry, both have decent records against power leagues (MVC: 3-7, WCC: 8-10), and both can say that every team but one has a winning non-conference record so f...
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 12, 2004 UPSETS Southern 67, Southeastern Louisiana 65 (story) - They say "SWAC" stands for "Southern Wins Another Championship," but their hoopsters haven't Danced in 11 years. A squeaker over a SELU team that won 20 games last year will likely stoke the high hopes in Baton Rouge, and help Jaguars fans for...
S1 December 1, 2004 Winthrop 60, Providence 54 (story) - The once-mighty Eagles of the Big South are rebuilding (only one upperclassman on the roster) but put in a respectable performance at the Paradise Jam, beating Troy State and Austin Peay after being thrashed by Arkansas. The Friars gift-wrapped this one, going co...
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