• 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: San Francisco Dons
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S9 March 9, 2013 The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry] - To a Mouse, Robert BurnsSometimes you have to change your needs and trust in someone else. Over the last few months, I've been in a transitional period during which I truly learned the personal impact of inaction and inert...
S9 January 26, 2013 Thursday's Portland Pilots game against the San Francisco Dons came down to the final shot. USF's Cole Dickerson hit a three with 0.1 second left to give the Dons a 75-72 win in a finish that would have been thrilling if you were a USF or neutral fan, and devastating for Pilot fans. From scanning t...
S8 April 2, 2012 Game #8-438: San Francisco Dons at Portland PilotsJanuary 21, 2012 4:30 pmChiles CenterBBState Stats/RecapAuthor’s note: This is part three of the Nothing Technical About It Recaps based off “Love TKO” by Teddy Pendergrass detailing three Portland games within a 9-day period. Part 1 (UP@USF), Part 2...
S8 January 22, 2012 Game #8-438: San Francisco Dons at Portland PilotsJanuary 21, 2012 4:30 pmChiles CenterBBState Stats/RecapThe Portland Pilots had another possible win slip away Saturday as they fell at home to San Francisco 73-72. Instead of feeling frustrated or depressed about another loss I actually came home up...
S8 January 17, 2012 Game #8-407: Portland Pilots at San Francisco DonsJanuary 12, 2012 10:00 pmMemorial GymnasiumBBState Stats/RecapI had waited for this day for weeks: I was finally going to see a road game for my school. After making the 100-mile trip, 77 as the crow flies, I came into the city by the bay. As fun as ...
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 November 27, 2011 Game #8-130: New Mexico State Aggies vs. San Francisco DonsNovember 26, 2011 9:30 pmAnchorage, AKBBState Stats/RecapIn the loss the previous night of the Great Alaska Shootout, New Mexico State was outworked, outhustled, outrebounded and simply outplayed. For a team who draws its energy from its lea...
S8 November 24, 2011 Game #8-112: Dartmouth Big Green vs. San Francisco DonsNovember 23, 2011 2:59 amAnchorage, AKBBState Stats/RecapGame two of the Great Alaska Shootout yielded a second matchup of teams with differing resources. Both San Francisco and Dartmouth are both members of “the other 24” but Dartmouth, a membe...
S8 November 13, 2011 Game #8-017: Northern Arizona Lumberjacks at San Francisco DonsNovember 12, 2011 9:00 pmMemorial GymnasiumBBState Stats/Recap  When I found out I would be in the Bay Area for the season’s opening weekend, I checked the schedules and found that four teams from our side of the Red Line would al...
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 7, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsCongratulation...
S7 March 7, 2011 [4] Saint Peter's Peacocks at [1] Fairfield StagsMarch 6, 2011 2:00 pmBBState Stats/Recap [3] Rider Broncs vs. [2] Iona GaelsMarch 6, 2011 4:00 pmBBState Stats/Recap It's the MAAC semifinals. Anthony Kiedis howls in a cavernous arena. It's a day of Tri-State recollection: we remember the Iona 'ha...
S7 March 6, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsCongratulation...
S7 March 5, 2011 h2 {margin-bottom:10px;font-size:13px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:17px;} #droid {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;margin-bottom:8px;} #droid a:link, #droid a:visited {font-size:11px;font-family:Droid Sans, arial;line-height:13px;}Bullet PointsNow it's mad, ...
S7 February 25, 2011 PHILADELPHIA -- Earlier this week, Caltech ended a 26-year, 310-game conference losing streak by beating Occidental 46-45. Last night in Shreveport, previously winless Centenary ended a 33-game skid (one away from the Division I record) by beating Western Illinois at home. It sure is tempting to f...
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 22, 2011 CHICAGO -- BracketBusters 2011 can be summed up tidily in one paragraph. Utah State came back from 10 down at Saint Mary's to earn a résumé win. As the Missouri Valley -- the most successful conference in the short and strange history of BracketBusters -- bombed out with a 3-7 showing, three top t...
S7 February 17, 2011 INDIANAPOLIS -- Things were different eight years ago. Folks were afraid of SARS. Valerie Plame was still anonymous. People still had AOL e-mail addresses. This website, Bally Basketball, and Willow Smith's recording career weren't even figments of imagination yet. But in 2003, a huge TV sports ne...
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 January 31, 2011 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- What is madness? Back up, let's start this way: the reason and order necessary for understanding and mastery of one's surroundings has no room or space for such anarchic disruption. Madness is the danger where once things were safe, displacing sense and destroying sensibilities....
S7 January 27, 2011 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- The real state of the Union is that it's changing faster than ever. When you're away from the place you live for an entire month, don't expect it to be the same when you return. Here in Providence's baseball suburb, there are more "for sale" signs on frozen front lawns than ever...
S7 January 24, 2011 CHICAGO -- American higher learning dates back to before the whole "United States" thing. But until the Civil War was over, no college had a fight song. That idea coincided with the idea of college athletics, and school-specific tunes were written for the purposes of intimidation and inspiration. Ma...
S7 January 3, 2011 CHICAGO -- Coaches talk a lot about taking things away from an opponent; indeed, one of the objects of basketball is exert enough force and will as to displace identity. If the other team is slow and methodical, you might try to speed them up, or vice-versa. If there's a dynamic star who scores an...
S7 December 16, 2010 15:08@whelliston I just straight-up lunchbanged some Casey's General Store pizza and potato cheese wedges. #boOMFG15:38@caseysgenstore @whelliston: Happy to hear you enjoy our pizza :-)16:54@whelliston: I love it and want to marry it! RT @caseysgenstore: @whelliston: Happy to hear you enjoy our pi...
S7 November 22, 2010 Good Morning Kyle, I would like to thank you for all your good work, and ask you a question. I'm a Creighton grad 1 A.K. (After Korver). I live in Wisconsin, and for most Jays games, I have to resort to some kind of stat tracker or internet radio. However, #pixelvision intrigues/scares me. I am an...
S6 March 7, 2010 Bullet Points A mighty congratulations to the first three conference tourney winners. Winthrop is the Big South representative for the ninth time in 12 seasons. East Tennessee State repeated in the Atlantic Sun, out of a No. 5 seed. And dangerous Murray State won the championship of the Ohio Valley...
S6 February 26, 2010 Big Games Ohio Valley: at Morehead State 70, Murray State 65 MORE - 20-9 (14-3) [RPI: 98, State: 102] MURR - 26-4 (16-1) [RPI: 73, State: 57] Star of the Game: Kenneth Faried 15 Pts (7-10 FG, 1-3 FT), 11 Reb Hill's Clutch Three-Pointer Lifts Eagles to 70-65 Win Over Murray State Morehead State...
S6 February 4, 2010 Yesterday was National Pixelvision Day. We didn't make #pixelvision a Trending Topic -- we topped out at 0.03% of all Twitter traffic, which is about a tenth of what #UKnowUBrokeWhen got over the course of the evening. That's still pretty impressive, but what really matters is that there were peop...
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 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 6, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a gracefully-aging ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three o...
S5 January 30, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Every once in a while, I receive a hit through the feedback form, written in a language I don't understand. Sometimes these are in French, or German, cast in a Cyrillic alphabet or rendered in simplified Chinese. I'd like to think these are messages of support, and they indicate to ...
S5 January 15, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a new-esque 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 9, 2008 San Francisco at Pacific A.C. Spanos Center - Stockton, CA 10:00 PM EST Tonight we have two western teams on the road back to respectability -- one's trail, however, is a little longer than the other. San Francisco, the center of the WCC's Jesuit triad, will always have a better NCAA Tournament re...
S5 December 2, 2008 CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The fact is that sometimes in this business, you just have to kick a little ass. I'm really sorry when my turn comes up, it isn't in my upbringing to upbraid people. But when I announced last week's contest, I thought I could count on folks to be creative on their own. It didn't ...
S4 March 17, 2008 I can't think of anything that captures the essence of modern corporate America better than Selection Sunday. Four and a half months of sweat and blood spilled by on-court workers is distilled into numbers and charts, spreadsheets and presentations. Merits are debated by people in suits in a locked ...
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 January 20, 2008 Versus Local On the road, general well-being is a complicated mesh of karmic gears, all of which must be humming and whirring smoothly to ensure smooth runnings. For example, there's cop karma, rental car karma, WiFi karma, digestive karma and gas prices karma. Those are only a few. For two week...
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 4, 2008 SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- I attended my first-ever Summit League game last night. Oh sure, I've been to plenty of Mid-Continent Conference games before, but things are different now. They've got a new name, new colors, and a new clip-art logo. Are their feelings of inadequacy solved? Hope so! Folks fro...
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 November 3, 2007 Mid-major universities tend to fall in one of three categories. There are the expensive and tiny religious schools in remote and leafy locations, flame-keepers of Christian subsects born out of the Great Schisms. You have your specialized colleges: the teacher's schools, the agriculture and mining i...
S3 March 4, 2007 Bullet Points We have four champions on the busiest day of Championship Fortnight: all hail Winthrop of the Big South and Davidson of the SoCon, double champions both. Second seeds who rose up to claim tourney championships and dance tickets: Eastern Kentucky of the Ohio Valley and Belmont of the At...
S3 March 3, 2007 Bullet Points In the first real shocker of Championship Fortnight, Appalachian State was upset by College of Charleston in the SoCon semifinals. Four leagues crown champions today on the ESPN family of networks. The Big South, Ohio Valley, SoCon and Atlantic Sun seasons will conclude with autobids b...
S3 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 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 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 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 ...
S1 March 16, 2005 Oakland Seed: 16 1st Round Opponent: North Carolina Record: 13-18 (9-9 Mid-Continent) Big Nonconference Wins: December 30 vs. Bowling Green (77-53); it was their only non-league win over a D1 opponent. Key Players: Pierre Dukes (see below) is the folk hero, but senior forwards Rawle Marshall and Co...
S1 March 16, 2005 Why trust those Johnny-come-latelies? We've been covering these guys all season. Here, then, is the first of four capsule sets of the mid-major teams who will appear on your television screens starting on Thursday, along with a few clips of their TMM appearances. Montana Seed: 16 1st Round Opponen...
S1 March 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 Game 090: (4) Ohio 62, (5) Kent State 55 Mid-American Quarterfinals Thursday, March 10, 2005 Gund Arena - Cleveland, OH When the starting five take to the floor, there are all the matematically insignificant digits - 1, 3, 4, 5. There's even a double-zero out there. Low numbers are usually indi...
S1 March 6, 2005 Bullet Points Four Dance tickets were punched: Winthrop, Eastern Kentucky, Central Florida and Chattanooga. Despite the two-digit numbers that the Selection Committee will hand them one week from today, all are champions. One-seeds fell like mighty trees. Arkansas-Little Rock, the E1 in the Sun Bel...
S1 March 5, 2005 Bullet Points Two one-seeds went down: Tennessee Tech lost in the OVC semifinals, and Davidson was eliminated in the Southern Conference semis. Four automatic bids will be handed out today, as the ESPN networks begin a schedule of court-stormings every two hours or so. We have the Big South's matc...
S1 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 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 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 28, 2005 Big West: Pacific 66, Cal State Northridge 62 (story) - The Tigers (15-2, 10-0 BWC) proved last night that they are not only Mad, but Beyond Matadome as well. They marched into Northridge and held off a late run by the perennial upstart Matadors (9-9, 7-3 BWC), who sunk further into second place. Li...
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 22, 2005 Like the saying goes, we do indeed get letters. Dude, you're only at 37 and you have two and a half months left. You're never going to make it to 100. Good luck though. Dave Champaign, IL Thank you for writing, highly-ranked power-conference friend. If I am between 45 and 50 by the end of January...
S1 January 21, 2005 West Coast: San Francisco 73, UMPFN 70 (story) - The proud Don tradition lies buried under decades of moldy mediocrity - behind Bill Russell, they rattled off 60 straight wins back in the Fifties. With a new imported coach (Jessie Evans, formerly of Louisiana-Lafayette), they're hoping to get dynast...
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 7, 2005 WAC: Texas-El Paso 96, Rice 67 (story) - Reigning MMBOW Michael Harris had 10 points and 15 rebounds - but most were during the first ten minutes, when the visiting Owls established dominance down low. UTEP was able to make successful adjustments, and for the remainder of the game they kept Rice out...
S1 December 29, 2004 Bucknell 69, St. Joseph's 62 (story) - This was the second straight win over the top half of the RPI for Bucknell (Niagara last Wednesday), so I'm as ready as anyone to join the chorus of those who would give them the Patriot League crown before it's actually awarded. Most importantly, this will lik...
S1 December 21, 2004 Louisiana Tech 64, Memphis 55 (story) - Homestanding Memphis dominated the first period, leading 28-16 at the half after ripping down 24 boards and holding WAC middleton LaTech to 13% shooting (4-for-31). But they let it all slip away by holding themselves to 23% shooting after the break. Memphis st...
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 4, 2004 UNC-Greensboro 79, Southern Mississippi 78 (story) - At Iowa's Hawkeye Challenge, the C-USA's Golden Eagles were up by eight at the break against a second-division SoCon school... but blew the lead and let the Spartans spurt after a Larry Eustachy technical. UNCG's Ricky Hickman led all scorers with...
S1 November 30, 2004 Georgia State 85, Louisiana-Lafayette 78 (story) - A good Atlantic Sun club beat a bigger and stronger Ragin' Cajun team - one picked by many to storm through the Sun Belt Conference this year - by making their free throws down the stretch. It was the front end of a rare non-conference home-and-home...
S1 November 15, 2004 The inaugural anything is tough - there's all that pressure, all those questions. What will the public think? Will this new thing be embraced, accepted? Will it become an iconic institution, or will it join the ranks of such outright flops as Crystal Pepsi, Cop Rock and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? So...
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