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1. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 20, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- There's no day more exciting and more highly anticipated than First Round Thursday, and there's no 12 hours quite as difficult to get through. As soon as the games begin, the NCAA Tournament teaches a hard lesson about the perfection that's necessary to compete against enemies with mo......
2. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 18, 2009 Let's get this out of the way: it's not the Opening Round, because that implies there's a "round." It's one game. And it's the Play-In Game, a/k/a the Notorious P.I.G., because it's for true mid-major players. And Bally... well, he's the P.I.G. P.O.P.P.A.! Bally loves going to the P.I.G. every ye......
3. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
4. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
5. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 15, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a decrepit old ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of th......
6. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
7. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
8. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
9. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
10. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
11. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 11, 2009 HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- With our third-to-last GMHN of Season 5, we have a very special treat for you, yes we do. The image you see over and over during Championship Fortnight is students running all willy-nilly onto the floor after their beloved teams win mid-major titles. So it's only fitting that w......
12. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
13. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 10, 2009 HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- There are 248 teams in conferences below the Red Line. Only 25 or so will move on to compete for the coveted Division I title next week, have their names known by everybody, reflect in the fleeting glory that's reserved for champions. Most of our favorite teams are already packe......
14. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
15. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
16. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
17. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 7, 2009 Nevada at Boise State (Western Athletic) Taco Bell Arena - Boise, ID 10:15 PM EST This is it: the final regular season weekend, and the last Game! Of! The! Night! of 2008-09. Adieu, adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow. So is partying, which is what the virtual G!O!T!N! camera crew will be doing in......
18. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 6, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a rapidly-aging ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of t......
19. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
20. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 March 2, 2009 Boise State at New Mexico State (Western Athletic) Pan American Center - Las Cruces, NM 9:00 PM EST Every year, there's one undisputed apex of Championship Fortnight, that one title game that ESPNU chops up into a 90-minute clip show and Hoops Nation remembers forever. In 2005, it was Ohio's come-......
21. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 27, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a relatively new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of ......
22. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 24, 2009 LYNCHBURG, Va. -- In the late stages of a Sunday flight from Raleigh to Nashville, after the announcement about portable electronic devices, I did what most people in need of an info-fix do: page through the Sky Mall catalog. It's only in those 20 minutes at the end when full-size Lord of the Rings......
23. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 23, 2009 Tennessee-Martin at Murray State (Ohio Valley) Regional Special Event Center - Murray, KY 8:30 PM EST With BracketBusters complete, it's time to make the mad dash towards the first tourneys. In just a little over a week, a number of smaller conferences will begin elimination procedures; one of the......
24. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 23, 2009 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- BracketBusters VII is safely in the history books now. It was more fulfilling than a Dave & Buster's appetizer (six chips do not qualify as "nachos"), and fell somewhere between Buster the crash-test dummy and Buster Bluth on the entertainment scale. Longtime readers will r......
25. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
26. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 20, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a somewhat new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of th......
27. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
28. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 13, 2009 Thursday, 1:05 PM -- I don't know what made me think this, but I went to the Hyatt Regency first and looked for anything that said "Mock Selection." There was an NCAA Life Skills conference on the second and third floor, so I asked somebody at the ballroom reception where it was. "Who are you, and ......
29. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 12, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- Well, here we are. Today is Mock Selection III, and I still have no idea what I did to deserve an invitation -- or why I've been listed as representing Basketball State all along. It's a real thrill, even though we've had to detour from our regularly scheduled travel and will be goin......
30. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 11, 2009 Long Beach State at California-Riverside (Big West) UCR Rec Center - Riverside, CA 11:00 PM EST Don't worry, we'll be doing plenty of breakdown of Dayton-Xavier tomorrow (or you can get a very fine BBSU-aided preview here). But one league we haven't talked about too much this season is the Big Wes......
31. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
32. by Kyle Whelliston
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, ......
33. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
34. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 February 2, 2009 Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Jackson State (SWAC) Williams Athletic Center - Jackson, MS 8:30 PM EST Tonight in the Swickity, a battle between two 6-2 teams looking up at defending regular season champion Alabama State. If either were to win the conference's coveted ticket to the Big Dance, they would u......
35. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
36. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 30, 2009 The State of College Basketball is a sorta-newish ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of th......
37. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
38. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 29, 2009 This is totally unprecedented. In nearly five years, there has never been more than one G!O!T!N! at a time. But tonight, there's no way to choose. Maybe you can pick between these supergood gems, but we can't. Nevada at Utah State (Western Athletic) Dee Glen Smith Spectrum - Logan, UT 9:05 PM EST ......
39. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
40. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 27, 2009 I just wrapped up paying for every single one of my remaining rental cars, plane flights and weekly hotels for the rest of the 2008-09 season, which was a great relief and a testament to the wonderful support you've given the site. So the least I could do is turn the floor over to you for a while, a......
41. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
42. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
43. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
44. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
45. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 16, 2009 Boise State at Utah State (Western Athletic) Dee Glen Smith Spectrum - Logan, UT Saturday, 9:05 PM EST There are a lot of "championship" banners and claims around the Western Athletic Conference right now -- since the conference split its title four ways last year at 12-4, nearly half the gyms and......
46. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 16, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS -- As we begin every Friday around here, a reminder that there's a chat over at ESPN today at 4 p.m. It's about American mid-major collegiate basketball, and I'm in it and so are you, and there's this one part when we're chillin' in my basement listening to old Wilco records. It's like ......
47. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
48. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 14, 2009 Steely Dan - Kulee Baba (demo) INDIANAPOLIS -- In 1980, Steely Dan released Gaucho, a seven-song album full of disco-jazz pop songs about getting laid and drugs and revenge, all set in Los Angeles. All three are popular enough themes that the record went double-platinum. Due to various production pr......
49. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 12, 2009 Davidson at Appalachian State (Southern) Holmes Center - Boone, NC 7:30 PM EST Every so often, the rules must be broken. There are some very traditionally great yet somewhat diluted matchups out there on this Monday night -- the Atlantic Sun's Battle of the Boulevard is back on (Lipscomb's struggl......
50. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 12, 2009 BOONE, N.C. -- I'm going to get into my grandpa rocking chair and tell you what's wrong with pop music. I'm sorry that you had to get this from a basketball writer, but that's just the way it worked out. Most music specifically released for public consumption is far too dependent on context and repu......
51. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 9, 2009 BIRMINGHAM -- First of all, there's a chat today over in the ESPNet SportsZone at 4 pm Eastern. With 2009 and conference play now well-entrenched concepts, we shouldn't have too little to talk about. Please join us, won't you? More importantly, this is a wonderful morning here on The Mid-Majority, a......
52. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 8, 2009 Wright State at Butler (Horizon League) Hinkle Fieldhouse - Indianapolis, IN 7:00 PM EST Tonight marks the first slate in which every college basketball game nationwide is a league contest. We have action in the CAA, SoCon, NEC, OVC, Horizon, America East, Sun Belt, Badlands Conference, Big West, ......
53. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 7, 2009 High Point at Winthrop (Big South) Winthrop Coliseum - Rock Hill, SC 7:00 PM EST This is a season for big changes in mid-majordom, and most are not necessarily the positive kind that our president-elect talks about. There have been massive shifts in power as multi-bid conferences like the Valley, ......
54. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
55. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 6, 2009 NASHVILLE -- A lot's happened in the past 48 hours. I've driven 1,450 miles through high Colorado mountain passes, endless Kansas, Oklahoma hailstorms. I've watched Southwest Airlines' careful domino-stack of hourly gate departures collapse under the weight of a weather delay, into a maelstrom of sc......
56. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 January 2, 2009 POCATELLO, Id. -- First of all, we have a chat today over at ESPN SportsNation at 4 p.m. Eastern, or 2 p.m. Mountain Standard. Don't forget! One last blast of mid-major mystery before we turn our attention solely to conference races, and forget that the top eight conferences exist -- a luxury we'll ......
57. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 31, 2008 The State of College Basketball is a new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 344 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final F......
58. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
59. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 23, 2008 NATCHITOCHES, La. -- And so it's come to this. Folks are out there on the roads living like it's 2004, cramming their SUV's into parking lots and buying Christmas gifts from "brick and mortar" establishments. The third crazy night of Hanukkah is set to begin. A chain e-mail with blinking green text ......
60. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
61. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
62. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 17, 2008 CLINTON, S.C. -- What's the value of a score? The market has it much less than the 1/1000th of a cent that manufacturer's coupons are worth -- interested parties expect to get them for free, that a score should cost the same over a computer network as it does transmitted from mouth to ear. Is "Tenne......
63. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
64. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
65. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 12, 2008 CHICAGO -- First of all, chat today. When that happens, I will be in a different place, far from here. Flying today is going a lot better than the last first flight of the season. Almost missed my air ride this morning out of rainy Providence, though -- Joan as security woman ran my wallet through t......
66. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
67. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 10, 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......
68. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 8, 2008 LOUISVILLE -- This week marks the one-month milepost of the 2008-09 season. Most of the action we've seen has consisted multi-team tournaments of questionable merit or importance, early league games, and power-conference teams beating the snot out of mid-majors. While we've made a lot of the signifi......
69. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
70. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 3, 2008 SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Tonight I'll be making my first visit to Missouri State's brand new JQH Arena, which was just christened within the month. I've been really excited about this for a couple weeks now, for a few reasons. I like shiny new things as much as any American, but most of all I'm curious a......
71. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 December 1, 2008 TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- It's the first of December. Do you know where your college basketball team is? (Arkansas State, by the way, is here in town.) More importantly, do you know what it is? So much of this right now, at this point of the season, is involved in figuring our what is real and what is tr......
72. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 November 26, 2008 INDIANAPOLIS -- Lots of housekeeping today. For starters, Feast Week will only be a three-course meal here on The Mid-Majority. There will be no posts on Turkey Day or Black Friday, but we'll be camped out at the Chicago Challenge watching eight games in two days so the Twitter feed will be very act......
73. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 November 18, 2008 Nevada at San DiegoJenny Craig Pavilion - San Diego, CA10:00 PM EST The Western Athletic and West Coast took completely different paths last season -- the WAC, a perennial multi-bid league despite its allocation of most of its resources to football, languished in the 20's of the RPI scale and sque......
74. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
75. by Kyle Whelliston
S5 November 11, 2008 DURHAM, N.C. -- So this is how it began. No, the picture above is not of Cameron Indoor Stadium hours before the first game, this was the first game. The 2008-09 season tipped off in relative silence, televised subregionally, radio only. The first 40 minutes of college basketball's new year were pl......
76. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 March 21, 2008 ......
77. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
78. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
79. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
80. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
81. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
82. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
83. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
84. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
85. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
86. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
87. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 March 6, 2008 NASHVILLE -- There's a little Fighting Camel in all of us -- that piece of our soul that's tragically misunderstood, a little out of place. It's the part of you that's told you'll never make it, never achieve your dreams. Silly camel, you aren't supposed to fight for or win anything... you're suppos......
88. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
89. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 29, 2008 LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. -- Last night was a great evening for regular-season champions, all of which have now clinched at least a spot in the National Invitation Tournament. In addition to five crownings last night, Belmont took a share of the Atlantic Sun title with an 11-point win over Campbell. We ha......
90. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
91. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
92. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 25, 2008 FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Sometimes I just have to pinch myself (even though dreams can be complicated enough that I wouldn't wake up if I did). Three years ago, I was just another computer programmer with a college basketball blog, and the next thing I know I'm talking over BracketBusters highlights wit......
93. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
94. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
95. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
96. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 15, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Admittedly a little nervous this morning, we were thinking of just shutting the site down and ending with this, because there's never going to be a better post here than that one. So how do we follow up the most sublime moment in Mid-Majority history? Photoshop-manipulated pictur......
97. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
98. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 11, 2008   Utah State at Nevada (Western Athletic) Lawlor Events Center - Reno, NV 10:05 PM EST So tonight we have a rare Monday tilt in the Wickity WAC, made possible by an extreme-weather postponement on Jan. 5. (Snow in Nevada? We here at TMM are not exactly shocked about that.) It's Utah State, t......
99. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 11, 2008 HAMDEN, Conn. -- We have been, and we stand, accused. Accused! Of having too much fun around here, of shifting the focus off basketball and running too many contests, pictures of pretty girls, cartoons and snapshots of pet basketballs. So we're going to put on our super-serious faces, talk in our su......
100. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 5, 2008 VALPARAISO, Ind. -- We're in Day Two of the annual Super Bowl info-moratorium, the first time in seven years we've made it through until Tuesday without knowing any details of the "big game" or who won. It's a combination of old-fashioned obliviousness and modern technology that's making this happen......
101. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 4, 2008 There's more than one Bally, and that's because we occasionally hold contests here and give away real-life versions of the cartoon buddy who goes everywhere with me on my travels. Like, for instance, our Hunan: Return Of The Phoenix movie treatment contest, which might be extended an extra day bec......
102. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
103. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 February 2, 2008 NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- If you've been reading along, you know how we feel about American-style football, which has its big over-bloated title game this weekend. The sport has come to define American maleness and took over the true title of "America's pastime" long ago -- not actually strapping the pa......
104. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
105. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 28, 2008 HOUSTON -- I was thinking over the weekend, while I wasn't at any games, about all the games I go to. A total of 57 games so far this year, headed for yet another 100-game season. Having done 100 twice now, it's tough to find triple-digit motivation anymore. Need to turn it into some kind of contest......
106. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
107. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
108. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 18, 2008   Boise State at Nevada (Western Athletic) Lawlor Events Center - Reno, NV 19:00 PM EST In keeping with our West Coast Bias theme, we're going to forget about all those big games going on back East. (Like, say, Chatty at Davidson, Valpo-Cleveland State, and... oh yeah, that battle of Valley ......
109. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
110. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 17, 2008 DAVIS, Ca. -- We have a system here, we do a California trip every season and alternate between Southern (odd-numbered years) and Northern (even). We're going to go recover from the jet lag before charging into our annual West Coast Bias weekend, but we have some Easty bits to clean up. UNC-Ashevi......
111. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 15, 2008   La Salle (Atlantic 10) at Pennsylvania (Ivy) The Palestra - Philadelphia, PA 7:00 PM EST When there's no games featuring conference frontrunners or prospective NCAA teams that are facing soul-baring tests, we here at G!O!T!N! studios usually revert to the game we'll be attending. Since we'......
112. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
113. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
114. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 14, 2008 CHARLESTON, S.C. -- It's Monday, which means no cutesy-cutesy, no how-do-ya-do, no warm-up act jokes. Nearly every one of the 245 teams in Hoops Nation played over the weekend, and we're totally committed to mention at least two percent of those. It's all basketball today. Drake. No leading score......
115. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 11, 2008 GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Super-size fast-food. Big Dog t-shirts. Enzyte. This is America, and everything is big. Real big. We all want to be big-time, and some of us do it by leading pieces with the kind of stuttering, oddly conversational, and totally incomplete sentences that have vaulted hack sports......
116. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 10, 2008   New Mexico State at Boise State (Western Athletic) Taco Bell Arena - Boise, ID 9:00 PM EST OK, so what about the WAC?, you ask. It's a conference that started out very slow due to ill-timed up-scheduling (like you can schedule your scheduling around unscheduled crises anyway), sitting in t......
117. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 10, 2008 SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- I was going to start out today with a hilarious joke about squirrels and their nuts, but this came across the wires this morning. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a fine newspaper, ran this today: Xavier shuns mid-major award. Here's a taste for those who don't like clicking things: Ri......
118. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 9, 2008 After a week-long break (nobody wants to talk during the holidays), TMMI is back. And to kick off the new year, we have one of the most powerful men in all of Hoops Nation, Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Doug Elgin. He's led the toughest mid-major conference in the land since 1988, spent fo......
119. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 8, 2008 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I want to share with you an idea I had this morning. I'll do anything necessary to make this possible, but I think that next November somebody should hold a Multi-Team Event just for relentlessly uptempo teams. The naming rights are open for purchase by any beverage manufacturer, ......
120. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 January 2, 2008   Akron (Mid-American) at Dayton (Atlantic 10) U. of Dayton Arena - Dayton, OH 7:00 PM EST OK, remind me how to do this thing again. There's a premier spotlight game between mid-major schools, lots of exclamation points, and at least two exploratory paragraphs about key storylines and player......
121. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 31, 2007 MUNCIE, Ind. -- Well, here it is, the last Boubacar of 2007, coming at the beginning of the final broken week of the 2007-08 season. No Boubacar tomorrow, but there will be a few special treats posted here, including our annual New Year's essay. You'll want to stay tuned for that. For now, here are ......
122. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 24, 2007 After a slow beginning to the 2007-08 season, the Utah State Aggies are now 9-5 with a four-game winning streak, and a lot of that has to do with their star guard. The All-American senior spent a lot of time in head coach Stew Morrill's office during the 3-4 start, trying to figure out how to turn t......
123. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 19, 2007 AKRON, Oh. -- There are so few of us... we who overanalyze everything about college basketball, pore over pages of stats, treat our game like a gigantic 341-piece puzzle that takes five months to solve itself. Our vision is distorted because we spend so much time talking to each other; we forget tha......
124. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 18, 2007 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F......
125. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 17, 2007   Texas-Arlington (Southland) at Texas Christian (C-USA) Daniel-Meyer Coliseum - Fort Worth, TX 8:00 PM EST We've been talking about UTA quite a bit so far this year, and with good reason. The Mavericks are exceeding all coaches' poll expectations, starting out 8-0 with nice wins at Wichita ......
126. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
127. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
128. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 13, 2007   Louisiana Tech (WAC) vs. Centenary (Summit) Bossier City, LA (Neutral court) 8:00 PM EST Tonight's G!O!T!N! is a long-overdue chance to spill some ink on Centenary's start. The Gentlemen are 6-4, with wins over Texas Tech and SMU, and they split their first weekend in the Badlands Conferen......
129. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 12, 2007   Pacific (Big West) at Santa Clara (West Coast) Leavey Center - Santa Clara, CA 10:05 PM EST G!O!T!N! goes late night again, to a strange and wonderful land of silicon and dreams called Northern California. And tonight, we have two historically significant mid-major programs that have regis......
130. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 12, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Here's the mail, it never fails... it makes me want to wag my tail. Remember me? Im the guy from the espn.com chat that was talking about why and how Rhode Island would go into the Dome and take care of Syracuse on Saturday night. After laughing in my face and down talking a ver......
131. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 11, 2007 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F......
132. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 10, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I was looking over the schedule, trying to find some games to go to this week. Maybe you were too. There's hardly anything going on out there in Hoops Nation this week. Virtual bupkis. Not enough nothing to cancel the G!O!T!N! for the week, but all across the land, the "athlete" p......
133. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 6, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Good morning, Hoops Nation. I've been having a bunch of fun with our new database of officials over at Basketball State. We've got a white pages listing, rankings of fouls called by teams including each ref and average call margins on home teams, and maps of all the games your fav......
134. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 December 4, 2007 The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the F......
135. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
136. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 27, 2007 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The leftovers are already running out in your fridge, but they're always stocked up here at the Bread Restaurant. Personally, I recommend the cinnamon crunch bagel with hazelnut cream cheese, and perhaps a veggie grilled panini sandwich later. I'd better finish this Boubacar u......
137. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
138. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 23, 2007 I'll allow you a few minutes to put the pieces of your blown mind back together. Okay? Let's go. Big media rivalries, like college sports rivalries, are supposed to be predicated on the idea that the folks on the other side are filthy, writhing subhumans. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that t......
139. by Kyle Whelliston
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,......
140. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 20, 2007   Austin Peay (OVC) at Utah State (WAC) Dee Glen Smith Spectrum -- Logan, UT (South Padre Island Tournament) 9:05 PM EST For reasons unbeknownst, the last few days of The Mid-Majority have been brought to you by Office Depot. Office Depot: do you have your "easy button?" If anybody understan......
141. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 16, 2007 MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Well, that concludes the first full week of the 2007-08 college basketball season. Just so you know how things will work from here on out, no Boubacars on Saturdays or Sundays, one catch-all G!O!T!N! for all three days, and Bally will show up sometime over the weekend. Mickel......
142. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 13, 2007   Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Southland) vs. Texas-El Paso (Conference USA) College Station, TX (Neutral) -- NIT Season Tip-Off 6:00 PM EST A current mid-major darling meets one of our favorite Mid-Majority ex-pats tonight in the early game of the Texas A&M-College Station pod of the P......
143. by Kyle Whelliston
S4 November 12, 2007 Pittsburgh Late Saturday night, in the temporary Saint Louis locker room underneath the University of Pittsburgh's Petersen Events Center, new Billikens head coach Rick Majerus rubbed his face crosswise and lengthwise, trying to invent things to say about a blowout win over Houston Baptist. Failing......
144. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
145. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
146. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
147. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
148. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
149. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
150. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
151. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
152. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
153. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
154. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 February 26, 2007 BOZEMAN, Mont. -- That's right, waah-waah. This is the final Daily Paragraph, the last K-Dub's Krazy Fact of the Day of the season. That's because (not-so-Top Five) Tuesday, February 27 is the honorary first day of March. It's tourney time! The Horizon League, Ohio Valley and Big South kick off thei......
155. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
156. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
157. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 February 9, 2007 DALLAS -- Big, big weekend in Hoops Nation. Huge. Make sure to check out these six big showdown/throwdown/hoedowns at the top of league tables this weekend. As a bonus, we're offering some sample pregame warmup music for your iPod, so you can truly get pumped up for these hot matchups. Holy Cross (......
158. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
159. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
160. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 February 2, 2007 PHOENIX - O, layover... Haven of annoying cell-phone talk, home of heavily made-up airline employees yet unhelpful gate agents (that'll be seventy-five bucks to fly standby, please), opportunity to gorge oneself on 3,000-calorie Cinnabons, chance to catch up with increasingly irrelevant color period......
161. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
162. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 26, 2007 CHARLOTTE -- A couple of quick housekeeping things up front: my ESPN.com chat today is at a special this-week-only time of 2 pm ET; I'm switching timeslots with Joe Lunardi. Come on by! As of Friday morning, we've had 82 entries in Bally's BracketBusters Racket, the fun game where you can win valua......
163. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
164. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
165. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 19, 2007 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- No mailbag this week, because quite frankly most of the letters this week were way too personal. Look, I'm a basketball writer, when did my mortgage, my stock portfolio and my "size" suddenly become fair game? Oops, wrong mail folder. Anyway... Every year around this time, we sta......
166. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 18, 2007 NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- It's a seasonably warm Thursday morning in Mid-Majorland, let's get right to it! Conference Shootaround! Colonial: Virginia Commonwealth stretched its CAA record to 7-0 (15-3 overall) at the expense of North Carolina-Wilmington on Wednesday, and The Dub stands for Woeful righ......
167. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
168. by Kyle Whelliston
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. ......
169. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 12, 2007 NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Mid-majors are often the Scrappy-Doos of college basketball (Let me at'im! Let me at'im!), which is probably part of the reason they're so annoying to major schools. But I disavow any such implied connection -- I hated that character as much as you did. Generally, I had a lot o......
170. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
171. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
172. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 5, 2007 I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS IS, Ala. -- Travelling the highways and byways (mostly byways) of SWAC country is always a strange adventure. One of the most odd things about Alabama is that everywhere you look, there are references to the three American Idol stars the state has produced. This morn......
173. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 January 2, 2007 MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Let's take a quick look at happenings in Mid-Majorville on the last day of 2006 and first day of 2007. at Southern Illinois 73, Wichita State 68 (MVC) (Jan. 1) -- If you haven't noticed, the Shockers have had a real frustrating run of bad luck and sub-Shocker play recently. It star......
174. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
175. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 November 21, 2006 PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Calendar years. Every 12 months, it's a different one. Crazy stuff, that. But aside from the numbers, here's the only real difference between this basketball season and last season. Last season, ESPN's non-Andy Katz blog was telling you all about how great all these mid-major upse......
176. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 November 20, 2006 PAWTUCKET, R.I. - By November 19, 2005, there had been 16 games in which a school from one of the eight major conferences had been beaten by a school from one of the 23 other D-I conferences*. [*Unnamed Major Program From the Northwest excluded] This year, on that date, there have been 26. This i......
177. by Kyle Whelliston
S3 November 13, 2006 BLOOMSBURY, N.J. (en route to Charlotte) -- Hello again, friends, and welcome back to TMM's regular schedule. This here is The Daily Paragraph, which is specifically designed to be triply too clever for it's own good: it's a play on existing basketball literature, is a sarcastic/ironic attempt at on......
178. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 March 11, 2006 Great college basketball traditions: Dickie V, pep bands playing "Hey Baby," and Utah State against Nevada in the Game! Of! The! Night!. This is the third such battle this year -- remember that it was UNR that stopped USU's winning streak in this box, with the 75-57 decision that made the Aggies 5-1......
179. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 February 13, 2006 When they say Big Monday, they mean it. Two 8-3 teams square off in a showdown that will determine sole possession first place in the Wizzac; third wheel Utah State made this possible by graciously obliging at home to NMSU on Saturday. Last time these two met was Groundhog Day, which saw a 65-53 Pac......
180. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 February 6, 2006 All due respect to Grambling's Brion Rush and Josh Hinz of Beloit (he's D3-ineligible) - but we're not about gaudy stats around here, just the solid performances that win ballgames. The Big Freak is our first three-time winner of the BOTD award, and it's for his third 35+ performance of the season. ......
181. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 29, 2006 Postseason-ineligible Fresno has made life difficult for postseason-hopeful Utah State and Nevada in the WAC, but postseason-maybe-just-maybe LaTech has been able to take care of them - twice, in fact. Last night, the Bulldogs' Ja'Vance Coleman lofted a three-pointer over the head of the man picture......
182. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 23, 2006 If the WAC is indeed going to get two bids this year, here are the two that will most likely nab 'em, and they're on display on Big (Mid-Major) Monday on ESPN tonight. Utah State is doing quite well in their first season up from the Big West - after being broken in by a December trip to Hawaii, they......
183. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 19, 2006 Nevada's first WAC loss came against Hawaii two weeks ago, when three Rainbow Warriors came together to negate WAC scoring leader Nick Fazekas' 37-point outburst. The Freak only had 17 last night, but it took a total team effort to bring down the talented Pack - in a fast-paced game, five Fresno Sta......
184. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 18, 2006 When Iona lost three of four in the wraparound week between 2005 and 2006, there was no mystery why they were tanking. Sure, the Gaels have a great backcourt, but they were being murdered inside. After spending a couple weeks on the back of an egg nog carton, their quint-captain and sturdy post pre......
185. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 18, 2006 It's WAC-y Wednesday, and La-Tech is your surprise conference leader, sprinting out to a 4-0 start that includes nice wins against Hawaii and Fresno State. Defending two-time NCAA rebounding king Paul Millsap used the mini-run to climb back into the national lead in glasswork (12.5 rpg), and has his......
186. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 16, 2006 Martin Luther King didn't specifically mention basketball in his 1963 "I have a dream" speech, but its echoes were felt in the 1966 Texas Western national championship and later in the inclusion of HBCU's in the NCAA's Division I. Today, many of those historically black colleges and universities are......
187. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 16, 2006 Brion Rush is the scoring machine you've never heard of. You know about Redick and Morrison (and if you read this site regularly, about Clark and Burtt and Neal), but this 6'2" senior guard from Shreveport is sixth in the nation in both points per game (24.1 ppg) and points per 40 min. (28.7 p40). G......
188. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 13, 2006 Can't hold out much longer -- gotta give some BOTD love to the power forward on my ESPN.com mid-major all-star team from last month. The two-time rebounding champion had 23 points and 18 rebounds (his eleventh dub-dub of the season) as Louisiana Tech beat Hawaii at home. Millsap scored eight of the ......
189. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 9, 2006 Hey hoops nuts, it's Monday night in the SWAC! We have three teams with no league losses yet, and just behind at 2-1 is our league pick, the Jackson State Tigers. One of those undefeated teams is the Delta Devils of MVSU, who offer the most efficient offense in the Swickity (relatively... they score......
190. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 6, 2006 You might have noticed that this space is only big enough for one person, so there's no way to appropriately honor all three Rainbow Warriors (Matt Lojeski, Julian Sensley, Matt Gipson) who came together to defeat Nevada in a pitched overtime thriller last night. Like three safeties trying to pull d......
191. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 4, 2006 Memo to Big West teams who think that Pacific is nothing more than The Christian Maraker Show after the Tigers lost the other four starters from last year's team: nope, sorry. Meet Johnny Gray, a juco transfer from Moorpark College (Calif.), who spent a lot of time on the bench during his first year......
192. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 January 2, 2006 Like a new day finally dawning, a sunburst of conference play breaks over Hoops Nation on January 2. We've got games in the SWAC, Valley, A-Sun, NEC and Mid-Con on tap. But we're going to focus our G!O!T!N! cameras on Boston tonight. The Colonial was a major disappointment in the 2005 portion of the......
193. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 December 22, 2005 Game 111: at Boston College 80, Texas Southern 53 Sunday, December 18, 2005 Silvio O. Conte Forum - Chestnut Hill, MA When it comes down to it, there's only one difference between a mid-major squad and a team of power conference prima donnas - our boys end their seasons a few days or weeks before......
194. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 December 12, 2005 This is the 9th in a series of 10 early-season essays. "A dream is a wish your heart makes," it's said, "when you're fast asleep." That's nice and everything, but why does Disney have the market cornered on all that dewy fantasyland crap? This date - 12-12-2005 - marks a key development in the his......
195. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 November 21, 2005 It's odd for a team from the Pac 10 to make an appearance against an OVC team in a small Tennessee town, in a Mystery, Alaska sort of way, but the movie ending - a solid thwacking by the home club - is a seemingly improbable plot indeed. The Golden Eagles of TTU - still reeling from the coach Mike ......
196. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 November 19, 2005 OK, we have our first game with intriguing March implications, so the season can start now. Oral Roberts begins their campaign to end the Curse Of Pierre Dukes, named after the Oakland last-second hero who ended their Tournament dreams in the 2005 Mid-Con tourney - these Eagles will storm the confer......
197. by Kyle Whelliston
S2 November 7, 2005 This is 4 in a series of 10 early-season essays.With five seconds remaining in overtime, the home team was down by a single point. A packed and sweltering arena roared. The wise old coach, a veteran of these tense situations, quickly drew up a play during the final timeout and sent his charges back ......
198. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
199. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
200. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
201. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
202. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
203. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
204. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
205. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 March 13, 2005 T1. Southern Illinois, Missouri Valley (23-10, 13-7 MWC, 18 RPI) Chicago 7 T1. Nevada, Western Athletic (24-6, 16-3 WAC, 33) Chicago 9 3. Pacific, Big West (26-3, 19-1 BWC, 22) Albuquerque 8 4. Miami (Oh.), Mid-American (19-10, 13-7 MAC, 43) 5. St. Mary's, Western Athletic (25-8, 12-4 WCC, 30) Chica......
206. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
207. by Kyle Whelliston
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'......
208. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
209. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
210. by Kyle Whelliston
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'......
211. by Kyle Whelliston
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,......
212. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
213. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 March 1, 2005 Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa 67, Wichita State 66 (story) - It's painful watching them keep losing, because it heightens the twin possibilities that the Valley will only get a single bid and the Big East will get (shudder) eight. Six-three Panther guard Ben Jacobsen lit up the scoreboard with 24 p......
214. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
215. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
216. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 21, 2005 After Nevada's streaking ascent to the Sweet Sixteen out of a 10-seed (they defeated Michigan State and UMPFN before falling to eventual national runner-up Georgia Tech), they lost their coach (Trent Johnson) to Stanford and their top scorer (Kirk Snyder) to the NBA. Most preseason publications had ......
217. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 20, 2005 Nevada 74, Vermont 64 (story) - You can either contain Taylor Coppenrath or not (18 points here), but the real key to beating Vermont (19-5, 14-1 AEast) is stopping sharpshooter and former MMBOW T.J. Sorrentine. T.J. had 24 total, but only nine of those were in the second half. Nevada's (20-5, 11-2 ......
218. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 18, 2005 Atlantic Sun: Gardner-Webb 67, Belmont 58 (OT) (story) - G-Webb (15-9, 12-5 ASun) used a five-minute rally to storm back from a 12-point deficit late in the second. The homestanding Bruins controlled the flow for 35 minutes, and that included a 12-0 run midway through the second half to break the ga......
219. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 16, 2005 Shootaround! Mid-American: Two games last night in the East division. In yesterday evening's G!O!T!N!, Buffalo (16-7, 9-6 MAC) kept Kent State in check on their home court, 77-66. Turner Battle had 22 points and helped power a 17-5 second-half run that brought Buffalo back from a nine-point halftim......
220. by Kyle Whelliston
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-......
221. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
222. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 9, 2005 Big South: Winthrop 72, High Point 55 (story) - The Winthrop Gauntlet, as mentioned yesterday, is a four-game, six-day stretch; they'll take any break they can get. Last night, they took advantage of the indefinite suspension of HP's star forward (and defending Big South Player Of The Year) Danny Ga......
223. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
224. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
225. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
226. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 February 3, 2005 Colonial: North Carolina-Wilmington 71, George Mason 67 (story) - The Seahawks won a rock-'em-sock-'em game of runs, and as the announcers like to say, the last run was theirs. On a night when UNCW retired Brett Blizzard's jersey, sophomore guard T.J. Carter pulled a "Blizz" and scored 12 points in ......
227. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
228. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
229. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
230. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
231. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
232. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 24, 2005 Patriot: Army 63, Navy 43 (story) - I've been talking so much about the Academies lately, might as well share the biggest upset of the day. Having observed the wide gulf of talent between Army (3-14, 1-4 PL) and Navy (3-15, 0-5 PL) within the past week, I'm in slackjawed disbelief at a result that s......
233. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
234. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
235. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
236. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 20, 2005 Colonial: Old Dominion 67, Hofstra 66 (story) - As was the case in their recent squeaker against Drexel, Old Dominion raced out to a big lead and then hit the cruise control button too early. The second half was filled with streaky back-and-forth runs, and the homestanding Pride grabbed a 66-64 lead......
237. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
238. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
239. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
240. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 12, 2005 Southland: Southeastern Louisiana 56, Sam Houston State 54 (story) - We sold this yesterday as big O versus big D, and the defense won. (I've also heard that it wins championships, but the evidence is inconclusive.) Southeastern kept the Bearkats' normally streaky offense in check, and backup guard ......
241. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
242. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
243. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 9, 2005 West Coast: St. Mary's 66, UMPFN 61 (story) - Well, that didn't take long - now the folks who compile those goofy "mid-major polls" have to pick someone else. Homestanding St. Mary's used Mr. Three to take down the Unnamed Major Program From the Northwest, knocking down 16 of them. Senior guard Paul......
244. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
245. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 6, 2005 Colonial: Old Dominion 60, Drexel 59 (story) - You can't tell much about this game from the boxscore - both teams shot around 40%, were even on rebounds, and neither club turned the ball over that much. But ask one of the 2,000 or so who showed up at Drexel's DAC, and they'll tell you how truly ugly......
246. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 5, 2005 Hoops Nation rejoice! College football season is finally over! Mid-Continent: Oral Roberts 73, Southern Utah 67 (story) - It was a ho-hum night for the Golden Eagles' wonder twin powers: pocket-sized guard Ken Tutt dropped 22 points, and Caleb Green dub-dubbed with 14 points and 11 rebounds. ORU al......
247. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 4, 2005 Our eighth Mid-Majority Baller Of The Week is Michael Harris of the Rice Owls, who also happens to be the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Week as well. The 6-6, 240-lb. senior power forward wants to let everyone know that Rice isn't just about baseball, and wishes to end the Owls' 35-year ......
248. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 4, 2005 Game 024: Boston University 72, at Albany 69 Sunday, January 2, 2005 Recreation and Convocation Center - Albany, New York When you play college hoops on your PlayStation or XBox, you have the option to enter something called "legacy mode." As you take the reins of a bottom-feeding school and try to......
249. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 January 2, 2005 WAC: Nevada 58, Hawaii 55 (story) - Anyone in the East who stayed up until 2 in the morning (or owns a TiVo) got to see a thriller from America's favorite high elevated upper mid-major conference, full of 8-0 runs and a back-and-forth finish. Heavily-inked Rainbow Warrior pointman Matt Gibson scored......
250. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
251. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 30, 2004 Southeast Missouri 65, Saint Louis 49 (story) - When you have a defensive club that has trouble scoring points, you'll still end up beating a few teams. When your defense goes missing and you still can't score points, everyone will beat you. This is the story of the Billikens, whose lost season (2-9......
252. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 29, 2004 Game 021: at Drexel 76, Monmouth 47 Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Daskalakis Athletic Center - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Like so many great things, it all started at the University of Oregon. Hall Of Fame coach Howard "Hobby" Hobson led the Ducks back in the Forties, and he also served on the NCAA ru......
253. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 28, 2004 Because I took an extra day of X-Mas break yesterday, this week's MMBOW only has six days to rule over the mid-major world instead of the normal seven. I'm feeling a little guilty about this and it even kept me up last night for a few extra minutes, so I wanted to do something extra-special for this......
254. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 22, 2004 Alabama State 61, Troy State 48 (story) - Troy is starting from scratch after losing all the starters from their 24-win NIT team of a year ago, and now they're oh and eight. SWAC'ers-on-the-rise Alabama State were the latest to take advantage of the A-Sun club's rebuilding project, beating the Troja......
255. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
256. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 17, 2004 And here it is, the last day of Mid-Majority Finals Week So here's the deal... you have until Saturday at 6:00 PM EST to send in your answer sheets to finalsweek@midmajority.com. Winners will be notified and all answers will be posted sometime on Sunday. Remember, the timestamp on the e-mail contai......
257. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 15, 2004 Welcome back to Mid-Majority Finals Week!!) whilst displaying your remarkable grasp of all things mid-major. To repeat! "Pencils down" time is Saturday at 6:00 PM EST. Send your completed answer sheets to finalsweek@midmajority.com. The rest of the details about rules and prizes and stuff can be fo......
258. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 14, 2004 San Diego 75, Eastern Washington 56 (story) - San Diego was the 298th-best team in the nation last year in terms of RPI, and now here they are beating the stuffing out of the defending Big Sky champions. EWU is now 2-5, mostly against lower-tier WCC and Big West competition. Is the door open for Web......
259. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 14, 2004 Game 016: Wake Forest 67, at Temple 64 Monday, December 13, 2004 Liacouras Center - Philadelphia, PA There are basically two things you need to know about Philadelphia: Pat's Steaks is a thousand times better than Geno's, and Bill Cosby pretty much owns the town. That's right, owns it. Local politi......
260. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
261. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 9, 2004 Alabama A&M 68, Stephen F. Austin 42 (story) - SFA is one of the many heartbreaking faraway-so-close stories you see in the small-college world. The reason you've never heard of them (unless you have, natch) is because for the past two years, they've won 21 games per season but have fallen a cou......
262. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 7, 2004 Northwestern State 85, Tulane 72 (story) - Northwestern (Louisiana) State is the answer to a trivia question - who won the first NCAA Tournament 65-vs.-64 play-in game? (against Winthrop, 2001). They also beat Kentucky 16 years ago. Not known for their long-range accuracy, the Southland Conference's......
263. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 December 7, 2004 The U.S. Postal Service recommends that folks get their holiday mailing done early, because an estimated 20 billion pieces of mail will be sent through the pipes during these next few weeks. That's a lot of mail. So just because there are 16 whole shopping days left until Christmas doesn't mean you ......
264. by Kyle Whelliston
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......
265. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 November 28, 2004 A stocked slate of 113 games yesterday. Where to begin? Alaska-Anchorage 66, High Point 65 (story) - The Great Alaska Shootout gives us the season's first upset of a D1 team by a D2. The Big South's Panthers were up 12 halfway through the second half and let it slip away. Northern IIllinois 84, De......
266. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 November 26, 2004 Today, we celebrate the one-weekiversary of the brawl that will likely end up plunging the NBA to levels of fan indifference not seen since the 1970's. Pundits are still lining up to decry a disturbing new "culture of violence" in the modern sports world. Who's to blame? The fans, the players, the m......
267. by Kyle Whelliston
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 ......
268. by Kyle Whelliston
S1 November 18, 2004 When your humble proprietor was a wee lad, he played him some base ball. Although official statistics were not recorded in the Keene-Peterborough (N.H.) Pee Wee League, I'm sure that my .560 season batting average (achieved primarily with slap singles) would have been near the top of the league lead......

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Now in its sixth season, The Mid-Majority is a blog about the 24 smaller Division I college basketball conferences (and independents) by Kyle Whelliston.

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