How March It Is

Championship Week is a great week.  Winter is finally over and you finally have meaningful college basketball games.  The Ohio Valley Conference led off the championship games and it was really exciting.  I wish I had picked this year to do a running diary of that game.  But much of Championship Week didn't go my way.  Let's review:

Ivy League- I wanted Yale to win because they haven't been in the tournament since 1962 and Harvard has been in the last few years.  Yale beat Harvard and had a chance to clinch the next night against Dartmouth, but they lost a heartbreaker and then they lost yesterday in the tiebreaker against Harvard.

MAAC- I was rooting for Iona against Manhattan because Manhattan made it last year.  Manhattan won, but at least they're also a Catholic school.

CAA- I was rooting for Hofstra so that we'd have a local team in the tournament.  Hofstra hasn't made it since 2001.  They led William and Mary by two in the second overtime of the semifinals, but lost on a three with 0.8 left.  Then I jumped on the William and Mary bandwagon.  They're one of five teams that's been in Division I since the tournament was created that's never made it.  And Lou Holtz coached there.  They lost to Northeastern in the final.

NEC- St. Francis in Brooklyn is another one of the five teams that's been around since the tournament started that's never made it (Northwestern, Army, and the Citadel are the three others).  After defeating the other St. Francis in the semifinals, they lost the championship game at home against Robert Morris.

Southern Conference- Furman had a chance to set the record for most losses by a team that made the tournament.  They were the 10 seed in a 10-team tournament.  They got to the championship game, but lost to the 1 seed (Wofford) by three.

America East- My former school, Stony Brook, was in the championship game for the fourth time in five years.  They've never won it.  I didn't see any of it because I was in the city all day yesterday, but they lost a heartbreaker on a Robert Horry against the Kings-esque three with 1.6 seconds left.  By the way, I have no loyalty to Stony Brook at all, I just wanted the local team in the tournament (I doubt Suffolk County has ever had a tournament team).

Atlantic 10- I'll cover this more later, but I went to the semifinals with my brother Tom, an alum of George Washington.  George Washington led much of their quarterfinal game against Rhode Island, but they let it slip away at the end.

Big East- Again, I'll deal with this in much greater detail in another post, but I was still disappointed.  I went to five of the nine games.  Last year, I went to seven of the nine games.  So that's 12 out of 18 games over two years.  And I haven't seen St. John's.  The Big East has five teams that will bring fans to Madison Square Garden.  Xavier, Marquette, Creighton, DePaul, and Butler don't have the history in the Big East and they're just too far away.  St. John's is the home team.  I want the Garden to be excited for Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, and Seton Hall, but nobody is going to get the Garden as excited as St. John's.  And theyre 0-2 the last two years with both losses coming on Thursday afternoon.  Thanks, St. John's.

So yeah, things weren't going my way.  Except for the ACC Tournament.  I saw very little of the ACC Tournament since I was at the Big East Tournament the last three nights.  I didn't watch Notre Dame's win over Miami at all.  I really didn't expect to win against Duke on Friday night.  I thought of the Lou Holtz quote before a game against Miami, "God is neutral.  He doesn't care who wins, but His mother does."  Only I thought, "God is neutral, but ACC referees in the state of North Carolina are not."  I watched a little bit of it on my phone at Madison Square Garden and then I followed the rest on the train home.  Last night, the Big East Championship Game wasn't very good.  So I watched a lot of the first half on my phone.  We looked good and went into halftime with a nice lead (I think it was five) after a Steve Vasturia three to end the half.  I couldn't get the game to play on my phone in the second half.  By the time the Big East game ended, it looked like we were letting things slip away.  North Carolina had the lead.  I figured I'd just pay attention to the score on my phone on the train home.  There was one that was about to leave right as I got to Penn Station.  I checked my phone again and suddenly we had taken the lead.  I had to find a place to watch.  I found a crappy bar in the corner of the Long Island Railroad area at Penn Station, ordered a Guinness, and watched the last six minutes or so.  It was wonderful.  If you gave me a choice between Notre Dame winning the ACC and every other conference tournament going my way, I'm picking Notre Dame without a second thought.  So it was a good Championship Week.

It tasted like sweet victory.

I think it's our most important basketball win of my lifetime.  Winning the ACC is an accomplishment.  It's an even bigger accomplishment when you have to go through Duke and North Carolina in the state of North Carolina.  It wasn't the most fun win I can think of (beating Louisville in five overtimes and beating Syracuse when they were number 1 come to mind), but it was important.  I can't think of any NCAA Tournament wins that were more important (we've only made the Sweet 16 twice in my life and never the Elite 8).  And yet, it means that we're six wins away from a National Championship.  If we had lost our first ACC Tournament game against Miami, it would have meant that we were six wins away from a National Championship.  So winning the ACC was an accomplishment, but I'd like to see us accomplish greater things.

I'll have more on the tournament later, but let me just complain about our 3 seed.  Gonzaga is seeded ahead of us only because they have three fewer losses than us.  They were 1-1 against RPI top 35 teams.  We were 6-3 against RPI top 25 teams.  Kansas is ahead of us because they played a much harder schedule.  They have three more losses than we do.  There's no logic in that.  One of those two teams can be ahead of us, but how can both be ahead of us?  I think Kansas should be ahead of us, but not Gonzaga.  If we played Kansas's schedule, we'd probably have at least eight losses too.  If Gonzaga played our schedule, they'd probably have more than five losses.

And Wisconsin is a 1 seed.  Their record against the RPI top 20 this season:  1-2 (the beat number 19 Oklahoma).  Let them play five games against Duke and North Carolina and let's see what happens.  Whatever, Jake Taylor knows what we need to do.  Go Irish!