Kowalski Korner (3/3)
The Ohio Valley, Big South and Horizon League conference tournaments started yesterday which means that ”March Madness” has officially begun for me. Most people associate “March Madness” with the NCAA tournament, but they are missing some great drama associated with the tournament games played in conferences that historically only receive one bid to the NCAA tournament.
I know you’ve all seen the games on ESPN and ESPN2 with two less than household teams vying for their conference’ s automatic bid. They’re playing in arenas fractions of the sizes where most major conference tournament games are contested. You’ve also probably noticed there is a lot of passion in these games. This is a chance for players to play in front of a national audience for probably the first time in their careers and they are forty minutes away from realizing their dream of making the NCAA tournament. My favorite scene is at the end of the game where the players are locked arm-in-arm as the seconds count down, and they rush the court when the horn blows. Mind you, there aren’t thousands of fans joining them ala the Cameron Crazies at Duke, but these players just earned a spot in the “Big Dance” and now have a chance to put on Cinderella’s slipper by beating a team from a power conference in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
I must explain my bias at this point, I went to Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and I am a HUGE supporter of the Lumberjacks to this day. Last year SFA won the Southland Conference tournament earning their first ever NCAA tournament appearance in school history. I vicariously shared in the players excitement after they beat UT-San Antonio and was equally thrilled to see Stephen F. Austin come up as the thirteen seed to play Syracuse in Miami, Florida during the selection show on CBS. Most people didn’t give SFA a chance to beat Syracuse (they eventually lost to Syracuse 59-44), but as a fan and alum winning the Southland Conference Tournament was equivalent to winning the National Championship.
Over the next two weeks take some time to watch one of these games, not only will it help you fill out your brackets but it will also give you another reason to love college basketball.
