First off, let me say how excited I am to see my school playing in mid-March for the second time in the past three years. Had George Mason not blown the game in last year’s CAA Tournament Finals, it would be three straight years in a row with an appearance in The Big Dance, but I won’t live in the past here. It’s amazing to see a smaller program have the chance to shake the world up. The thing you have to love about sports, like very few competitions in life, is when the underdog actually has a chance. Football usually gets the praise as the sport where anything can happen at anytime, which is evidenced by the term “any given Sunday.” I think boxing should be right there with football or close to it, seeing as how at any time, the underdog can hit the champion with a good shot and that’s it, and there really isn’t too much or a game plan that could have prevented that, so I think boxing has got to be right there.” Think Ali’s upset over Foreman at the Rumble in the Jungle or Buster Douglas’s shocking knockout over the baddest man on the planet at the time, Mike Tyson during the early 90's. But College Basketball has got to be the best example overall. Every year, without fail, there are at least a few opening round games where schools that were expected to go very deep in the tourney end up getting knocked out by a school that really did not spend a lot of time on television during the past season. You have to love the unpredictability of the whole thing!
I have to say I love seeing that American University got into the tournament for their first time. I think the obvious comparison is that they are this year’s George Mason. I highly doubt they are going to take down Bruce Pearl’s team in the first round, but it is still amazing to see that such an obscure school across the nation make it in with the big dogs like Duke and UNC. Maybe they too will serve as inspiration for other smaller or lesser known schools across the country. It seems this year that a lot of the mid-majors have been getting love from the tournament committee by getting more invites than in years past, probably some of those years added together. This only adds to the excitement and craziness that is March Madness because anyone and everyone has a chance to win it all. It is especially exciting for kids who enroll at these smaller schools or get rejected from the bigger ones, because they feel more inclined to follow their teams because they have a chance at doing something special like going deep in the tourney and getting their school some recognition at some point.
Now let me get to Virginia Tech, every year there is between three and five teams who get snubbed. Virginia Tech and a lot of fans and analysts will argue that Virginia Tech got the shaft on this one, but I do not think that they did. Virginia Tech definitely ended their season strong, but they lost at least a few games that they should have played much better in or even won. Tech pretty much controlled their destiny had they beaten Clemson on March 9th, but they lost by a point. While they are unquestionably a good football school, they were not able to win at least one game this season against a team who was ranked, so I am not ready to get upset over a team who controlled their own destiny and are not even a basketball school to begin with. They lost to Butler, Duke, UNC, and Clemson, all of who were ranked during the regular season. I can’t fault them for giving up that fatal basket to Tyler Hansbrough, he is one of the best in the college game right now, but had they been able to stop him from hitting that basket, they were one good showing in overtime away from a tourney birth. I would be more sympathetic had they won a game against a team who was ranked this year, but they did not, so I am not.
The Georgetown Hoyas are the only team in the Virginia/D.C. area who could legitimately be considered a favorite for a Final Four appearance. Despite that, this should be a very exciting week for an area that has never been known for its basketball like the state of North Carolina. Perhaps, this is an omen to the future of the sport in a state that is not so far from North Carolina though?
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