Last year, it was the men’s basketball team from my alma mater, Miami University, that went to the dance after winning the Mid-American Conference tournament in dramatic fashion as a number 4 seed. In the NCAA tourney they lost a heartbreaker to Oregon 58-56, showing the selection committee that they should have been seeded higher than 14th.
This year the men’s team was the 5th seed and lost to eventual MAC tournament champion Kent State 49-47 in the semifinals. So no trip to the dance this year, but they will do something never done before. More on that in a bit.
It will be the Miami ladies finally making their first trip to the NCAA tournament as they play Louisville on Sunday in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Again disrespecting the MAC, the tournament gave the 23-10 RedHawks a #13 seed although they finished as the second best team in the conference overall at 12-4 and won the tournament over archrival Ohio University. (Wonder if we’ve clinched the Battle of the Bricks yet?)
So on Sunday hopefully ESPN will cooperate and place the Miami-Louisville game on either ESPN or ESPN2 so I can watch it. Right after bowling would be ideal.
By the way, the women’s tournament should have plenty of local interest since Maryland will be a #1 seed in their region and oddly enough drew Coppin State in the first round. Those are the only two Maryland schools involved on the women’s side. Coppin State also managed to make it on the men’s side, and takes on fellow Maryland school Mount St. Mary’s in the play-in game tonight with the winner to face North Carolina Friday. UMBC also made the field and happened to draw Georgetown in the first round. Two state schools also were invited to the NIT as Morgan State will travel to Virginia Tech for a first-round game tomorrow night while Maryland travels to Minnesota this evening.
Finally, proving that March Madness is still ripe to be milked for all it’s worth, my RedHawks men will participate in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational tournament, meeting Tulsa tomorrow night in Oklahoma. This 16 team tournament means that 112 college basketball teams will participate in post-season play. While that seems like a lot, bear in mind that over 300 schools play in Division I college basketball, and over half of the BCS Division college football teams play in a postseason bowl (64 of 119). Unique in the CBI is a best-of-three championship series, but you have to wonder about a tournament which features a 13-18 Cincinnati team.
So hopefully I’ll have plenty of Miami basketball to watch as things progress while our hockey team also has a shot at an NCAA bid as well. I’ll find that out too sometime Sunday.
