In just a few short hours, Selection Sunday will commence and we'll know the names of the 68 schools that will participate in the 2013 NCAA men's college basketball tournament. The majority of the schools in the bubble, however, are from the NCAA's power six conferences - teams that, after a long regular season filled with RPI top-100 opponents, still have a chance at the Big Dance despite having flamed out of their conference tournaments earlier this weekend. Living in Manhattan, the home of the Big East tournament, most of the talk and media coverage this weekend has revolved around schools live Georgetown, Notre Dame, Louisville and Syracuse, schools that are locks for the NCAA tournament. But while most college basketball fans have spent the last couple of days watching the top teams in the country battle for the BCS conference crowns, I'm much more interested in watching the desperate teams fighting for the postseason lives in the smaller conference tourneys.
Don't get me wrong - I've caught parts of a number of BCS conference tournament games this week, and enjoyed some great college basketball from the likes of Georgetown vs. Syracuse, North Carolina vs. Miami and Kansas vs. Kansas State. And while it's great to watch the best players in the country represent the nation's biggest schools, the downside for the losers of these major conference tournament games is pretty limited. While there's no doubt that the players for North Carolina wanted to win today's ACC championship game, the Tar Heels ultimate goal for 2013 - as it is every year - is to take home an NCAA national title. As soon as the final buzzer sounded in Greensboro today, UNC undoubtedly began to look ahead to a Thursday or Friday matchup in Round 2 of the newly-reformatted Big Dance.
As a result, these BCS conference tournament matchups lack the desperation and fight that you can find from the smaller conference playoffs. Unlike North Carolina, tournament finals losers like Vermont (America East), UC Irvine (Big West) and Morgan State (MEAC) certainly won't be headed to the NCAA tournament next week. Like most of the country's Division I teams, their chance at the NCAAs depended entirely on their ability to win their conference postseason tournaments - their failure to do so will result in, at best, a trip to the NIT and, at worst, an abrupt end to the 2013 basketball season. While the quality of basketball in the America East might not be able to match what you find in the Big East, the added passion and emotion generated by the win-or-go-home mentality more than make up for the discrepancies in shooting ability or ball-handling skill.
By this time next week, virtually every mid-major basketball team will be eliminated from the NCAA tournament - most of the small conference schools that have made it this far will serve as little more than second round prey for the nation's traditional basketball powers. Before we reach that point, I've enjoyed another opportunity to see schools for the Patriot League, the MAC and the SWAC compete on a national stage. There will be plenty of time to watch Duke, UCLA and Michigan State play throughout the rest of March - hopefully you were able to enjoy some do-or-die mid major basketball before it was too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment