Butler and Us

While mid-majors are making the Final Four more in the past, it still has not been that common. George Mason in 2006 (written about by Raymond Curren) was the first true mid-major in the modern era of college basketball to make the Final Four. Butler also made it of course in 2010 and 2011, VCU did in 2011 as well, and now Wichita State. All of those schools are either in the Midwest or Virginia; places I like and have been to before but not often. I have never seen any of those four schools at home before. And of course I am a Big South fan, where the best Gregg Marshall was able to do with any of our schools was to make the Round of 32. And that was only once. My school High Point has never come closer than the conference final, which it has not made since 2004. The mid-majors I feel deeply connected to just never go far. The only exception to that are the teams of Southern Illinois in the mid-2000s that I saw during Christmas break when my dad returned to his alma mater. And I have also seen 2008 Elon and 2013 Florida Gulf Coast make Sweet 16 runs after having seen them narrowly escape in gyms much tinier (Elon and USC Upstate respectively) than the domes they would eventually reach. But they did not reach the Final Four, although Davidson was certainly close. But following this website made me feel somewhat connected to everybody, particularly Butler in 2010.

I was really happy when George Mason beat UConn in 2006. They were a true underdog as an 11 seed, coming out of the Colonial after Billy Packer infamously disrespected mid-majors that year upon getting several at-large bids. That was satisfying, yet disappointing in the end as like 2013 FGCU ultimately lost to Florida. But I was not a daily reader of this site at the time, back during #TMM2. Four years later when Butler came around, I was now a frequent visitor here. I had known about Butler before, which made a Sweet 16 run back in 2007. The following December, I saw the Bulldogs play at Southern Illinois which was also coming off a Sweet 16 appearance. Butler had just acquired two key pieces for their big run in 2010: then-freshman center Matt Howard, as well as coach Brad Stevens. After SIU failed to put a the game away in the final minutes, A.J. Graves made a 35 foot shot at the buzzer to win it for Butler. So when Butler made their run two years later, I felt like they were a team I had already known. Of course, the biggest piece of that Butler team was still a senior in high school when I saw Butler play: Gordon "Too Big Yo" Hayward. But I learned about Hayward here, and all of the Bulldogs. Prior to the start of the Bulldogs' run in November 2009, there was a lot of hype about Butler. They were nationally ranked to start the season, and deemed relevant by sportz talk. Mid-majors usually are not promoted in sportz, but Butler was different. And when Kyle wrote this piece on moving the Hoops Nation "capital" from Dayton to Indianapolis, my thought was, "Kyle, you seem to be putting all of your marbles this year into Butler making a run". But unlike SIU the year before (whom Kyle followed in hopes for a good book on a Saluki rise that never came), Kyle and all of us would not be let down.

But during the season, I did not always root for Butler. After all, a difference between TMM readers and everybody else is that we make season-long investments. I had no reason to make an investment in Butler, I was more interested in what High Point and even my grad school above the Red Line in South Carolina was doing. And after having followed more mid-major basketball locally since I entered college, I root more for mid-majors that do not have a history of success. I like mid-majors who 20 years ago were not in Division I, mid-majors that struggle to get 2,000 fans to most games. While we are all fighting the big evil powers, there are certainly schools on our side of the Red Line that have more than the rest of us. Butler is one of them. And when 5 seed Butler faced 13 seed Murray State who had upset Vanderbilt, I was more for the Racers. I had an aunt who graduated from Murray State, and I actually had visited Murray State back in December 2005. And while the Racers have a rich tradition, they have never made the Sweet 16 like Butler had before. I always root for the less privileged school, even when they are both mid-majors. And like in most games, the more privileged school won and Butler advanced.

But once Butler advanced, they would be going against the true enemy. That enemy in the Sweet 16 would be the Syracuse Orange of the Big East. And while Butler had more going for them than Murray State, they had nothing on Syracuse. While we are often times out of place when our schools go to a dome, Syracuse is much different. The Orange play in a dome all the time and average well over 20,000 fans a game. Syracuse is also one of the top spenders in college basketball as well. But the Bulldogs managed a four point victory, and had proven themselves. After the other successful mid-majors had fallen (Xavier, Cornell, Northern Iowa, and St. Mary's), it was up to Butler. They were our team, with a loyal TMM following and its own rallying song we used during the tournament. We had known about them before everybody else did. We needed Gordon Hayward to be Too Big Yo for all of us. We were very close to locking in a Final Four team if Xavier had not fallen in double overtime to Kansas State. But Butler was able to take care of the Wildcats. And Butler would be able to get to play in their hometown of Indianapolis. This drew of course many comparisons to the movie Hoosiers as well as the Milan Miracle that ultimately led to the film. In Hoosiers, Hickory was a tiny school that came out of nowhere, a school that won for "all the small schools that never had the chance to get here". But in real life, Milan was a small school yet still bigger than how Hickory was portrayed in the movie. Milan also did not come from out of nowhere either, having had lots of recently successful teams and was a favorite to reach the Indiana state finals the year they won it. In other words, Milan was Butler. It is not quite the movie storyline of Hickory, but it is as good an underdog story as there can realistically be. Now Butler needed to make like Milan.

But the one catch was that Butler would not be playing where both real life Milan did and reel life Hickory did in the finals. Milan played those last games of the Indiana state tournament in Hinkle Fieldhouse, and that is where Hoosiers was filmed as well. Butler had played at Hinkle Fieldhouse all the time since that is home for them. Instead, it would be the team who normally played at Hinkle who would be going to the much bigger facility. And for Butler, this would mean going across their town of Indianapolis to Lucas Oil Stadium which housed the city's NFL team. And as most TMM readers know, Lucas Oil Stadium is one of the sports world's most evil venues. It provided the inspiration for Kyle's famous "Sports Bubble" piece that got Kyle fired from ESPN. Now our last mid-major had to go to the Sports Bubble Stadium and be the one that overcomes all of the evil of sports. Butler would start against Big Ten superpower Michigan State. The Spartans were always there in the Final Four, and we were counting on Butler to take them out. I had tried to tune the game out, too nervous knowing what was on the line. I went to a college baseball game instead between South Carolina and Mississippi State, won by MSU 8-7 in the only game USC lost among the 22 games I saw them play that year in baseball. That game went nearly four hours, enough time for me to delay knowing what was going on with our last mid-major. I knew the end was near, and wanted to be ready to move on. But Butler had kept hope alive, beating the Spartans. Now Butler had to win just one more game, and the dream of all us on TMM would be fulfilled. Knowing that Butler was playing for All of Us and Each of Us, they would be going up against Duke. For a mid-major to win a national title, Butler had to beat a school that represents all of the evil of college basketball while playing in a stadium that represents the evil of the Sports Bubble. That was what was at stake.

That Monday evening I had my Local Government Administration course at USC, so I would be missing the first half while driving home from Columbia. I did not mind missing the first half, because an entire game with so much at stake would be too much. It felt like a big High Point game given how invested I was in seeing a mid-major win a national championship. It was the one thing Our Game needed the most. I was tired of that magical chance being theoretical. I wanted Butler to win so that chance could be real. We needed Butler to win so that chance could be real for all of us and each of us. And if Butler lost, Duke would be the national champion and the status quo would stay the same. When seemingly the future of your sport and how you view it is at stake, it is just too much. It felt like more than a basketball game, hoping that a Butler win could put a dent into the Sports Bubble and the powers that be in big-time sports.

And of course when I turned the game on, Duke was ahead. But the Blue Devils were never ahead by much, and seemed that hope could not die. Butler needed a big run. But that Butler team under Brad Stevens was never a team that won by getting hot and overpowering a team like Duke. Butler had gotten their previous upsets by taking the lead early on and using good defense to hold on. This game, Duke was holding on. During the game, Kyle tweeted that since we all began the season rooting for separate team that we should support Butler by wearing something from our schools. So I pulled an old HPU shirt out of my drawer and watched the end of the game feeling like things were slipping away. But Duke could not quite put the game away, and our hero Gordon Hayward had a chance to put Butler ahead in the final seconds. But he missed, and I had given up on Butler. Even with a missed free throw, Butler could only manage a desperation shot from Hayward that rimmed out. I remember thinking, "Wow that almost could have gone in".

But I never spent much time thinking about how close it was to actually going in...... because it did not. One of us had made it inside the Sports Bubble, and the Sports Bubble won. Kyle tweeted after the game, "It almost did not end in a loss". But I still felt frustrated, because it still did. The records still show Duke as having won the national championship in 2010. A mid-major has still not won a national championship in quite some time. UNLV in 1990 was in the Big West, but I am not sure you can really call a team that today is in the Mountain West and was then coached by Jerry Tarkanian to be a true mid-major. Not since 1963 has a true mid-major won a national title, which was by Loyola Chicago which still holds Hoops Nation membership today in the Horizon League.

And what made this Butler loss sting especially hard was that I was not sure we would ever get another chance. The NCAA had been considering a 96 team bracket, which would make nearly all mid-majors have to play an extra game to get to be able to play against the big boys. Ultimately the NCAA only expanded to 68 teams, which while Kyle celebrated as having dodged a bullet I still felt let down since that still targeted the poorer conferences of Hoops Nation like my Big South. But yet we somehow overcame that as well. VCU like George Mason five years earlier was selected as an 11 seed, but this time they had to go to Dayton's Quad P.I.G. to get it. And VCU not only did, they went all the way to the Final Four as well. And the number of upsets by mid-majors helped assist Butler to another national championship appearance. But again they would lose to another superpower from above the Red Line in UConn.

But we will never see Butler make a glorious run for mid-majors ever again. And that is because Brad Stevens like so many coaches before him will make the move above the Red Line. Only this time, there is a catch: Stevens is taking Butler with him in his journey to the other side. Butler in order to keep Stevens has spent a lot of money, and the result of that effort to stay competitive has landed Butler in the New Big East founded by the "Catholic Seven". Butler's final loss this season came to Marquette, a Big East school they will be joining. I have seen some Twitter discussion of whether the New Big East will be a true major conference. Kyle has said he will be getting rid of the Red Line, so we will have to decide once again who is a mid-major and who is not. But the New Big East has an average athletic budget of $25 million and an average men's basketball budget of over $6 million. Those are definitely major conference numbers, particularly in how it impacts Our Game. If Butler is to stay a mid-major, then Georgetown and Marquette will have to be classified as mid-majors. And I do not see those schools as having much in common with places like Charleston Southern and USC Upstate. This site exempted Gonzaga for many years as a school with lots of national exposure even without football money. And the New Big East is basically a conference full of Gonzagas. They have a big television deal in place, and will continue to show that college sports outside football can still be profitable. They will be getting their own piece of the Sports Bubble, while the schools left behind in the Other 24 will not. I know it is going to be hard for some of our longtime readers who are big Butler fans, but Butler is no longer one of us. This big glorious run they had back in 2010 has led them to riches, and they have finally gotten to the other side. Butler deserves much praise for completing the goal that we all have for our programs. I still would love to someday work in a trip to Hinkle into my Christmas vacation plans. But in the context of "All of Us, Each of Us", the Big East is not one of us. A school in the Big South, SoCon, or even the Bulldogs' old conference mates back in the Horizon League have little in common with Butler's new conference home. Letting go is never easy. But we must accept that our old friends at Butler who made this fantastic run that almost did not end in a loss haved moved on. If we are basketball hipsters like Danny Spewak and Craig Caswell

have said, Butler is then like the rock band that we loved until they signed with a major record label. We won't have any "official" Red Line Upsets on here tracked on this website next season, but Butler losing to those left in the Other 24 will now be reason for celebration. Butler's role in Our Game will be reversed in the future. That is sad to see, but we hope that they will never forget where they came from and that their fans will never be Billy Packer-like complainers when mid-majors get at-large bids.

So as for now, we still must remember that there are still some mid-major powers left. Some of them have been left feeling dismayed watching a conference rival leave for the New Big East. And one of those is still going even after that conference rival has gone down. That team of course is Wichita State, coached by the only coach to reach the Round of 32 with a Big South school. The Shockers have turned the rest of the field to wheat so far, and if they win two more games will have finally reached the goal we have dreamed about. And we all can hope that they can go farther than Butler ever did, and have it not end in a loss. But unfortunately, that is the one TMM principle that still cannot die. It always ends in a loss. At 6:09 P.M. tomorrow night, there will be a basketball game. My plan for tomorrow is to spend the afternoon at a Division II baseball doubleheader at Newberry College. Newberry was where the season began for me, where I logged in from a truck stop to join the start of Season 9 by drafting Torrey Craig and the opening chat. And when I get home, it will likely be around halftime like it was during Butler's first national championship appearance. And while I keep hope, I know what always happens at the end, whether it comes Saturday or Monday. My final words here are to Wichita State: Change everything we have ever known about college basketball and its status quo and how things are supposed to be.

Hanging On

After the last loss at Davidson, College of Charleston fans were heartbroken. They were not going back to the NCAA Tournament. But C of C did get a consolation prize: a trip to the CBI! The CBI is the College Basketball Invitational, run by the Gazelle Group which an independent organization dedicated to creating college basketball tournaments and other special events. The tournament is a very prestigious event that is very exciting. Just look at the promo video on the official tournament webpage! Who would not want to be a part of that The answer to that is College of Charleston fans apparently. Many fans on their message board did not understand why they were playing in this tournament. After all, this is what Kyle calls a "ghost bracket". These teams as far as Kyle is concerned have both reached death. Some College of Charleston fans also thought this as well, even though they were hosting here! And while I am fine with the minor tournaments, I was barely aware (or cared) that my school High Point would be playing the following night at UC Irvine in the CIT after its loss to Liberty in the Big South quarterfinals. And that counts as our first ever post-conference tournament game at the Division I level! So why do we play these games In part it is to give seniors like C of C's Andrew Lawrence one last game. And it also gives the players on these teams one last shot to practice as well before they are forbidden from doing so during the offseason.

And it would be a low key atmosphere for the players to practice in front of in Charleston this evening. Unlike USC Upstate a year ago in the CIT, College of Charleston did not heavily promote this game. The admission price was just the same as it was in the regular season, and all seats were general admission. With season ticket holders having to purchase a ticket for this game, attendance was lackluster at an official crowd of 1700, the lowest of the year for College of Charleston at TD Arena. The student section was mostly empty as well. This felt more like a preseason exhibition than postseason madness. And you think that with George Mason being a solid CAA team (the conference the Cougars are headed to), more fans would show up. But few did.

The few fans who showed up however were treated to some outstanding basketball. Unlike College of Charleston's last game against Davidson where they shot 30 percent, the Cougars shot 51 percent against the Patriots. I do not know if the offenses were that good this evening, or if defense was less energetic with the exhibition-like feel as it is in the NBA All-Star Game. But College of Charleston was still behind most of the first half here as well, as the Patriots were unstoppable. Five Mason players would finish this game in double figures, and even after a 7-2 run to end the half College of Charleston was ahead down 44-36 at halftime. And it was a low tempo game despite that score, with Mason having an incredible 1.42 points per possession in the first half. But College of Charleston would respond and do the same in the second half! The Cougars rallied behind Anthony Stitt to take the lead eight minutes into the second half. Stitt shot 7 for 11 and finished with 21 points. It seemed pretty good for the Cougars as they took a late lead to the delight of their small but supportive audience. College of Charleston led by six points with two minutes left. But then Stitt became invisible with Mason locking in on him, and Mason made the plays while Stitt missed a running jumper with 15 seconds left. The Patriots outhustled the Cougars down the court, and Erik Copes made the game winning putback with one second left as no Cougar could rebound Sherrod Brown's miss. Some C of C fans were angry that no basket interference was called as Copes was close to touching the ball on the rim. While this was not like their 2006 run to the Final Four, George Mason proved that you can make a CBI game exciting with a 78-77 win.



So why was this game played Because as we saw, you can get a pretty good basketball game when two quality mid-majors play each other even as ghosts. This turned out to be one of the best games I have been to this season, even though some fans do not feel that this game counts for anything. But for the players in this game, it was a thrilling way to just hang in there. And that is what the CBI and CIT is all about: just hanging in there. Trying to get something done while you still can. C of C may just be hanging on in the CAA after Mason after the game abandoned the conference in favor of the Atlantic 10. And that is the way it is for all of us, here in the last game for The Hopping Cats of TMM9 (Joe Wright was also at this game). We finish in second place after a good showing all year from Ballyfest Destiny. And early in the season I felt we would be trying to hold off Under a Blood Red Line which had a solid team of 800 Games Project champions Matt Cayuela and Donovan Potts. It turns out that in my quest to be king of going all out to a bunch of basketball games, I could not top Raymond Curren and Hickory Picket Fences. And nobody could, not even Kyle went to nearly as many games as Ray did this year. While this is my 85th TMM9 game of the season and 175th basketball game overall, Ray went to over 130 mid-major games. At least I think he did, I lost count. So congrats to Ray for doing something truly amazing this season.

And hanging on seems to be a theme for a lot of us. Kyle mentioned how he kept going after getting fired by ESPN how he was barely able to hang on, and I am feeling like him in my own life right now. I do not know where I will be next year and how much I will be able to contribute, but I hope things get better for all of us as we just hang on together.

A Championship in Pictures

After spending the last week watching Liberty win both the Big South women's and men's titles, I wanted a break from watching the conquest by an empire. So I decided to spend a lot more money and make the trip to Asheville and the Southern Conference Tournament, our oldest conference tournament. Neither Davidson or College of Charleston are underprivileged like Charleston Southern of course. Davidson made the Elite Eight five years ago with a future NBA star in Stephen "Flash" Curry. And College of Charleston is following the big boys in being an active participant in conference realignment by leaving for the Colonial, showing that it is not just the schools above the Red Line who are trying to move into conferences with little geographic sense. But these are both true mid-majors, with neither school trying to become a national empire like Liberty. Whoever won would be the closest school to me in the NCAA Tournament, and a team worth rooting for. So this would be a fun game to watch. And I will document it like I did with the Charleston Southern/Gardner-Webb game and tell the story here in pictures, championship style!



Here you can see Davidson's students and other fans camping out in the lobby half an hour before doors opened. I did the same last year with Western Carolina fans. Last year I did not want to leave the Civic Center because it was cold and windy, and this time I wanted to stay inside from the rain. The Davidson fans had just come from the women's final, where they lost a one point heartbreaker to Chattanooga. Had Davidson won, they could have completed a sweep of the SoCon basketball titles like Liberty did in the Big South. But Davidson's women are not as dominant as Liberty or the Davidson men, so the Wildcat fans hopes were more invested in the upcoming men's game.



The Davidson students were quick to fill the lower baseline seating of the Asheville Civic Center. This was not quite like Western Carolina last year, which also filled most of the empty yellow seats up high you see in this picture. But Davidson is a much smaller school than WCU, so their turnout is still very impressive. In that game, Davidson was practically on the road as WCU was only making a one hour journey through the mountains. Charleston is over four hours away from Asheville, and while they support their Cougars well at home they are not known as a traveling road fan base. As a result, Davidson after being practically on the road last year was practically at home this year.



The Davidson fans were ready to be on national television, which like the Big South final the day before was also on ESPN2. Davidson students came with a number of signs, one advocating that the Vatican select J.P. Kuhlman (his initials stand for John Paul) as the next pope at the conclave that was meeting that week. Here you can see Davidson fans poking fun at the Cougars for leaving the SoCon after years of Davidson dominance. College of Charleston feels that the Colonial will be a move up, although with the CAA's recent defections there is nobody in the conference as prestigious as Davidson. Getting away from Davidson might be what College of Charleston needs to get back to the NCAA Tournament.



And then you have some Davidson fans bringing in crass signs like this one. This sign is targeted at College of Charleston forward Trent Wiedeman. It is sort of funny, but the big problem I have with the sign is that is a slight at women in an effort to slight Wiedeman. In the previous women's final, there were certainly some women that it would be positive to compare Wiedeman to. But this was all part of Davidson's enthusiasm towards being in the Southern Conference final. This energy from the crowd was unmatched by any Big South school, but it would be interesting if Davidson could bring the same enthusiasm if their history was more like that of Charleston Southern.



The big problem here for C of C was that the Cougars would be challenged by the size of the Wildcats. Charleston had a couple good guards in Andrew Lawrence and Anthony Stitt, but nothing to match Jake Cohen (shown above) and De'Mon Brooks. Davidson quickly got out to a seven point lead at the first media timeout and led in that range of five to ten points most of the rest of the half, ultimately leading at halftime by a score of 35-26. College of Charleston's shooting, a problem for the entire season, was dreadful on the evening in finishing at 30 percent shooting. And when you are facing Brooks and Cohen, that is not going to be a good sign.



So what caused Davidson to be so consistently effective at shutting down College of Charleston Maybe it was these two guys pictured above. In the empty corner of the Civic Center opposite their fellow students, these two guys did alternating hand motions looking out over the Civic Center. They would alternate which arm they raised while slowly clasping their fingers, acting if they were pulling something in. I have no idea what tradition this was from Davidson, and I saw many fans (especially kids) going up to them and asking and sometimes emulating them. Maybe they were reeling in another SoCon title with their hands. Either way, what they were doing was quite interesting and they were giving the Wildcats the mojo they needed.



Things would not getting any better for "The College" in the second half. Davidson held steady for most of the second half, occasionally letting the Cougars make things interesting. But while Lawrence was asked to carry the load for College of Charleston, Davidson had a number of guys backing up Cohen and Brooks. Four players finished with double figures as the balanced Wildcat attack pulled away with about five minutes left in the game. Another Davidson title was on its way.



The all-male Davidson student group known as the "Block" celebrated the final minutes by as you see here ripping their shirts off and waving them around. I do not know if that was spontaneous, or planned once they were on their way to a conference title. I do not recall seeing them do that way before when I have seen Davidson and the Block before. One of their fellow Block members on the other end of the arena doing the hand signals also ripped off his shirt, although I do not know how he did that while staying in sync with his hands. Davidson is a school where conference titles are routine, having won their second straight and fifth in eight years with a 74-55 win in this game. But the excitement of going dancing again never gets old.



Here you see the Davidson students celebrating the title near the court, but not making any court storm attempt this time. The students were not willing to challenge the floorstormstapo, instead waiting for the players to come join them in celebrating. That seems to be the newest celebration tradition, having players jump into the student section Lambeau Leap-style. The players are restricted in that behavior as well, in part because of fan-player incidents like the fight between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons fans at a NBA game in 2004 and also because they have to get back on the court for the official ceremonies. Davidson's players did not seem as excited the year before to win, in part because they had been here a year ago and also in part because they had defeated College of Charleston handily and the result was never in doubt.



And now here is the net cutting ceremony. Net cutting always looks better on SportsCenter and in pictures than it does in person. These ceremonies are not as fun to watch in person because it is not very quick. It is not just players and coaches doing it, it is also pretty much every person directly connected to the Davidson men's basketball program in anyway. Here Cohen is pictured cutting down the nets. After Cohen and all his teammates had cut the net, it was up to legendary Wildcat head coach Bob McKillop to take it down. Problem was that McKillop was absent from the ceremony for a long time, presumably conducting press conference interviews. I waited over ten minutes for him to show up, only for him not to. Most of the Davidson students had given up and left, so I did to. And finally in the newspaper the next morning I did see that McKillop had come back to the Civic Center floor to grab the net. But while this was a mismatch and a blowout, it was more fun than the Big South title game had been. There was no big-money empire coming in and conquering the conference. It was just a tiny school half the size of High Point that has somehow managed to be pretty darn good both academically and at basketball. And that is somebody I can root for, and felt heartbroken when the Wildcats let their game against Marquette slip away. Because for all of us, it ends in with a loss. This guy cannot carry the mojo forever.

This Time of Year

I have been a reader of this website regular since Season 4 after being in and out of the first three seasons on here. The reason I became a dedicated reader is because Kyle Whelliston connected to me more than any other sports writer. His experience was going to the same games I did, literally going to six of the same games in Season 4 that I did. He actually watched mid-major basketball and was the only writer out there who viewed Our Game the same way I did. He wrote excellent articles I could relate to about traveling, overcoming financial disadvantages, and even the burnout that led him to turning the writing on here over to the readers. I agree with Kyle far more often I disagree with him. I agree with him about what constitutes an "upset" when most basketball fans do not. I also feel disheartened watching our teams lose during the NCAA Tournament as he does. But with any writer you love, you end of being disappointed the more you know them. And for me, I just do not have the same romantic feeling Kyle has of conference tournaments.



Maybe it is because I have never been to all of one conference tournament. My conference, the Big South, has done in the past used the campus site format loathed by Kyle. Or most likely it is because the mid-majors I feel most attached to do not win these tournaments either. My High Point Panthers have never won the conference tournament, and have not reached the final in nine years when they lost by 45 points to Liberty. Kyle described the NCAA Tournament as being more sorrow than joy, which I agree with him. And then he dismissed the schools that lose during Championship Fortnight as, "tempered anyway, all those seasons that were over before they even began". But for me, I have a passion for those schools as well, and feel sad to see them lose. I felt bad seeing Presbyterian go out after a closely contested first ever postseason game. I felt bad for Coastal Carolina as a local school I nearly went to myself, even though I felt that they had not properly earned hosting rights. I felt bad for Longwood, coming up short before Parks Smith could see his team play in the postseason for the first time. I felt bad for Gardner-Webb, which had a hot season screech to a halt in the previous game. And of course we had my school High Point lose. All that we had left was the great story of Charleston Southern against Liberty's empire. If our regular season champions could win here, a great story would be completed in CSU's rise to the NCAA Tournament. But if they lost, the Big South would be represented by an empire with a Mountain West sized athletic budget.



So that is why conference tournaments have been about sorrow for me as well. Part of me likes the Ivy League model, where Harvard got in and won as a 14 seed without having to win a conference tournament. The Ivy League does not hold a tournament mainly to not take their players out of the rigorous classes they must take at an Ivy League institution. If the Big South had the Ivy League format, Charleston Southern would face High Point in a one game playoff at a neutral site (most likely Winthrop). That is a final that I would have liked to have seen more for obvious reasons. But yet I still like that magical chance, where the season never dies until with one loss at the end and you have a shot at a national title until then. Under the current system, nobody is eliminated from contention in January. So maybe we could possibly expand the tournament and include the regular season and tournament champions (an idea I am sure Kyle would REALLY hate). Or we could just go back to the higher seeds hosting, which Kyle feels takes away from the specialness of the tournament. In that case, Charleston Southern would be hosting (most likely at College of Charleston or the North Charleston Coliseum because of the Buc Dome's problems). I like something that rewards the regular season. The current format caters to much to the Johnny-come-lately fans who only show up in March that both me and Kyle strongly dislike. The season is about the long haul, and we need to make the journey count more.



But rather than hosting, Charleston Southern would be facing Liberty on a neutral floor. Both schools brought about 500 fans to the game each, with another thousand unaffiliated fans at the HTC Center (mostly coming from the host school Coastal Carolina). Charleston Southern had won the regular season title, and now they needed to defend it. The student leader who implored his fellow students to get loud so CSU could get to that first conference title in 16 years back in January needed another win to make it all happen. They had to defeat the empire, and then they would be rewarded. But defeating an empire is hard, even one that went 11-20 in the regular season. And the Liberty train would get going early, with both Davon Marshall and John Caleb Sanders making superhoops to go ahead. Charleston Southern would claw back and even the game, only for Marshall and Sanders to do their thing. Charleston Southern came back again and took the lead in the final minute of the half. But Tavares Speaks then made a shot at the buzzer, and Liberty had the halftime lead. CSU needed to do what they did against VMI the day before.



But Speaks' shot at the buzzer stopped the Buc momentum going into the second half. Charleston Southern continued to hang around, and led briefly early in the second half. But Charleston Southern needed good shooting to beat the bigger Flames. And while they shot well all year at the Buc Dome, they never got it going in four games at the HTC Center. As the game entered the final minutes, LU's lead increased to double digits. Davon Marshall kept hitting three after three after superhoop. Marshall made six of seven shots behind the arc, and it was increasingly evident that Charleston Southern was not going to be stopping the empire. And as a result, all their hard work all season towards finally putting together their best season in many years was only going to land them in NIT, also known as America's Premier Ghost Bracket. As we did the Interlude at the final media timeout (the only time it was done outside halftime in the tournament), I only did it with half the energy. The game would not even be close in the end. Liberty would win 87-76, and as Liberty fans rushed the court in a tightly controlled manner I could only help but feel bad for the team whose magical season ended.



The tournament was now over, and the empire made its conquest. I had finally watched an entire conference tournament, and the last team I was rooting for had fallen. While both Charleston Southern and Liberty have the same religious background, they are much different in every other regard. Liberty, as I mentioned in my last recap, is an empire built up over 40 years by Jerry Falwell and his family. Charleston Southern is a school with among the fewest resources at the Division I level, playing in a gym smaller than some middle schools. They were the true underdog story. But it was the empire that got to play the underdog card with 20 losses. You cannot dismiss the story of Charleston Southern as being "over before (it) even began". But they now were going to the NIT while the Big South was represented by a school that spends at a C-USA or Mountain West level. And I was happy to see the empire finally going down nine days later to another big tournament underdog in North Carolina A&T, who I also saw play. It was someone in Hoops Nation with financial challenges that brought Liberty's run to an end. But by that point, I was mourning the loss of all the seasons that died this week in Conway.

Empire

I really do not like talking about controversial subjects. But with Liberty University making a deep run in this year's Big South Tournament, it is hard to try and avoid controversy. And that is because Liberty University is a school all about controversy. Liberty University was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by famous televangelist Jerry Falwell. While Falwell was more well known for his televangelist efforts through the Moral Majority and Thomas Road Baptist Church, Falwell always took great pride during his life about LU, which became Division I less than 20 years after its founding and the NCAA Tournament shortly after that. Falwell was known for being an ambitious person in spreading his evangelical message, and was a big supporter of the Flames. His controversial nature and passion for Big South basketball was the reason why Kyle found him a good interview subject during his ESPN days. And now five years since his death, the school now led by his son Jerry Falwell Jr. was two wins away from making their first NCAA Tournament in nine years.



In that ESPN article back in 2006, Kyle lists multiple quotes by Jerry Falwell that have made him a controversial figure. And you can easily Google more outrageous quotes by Falwell, such as tying secularists to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Falwell was a passionate figure, whether in building Liberty University up in to superpower status in a short period or in intertwining religion and politics that made him a lot of enemies. Kyle did a good job in his article of showing the human side of Reverend Falwell, as a guy who loved basketball just like the rest of us. And ideally I would like to separate the controversies from the basketball team when viewing Liberty, and view the Flames as just another basketball team. But Falwell knows the impact college sports have, and that is why late in life he was passionate about building up the athletic program's reputation. As Falwell said to Kyle towards the end of that ESPN article, "We believe that sports and music are the two platforms that can reach youth -- any kid, anywhere in the world. They may not know Billy Graham, but they know Michael Jordan. We use basketball to attract kids who otherwise would not come, and we ask God to give them the message of the gospels. That's how we look at it, not that the game is spiritual, it's what it does, it attracts kids. After 35 years, we're the largest Christian school in the world." To summarize, Falwell knew that the more successful the Flames are, the more students that they will draw. And the more students Liberty gets from that, the more Falwell's empire grows.



And that is why Liberty is: an empire. I have tried to like them with the rest of the conference, and that is why I try to put my grudges I had as a HPU student against Winthrop aside as I pull for them in the style of "All Of Us, Each Of Us". But in the case of Liberty, it is hard to root for an empire. This is not about religion or politics here, as I pull for the three other Evangelical Christian schools of the Big South including Liberty's opponent this game in Gardner-Webb (Charleston Southern and Campbell are the other two). Those schools all are governed by the same conservative theology that Liberty is, and most likely have similar strict policies on their students similar to the "Liberty Way". But they are not seeking to create an empire on behalf of their faith, they are just regular colleges that incorporate biblical principles into their teachings. But Falwell had explicitly stated that his goal was to make Liberty the equivalent for Evangelical Christians what Notre Dame is to Catholics and what BYU is to Mormons (Falwell's goal for the LU football team was to someday play Notre Dame). And I do not care much for those schools either. One thing that makes college sports more interesting than professional sports is that they represent colleges and universities rather than cities and states. And those schools all have different goals in education and values, which connects college sports to our culture better than professional sports do. But at the same time, I like sports being a way to unite people. I want Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Catholics, mainline Protestants, and non-Christians all coming together and not just playing each other but playing with each other. There are some European soccer clubs that have a history of sectarianism and following political ideologies, and has caused heated battles between historically Catholic Celtic and historically Protestant Rangers in Scotland. Sports are more fun when they are not as divisive as religion and politics are, and why I would like to be able to pull for Liberty as well as the rest of the conference.



So here the Flames were, going up as "underdogs" against a red hot Gardner-Webb team. But in terms of resources, Liberty had the huge edge. Just as it was for High Point two days earlier, it would not be a fair fight for Gardner-Webb. Liberty spends three times as much on sports than Gardner-Webb and twice as much on athletics. So to me, their record in conference play was not important. Gardner-Webb was the true underdog here. And the game would be close early, with Liberty leading most of the way. Gardner-Webb's Tyler Strange was getting good shots against the Flames, which was very important to do against a bigger opponent. But Liberty's backcourt responded very well, with John Caleb Sanders using his bigger teammates as screens to help him drive to the basket. After a good start to the first half, Liberty only led by two at halftime. Given how Charleston Southern started in the last game, there was no reason Gardner-Webb could not take the game with a solid run.



But that would not happen here. Liberty built their lead back up to eight points, and Gardner-Webb looked sluggish on offense while the Flames got the big shots when needed. Gardner-Webb had the speed behind Tashan Newsome to push the tempo against the big Flames, but the athleticism advantage for GWU never showed as the Bulldogs were not Runnin'. And while GWU pulled even again late, Liberty was able to make their free throws while the Runnin' Bulldogs could not make the superhoop when needed as Liberty had been able to do earlier. The result was a 65-62 win for Liberty, and the empire moved on.



Liberty fans before the tournament were unhappy with their coach Dale Layer, who they felt was not able to take advantages of the school's enormous wealth. But Layer's Flames had risen up, and showed why I thought they were a threat at the beginning of the season. The empire was alive and well. I wish the LU well in the future, as Falwell Jr. has done an outstanding job at coming closer to the dream his dad had for his university. Liberty is actively seeking FBS football, but many conferences do not wish to touch what might be Hoops Nation's most controversial school. It must be noted that Liberty would likely have never been successful without the controversies, as Falwell's ambition has attracted many supporters for the same reason it drew him enemies. Liberty is one of the largest private schools in the country (both sides of the Red Line) with 12,000 students in Lynchburg and 60,000 more taking online courses which if you count them might make LU the largest of the private non-profit schools. And I hope someday a conference can take a chance on them and that they eventually end up on the other side of the Red Line. Ultimately, that destination works better for an empire than the small poor folks of the Big South.

Overcoming the Burden of History

Charleston Southern entered this game as the favorite, 12-4 in the Big South against an 8-8 squad from VMI. But as I mentioned in their last game, this is a new position for Charleston Southern. When you talk about places in Hoops Nation that have had a lot of struggling, CSU has to be near the top of the list. Kyle in all his travels never visited Charleston Southern's "Buc Dome", an 881 seat arena that has limited space for media and would not have been able to host this tournament even if we were going to the higher seeds. At just over $800,000, Charleston Southern spends less on men's basketball than anybody else in the Big South. And yet after the regular season they were now the favorites. They were the regular season champions after years of hanging back towards the bottom of the conference. And when you factor all of that in, CSU was the true underdog story regardless of their record. This was the story of the 2012-2013 Big South season.



Charleston Southern did not quite come out of nowhere, even though most of Barclay Radebaugh's tenure at CSU has been unsuccessful. They were picked to win their division at the beginning of the season after finishing fourth of 11 in the conference a year ago. And with defending champion UNC Asheville hurt by graduation as well as most of the rest of the conference, that gave the Bucs' high expectations. But high expectations do not always translate into wins. And that is especially true for a school like Charleston Southern, which has not won much since the 1997 Big South Tournament. Charleston Southern is a football school despite like High Point having few financial resources to pull it off. And quite often we see surprise teams like Charleston Southern go down quickly in the postseason. Growing up a South Carolina fan, I was dismayed to have the school finally put together two seasons where they were seeded in the top 3 of their NCAA Tournament bracket, only to lose in the first round both times with star player B.J. McKie who is now an assistant at CSU. Have you ever noticed how certain schools always find a way to win in the postseason, even after a weak regular season Expectations of how a school is to perform before the season often means more than expectations after the regular season. Both Nate Silver and Ken Pomeroy have done studies that have found that to be true. And while CSU was picked first, it was only because the conference as a whole was down and someone had to be picked first. And that also could describe Charleston Southern's regular season title as well. So if they were to prove themselves, the Bucs needed to beat VMI and make the Big South Championship.



I had already seen the Bucs crush VMI before just a couple weeks prior in a game at the Buc Dome. But the Buc Dome the HTC Center is not. This was a neutral court, and it would be a tough test against VMI. And as I have mentioned frequently in past VMI recaps, you can always count on Duggar Baucom to pull a surprise at least once every Big South Tournament. And the win over Longwood really did not qualify as such, so that surprise could easily happen here. Early on, it looked like we would be getting that surprise. Rodney Glasgow was hot early for the Keydets, which led by nine midway through the first half. And while VMI's offense was quited late in the first half, Charleston Southern's offense was slow to get going. VMI led 30-25 at halftime, and it looked as if we could see an "upset" over the long-time struggling Buccaneers.



But things began to change in the second half. Arlon Harper stepped his game up big time in the second half and began to take over to give the Bucs a six point lead five minutes into the first half after a 16-5 run to start. CSU could never find the superhoop like they did against the Keydets back in North Charleston, and that is what kept VMI in the game. Leading shooters Mathiang Muo and Jeremy Sexton combined for no points on the game, usually a bad sign for the Bucs. But behind Harper and point guard Saah Nimley the Bucs were able to their job in holding off the Keydets. Glasgow's big game for the Keydets made it closer than CSU wanted, but in the end Harper's free throws won sealed a 71-65 win for Charleston Southern. Behind 33 points from Harper, CSU would continue the journey from an arena that cannot handle a proper television crew to being nationally televised on ESPN2 in reaching their first conference final in eight years.



Charleston Southern with the win here showed that they were no fluke. They beat an wlways tricky VMI team, and were one win away from making the NCAA Tournament. Even with a loss in the next game CSU had already clinched the NIT based on their regular season results. And as much as the NIT and "ghost brackets" have been ripped on here before, it is still a big accomplishment for a school that has had little going for it in basketball. Credit is to be given to Radebaugh, who coached through some of CSU's lean years after leaving Gregg Marshall's highly successful bench at Winthrop. And credit especially goes to the core group of Harper, Nimley, Muo, and Sexton. These players have come together to form a team that has done more than what anybody else has done in recent history despite poor facilities and few resources behind them. These are the guys who represent the best in Hoops Nation, and they still had one more big step in front of them.

An Unfair Fight

I was not very confident going into this Big South quarterfinal on High Point's chances against Liberty. High Point had won the North Division and six more games in conference play than the Flames had. But that had largely come from John Brown, which High Point did not have. Of course, my main worry of seeing High Point taken in out in one game on the road was squashed by Liberty destroying host Coastal Carolina. But Liberty had done so in a convincing manner, and I did not see how Allan Chaney was supposed to by himself shutdown Liberty's frontcourt. And when has HPU defended shooters like Davon Marshall well And the thought going through my head now was, oh no, it should not end with a loss to Liberty. Three years ago the HPU baseball team had its successful season end on a controversial call to the Flames. And among schools in the Big South, Liberty is the school to fear. They spend a lot of money, and while they don't get a lot of bang for the buck Liberty still has competitive teams in every sport. The women's basketball team at Liberty has only twice in the last 17 years not won the Big South title. What was there to stop the LU men from such a run I did not think it would be us.



So this looked like it would be the death of a good season for High Point. Last season I wrote about the cruel ending of the season, "And this was just a game. Fortunately our personal lives do not work like basketball. We do not have to kill one another for the resources to continue to survive. That would really be awful. That's what basketball is like, and that is our entertainment." I have always thought that would make an interesting concept for a book. Shortly after I wrote that, I learned that there was a book with that exact concept. It's called The Hunger Games, and you probably heard about it like I did when the successful movie based on the book came out. While the book is aimed at teenagers (particularly girls), the book and movie has a lot of parallels to Our Game. You have teenagers exploited at the national level while they kill each other for mass entertainment. The "career districts" have the most financial resources and (illegally) put much of their resources into training youths to fight for glory. Does that not sound like the schools above the Red Line And then there are nine other districts out of 12, where the majority of the residents dread the Games knowing that their kids are most of the time to going to hopelessly die in the end. The book is actually about war, and the parallels to Our Game has to do with that our sports often mimic war (both intentionally and unintentionally). And for most everybody involved, it always ends in a loss. That last point is the emphasis of the Capitol (the Sports Bubble/NCAA parallel here) in the book's sequel.



So High Point and most of the conference is definitely like the troubled District 12 in the novel, the poorest of the poor. So where does a school like Liberty University fit into this universe They certainly are not a career district, shunned by the FBS conferences they have long tried to join. But is Liberty like the rest of us Liberty spends $30 million total on athletics, $2.3 million of which directly goes to men's basketball. Just as a reminder, the Red Line cut off for conferences is an average of $20 million total and $2 million for men's basketball. Does this sound like a school that belongs in one of Division I's poorest conferences Liberty spends nearly twice as much on sports than Coastal Carolina (who spends $18 million) whom is second in the conference in athletic spending. Liberty spends more than six times as much on sports as the two-time defending champions UNC Asheville. And Liberty spends three times as much on sports than High Point.



So with that said, we definitely were up to a tall task here. Liberty may be a conference opponent, but winning would require a Red Line Upset-like performance. And without John Brown, things looked REAL bad early. At the first media timeout, Liberty led 9-0. I knew at this point I should not be getting my hopes up. High Point then held steady most of the remainder of the half. But Tavares Speaks would take over for the Flames again late in the half which pulled out to a 39-22 halftime lead. That seemed to be the game right there.



So when I watched the second half, I felt that HPU was a dead man walking team after my pregame expectations and then the first half. But unlike Coastal Carolina two days earlier, High Point did not fold when things got bad. Dejuan McGaughey continued to show the improvement he has made over the course of the season. Allan Chaney was getting to the basket more, just like he did in a comeback win over Campbell five days prior. Everybody stepped their game up, and HPU mounted a bit of a comeback here. High Point cut the Flames lead to two at the final media timeout. But Davon Marshall appeared to be taking over again, making free throws and a superhoop to put Liberty up nine with less than three minutes left. McGaughey stepped up his game, and HPU managed to get some pivotal defensive stops. A layup by Lorenzo Cugini with 40 seconds left cut the Flames' lead to one with 40 seconds left. So do you foul here, or let Liberty use the whole shot clock to take the clock down to five seconds While I do not like fouling, I liked the guarantee of it still being a one possession game when HPU had the ball again since LU only led by one point. But HPU coach Scott Cherry elected for the latter as Liberty took a shot at the shot clock buzzer that went out of bounds with four seconds left. Coming out of a timeout, all HPU could manage was Adam Weary driving cross-court into traffic and not getting a clean shot off. Liberty had finished us again, and it was just as painful as last year in a different way when we lost to UNC Asheville.



It's season ending games like this one that makes me upset watching Our Game late in the season. The death of a season is never good. And it is especially so when you know that you do not even have the financial resources to win with consistency even in the Big South. As I mentioned in that recap of the Campbell game, President Nido Qubein has tried to do a lot to get High Point on the map in a short period of time. But so has Liberty, and for all his wealth Qubein will never be able to match the family of the late Jerry Falwell. College sports are an unfair fight. While we are very happy with the success of Wichita State and Florida Gulf Coast this year, it must be noted that the two biggest spenders in college athletics aside from Texas (Ohio State and Florida) as well as the biggest basketball spender (Duke) are all among the final eight teams in the country. And that is what all of us in Hoops Nation have to deal with, as Liberty ultimately would have as well if they made the Round of 64.

Conference Rivals From Another Conference

Back when I was at High Point, I really did not think of Gardner-Webb and Campbell much. High Point sometimes played them out of conference, but mostly away from men's basketball and its guarantee game slate. And that is because Campbell and Gardner-Webb were both in the Atlantic Sun at that time. And now they were playing in Conway for a trip to the Big South semi-finals. Six years ago, this is not a game I would be expecting to see in the Big South Tournament. But the Runnin' Bulldogs were major contenders in the conference going into this game. And Campbell was the preseason favorite in the North Division before injuries ruined a promising season. You do not normally during conference realignment think of the Big South taking in other schools. But the Big South in the last 15 years has added more Division I teams than it has lost.



Part of me struggles to get excited for a game like this, in part because these are teams I am less attached to as a Big South fan. It's not quite like the case with Presbyterian and Longwood, disrespected schools that struggled to find any Division I conference. Gardner-Webb and Campbell were both in a Division I conference before, and have since joined the Big South. Both schools each have different histories where they had a previous taste of the Big South. Gardner-Webb joined Division I back in 2002, opting to join the Atlantic Sun while having football in the Big South's fledgling league. The Runnin' Bulldogs had moderate success in the Atlantic Sun and even pulled off a major Red Line Upset over Kentucky one year. But their heart was ultimately more in their football conference, so they joined the Big South for all sports less than five years ago. Campbell on the other hand has been in Division I for over 30 years, and has been in the Big South before in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. But the Camels' refusal to play on Sundays led to conflicts with the Big South, and they felt they could get a better deal in the Trans America Athletic Conference which a few years later would become the Atlantic Sun. But with Gardner-Webb leaving, the Camels were a bit isolated in a conference located primarily on the Interstate 75 corridor between Tennessee and Florida. So they got back in with the Big South two years ago and have been happy since to be back where they belong. And one of these teams would be among the last four Big South teams standing. These were not teams I am accustomed to, but they are a good fit for the Big South and have been neither doormats nor overpowering their new conference.



And so to these teams' quest towards Big South glory began with Gardner-Webb having the upper hand. Gardner-Webb had the healthier team that had been playing better lately, and it showed early on. Gardner-Webb used a balanced attack to pull out to a 14 point lead midway through the first half. Campbell would not go quietly however, as a tremendous omgdunx by Reco McCarter sparked a 10-0 run by Campbell as they got back into the game. But the Runnin' Bulldogs would recover nicely, and led 34-26 at halftime. The second half would be more of the same as it took a while for Campbell to go away, but Gardner-Webb always managed to have control. The strength Gardner-Webb as found this year is to attack with a multiple number of options, and overwhelmed Campbell's thin squad. Gardner-Webb did not dominate, but they controlled the game the entire second half and would wind up with a 71-57 win.



It was quite possibly the least interesting game of the tournament. Neither team I could get attached to, and the chance of an exciting finish never seemed likely. And there were not any great individual performances here like the last game. It was kind of like the game at Presbyterian over a month before where the game provided little to remember it by. It was basically a generic basketball game. But these teams will likely provide more excitement in the future. The conference is wide open, and Campbell which is looking for a new coach will have an opportunity to succeed not too far away. And eventually, these teams will be in the Big South long enough to feel like they belong. That is more than can be said about some of the other realignment moves in college sports lately. You have to give the Big South and these schools credit for adding two schools who geographically belong here.