Welcome from Blake Arena in Springfield, Mass.

I figured I’d start today’s thread a little early since a) I’m here after a 6.5 drive from Philadelphia and b) it makes me look official so the players and coaches aren’t suspicious (shh!).

A few tourists entered the Arena in front of me looking for the original Basketball Hall of Fame. They won’t have to look far since it shares the same facility. As you probably know if you’re on this site, Springfield is the birthplace of basketball. Dr. James Naismith introduced the game in a YMCA gymnasium based here in Springfield. Incidentally Dr. James Naismith wasn’t a Springfield native, or even a native born American for that matter. He was born in Ontario, Canada. Viva Steve Nash, eh.

I chatted briefly with NCAA Assistant Director of Championships Donnie Wagner who said last night’s banquet at the modern Hall of Fame was a hit. Four of the five 25th Anniversary honorees were able to attend and the final one — Laurie Trow Kelly whose Northern Arizona Lumberjacks open the Division I tournament tomorrow against Baylor — sent a nice videotaped message.

At the moment Scranton is on the floor practicing, filling the vacancy left by Hope. Coach Morehouse instructed his Flying Dutch to pack up and leave quickly, minutes before the Lady Royals took the floor. There was an awkward moment as one team left and their opponent-to-be entered. Sort of like when you forget somone’s birthday and then see them the next day.

We’ll keep you posted as time allows with pregame beginning at 3 PM.

We are having some technical difficulties from the Wyndham Hotel right now…and hope to be online at 8pm. We will keep the blog updated.

Well, the first three members of the five-person D3hoops.com contingent in Salem have arrived and our people are up in Springfield today as well.

First note of the day: ESPN’s producer tells me that the Outside the Lines piece that ran last night may run, it its entirety, on tonight’s 6 p.m. SportsCenter. (This is obviously barring some sort of breaking news.) That would be huge.

I checked in at the Jostens Trophy ceremony elsewhere in the Salem Civic Center and they are doing lunch, so I stopped down at the first practice. Wittenberg is on the floor right now.

This upcoming weekend will be the ninth Division III Final Four I’ve covered and while the years definitely run together in my head, there are a few highlights that stand out.

First of all, I have to point out as a disclaimer off the bat that my alma mater won the national championship in 2001. Nothing can top that in my mind and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But I’m not going to dwell on it either.

Other moments that stand out in my frazzled mind (it’s a busy week) include the 1998 Hope/Wilkes game, when David Muelenberg hit two free throws. Sidelined by a broken foot late in the season, Muelenberg was subbed into the game, replacing injured Chris Formsma. He hit two free throws, then limped back to the bench to a standing ovation. I didn’t understand the significance at the time, though — someone had to explain it to me. Like I said, it was 1998. We didn’t even have a message board on the site yet.

The 1999 title game remains the best Division III championship game nobody saw. OK, not literally nobody, since 4,461 people were there, but it was not widely televised. Apparently Fox Sports South wasn’t particularly interested that year. Their loss. Just a double-overtime win in front of the largest crowd in the D-III title game’s history. Last hurrah for Bo Ryan in Division III, and, as it turned out, still the last hurrah for UW-Platteville.

Bryan Foltice’s shot remains the defining moment of the 2000 Final Four for me. (Audio clip: Rick Seidel on the play-by-play and me on the screaming, our first audio Final Four) It was also the first time I saw a team fold up like a tent in the consolation game. F&M was one shot away from making the finals and perhaps winning it all, then laid an egg against Salem State on Saturday. This is why I never take the third-place game into account: It’s like the ECAC tournament, you never know who’s there to play and who’s going through the motions. But this was also the Sherm Carstensen show. Carstensen was voted the most outstanding player of the Final Four and he deserved it. He scored 70 points for UW-Eau Claire for the weekend.

My favorite 2002 moment is standing next to Otterbein’s Jeff Gibbs, who was a monster rebounding and scoring the entire season and especially in the tournament. He was listed at 6-3. I’m 6-0. Gibbs was 6-1 at best. Incredible performances for a 6-1 player.

Williams coach Dave Paulsen says it all about 2003: “We probably led for eight seconds the entire weekend. We shot 37% and we let them shoot 55%. We are the national champs? You figure it out.” Kudos to Gustavus Adolphus fans for three years of not much griping over the touch foul called with four seconds left that set the final sequence into motion for Williams in a 67-65 win.

In 2004 I covered the women’s Final Four and saw four great games. The overarching memory of that weekend isn’t necessarily one particular moment, but the way Wilmington came back time after time the entire postseason, including a 16-4 run to end the game and beat Bowdoin 59-53.

And last year, shoot, the games weren’t that competitive in Salem aside from the Calvin/Rochester semifinal. What stands out is watching Jack Bennett hint at his retirement in the postgame news conference. Sure enough, that became reality shortly thereafter.

Looking forward to collecting more great memories to cram in somewhere. I know there are people who have been to a lot more than nine Final Fours, and some before 1998. What are your favorites?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This weekend, D3hoops.com had unprecedented coverage of the NCAA Sectionals, sending broadcast crews to 7 of the 8 sites. We were happy to be able to bring you the call of 21 out of 24 games and we hope you enjoyed our broadcast.

On that note, we’re looking for feedback from anyone that tuned in to any of our sectional broadcasts. Thoughts on anything related to broadcast are welcomed, ranging from audio quality to technical issues, to the actual content on the broadcast. Basically, we’re looking for ways to improve our coverage and our best resource for that is to get the thoughts of our listenership.

If you have any comments on our broadcasts, e-mail them to info@d3hoops.com. We greatly appreciate the interest and look forward to bringing you very comprehensive coverage of this weekends events from both Springfield and Salem.