Oh, what a night

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Well, that was pretty entertaining.

Washington University advances in women and men. Last two remaining participants in last year’s women’s final four eliminated, ending the careers of some great players (Mellody and Matt at Scranton, Marbles at Southern Maine). And 59 points for the All American Ben Strong in a triple overtime thriller. No, we haven’t named All Americans yet but, at least for tonight, I’m removing the “candidate” suffix for him.

There’s no way I can do justice to everything that happened, so let me try to give you a taste of the regional here at Luther.

Props to the Blue Crew: Luther fans packed the Regents Center and created a fantastic atmosphere. Their chants were creative (“tie-your-shoe-tie-your-shoe” as a Wash U player bent down to do so) and at one point even altered the game. In the first half, Wash U had the ball when the Blue Crew started counting down the shot clock. “5-4-3-2…”

Wash U forward Jaimie McFarlin fired up and missed a shot to beat the “shot clock” – with 3 seconds still remaining on the actual shot clock. Score one for the Blue Crew.

Future so bright: The players who took over the game for Wash U down the stretch were Zoe Unruh and Jaimie McFarlin. Unruh has a great first step and silky smooth jumper. McFarlin is tenacious on the glass with good quickness that creates open looks off offensive rebounds. And the scary thing here is Unruh is only a freshman and McFarlin a sophomore. Write these names down because they will be coming to D3hoops press releases near you for several seasons.

The Spirit of D3: Frequently the best, most striking moments happen aside from the games themselves. Tonight with a near empty gym one of the Luther players was sharing a moment with her family and friends. They shared words of encouragement with the player on the great season that just ended. Then her family turned to leave and she headed toward a separate door as the clock neared 10:30 pm local time on a Friday night.

Before leaving she looked over her shoulder and called back, “anyone wanna go to the library with me?”

That, friends, is what makes this special. Great games on the court and great kids off it.

Finally, let’s get started!

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It’s finally time to play again, after five days off. Been a long week and I am definitely ready to get some games on again.

I just walked in at St. John Fisher and am getting logged on. It’s not as small as I anticipated, though it’s definitely a little cozy. Four rows of seating on the floor, about 10 rows in an upper level of seating on each side. Room for people to stand in the upper level in the corners.

Definitely good to not cram four teams’ worth of fans in here at once.

As I can, I will try to update from my perspective. I also hope you fans will comment along as to what you are hearing, or those of you live at games with blackberry or smartphone access can talk about what you’re seeing.

Let’s play!

Where we’ll be this week

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Where will we be? Everywhere, for the first time.

The very first year of our existence we couldn’t even get to both Final Fours. That year, 1998, was the last year the women’s Final Four was not played at a predetermined site and we simply couldn’t get a team up to Maine on that short notice.

Things have certainly changed for the better for us over the past decade. This year, for the first time, we’ll have a crew at all eight sectional finals, so you can listen to D3hoops.com’s coverage of every Elite Eight game, thanks to Allinbroadcasting and NCAASports.com.

I’ll be at St. John Fisher for all three games. Seth Cantor and Eric Ren will call the final from Amherst on Saturday and video will be available. Dave McHugh will be at Virginia Wesleyan for all three games and Wayne Randazzo is making the trip to UW-Stevens Point for three as well.

Mark Simon will do all three games from Emmanuel. Gordon Mann is doing all three games at Luther. Lance Medow makes his network debut for us from NYU, with John Vukelj joining him on Friday. And Sugar Ray Martel will call the Elite Eight game from Scranton for us on Saturday.

And in true D-III penny-pinching fashion, we do all this with one flight. 🙂

Then we’ll have crews at both Final Fours. There will be live online video produced by the NCAA for both semifinals and the third-place game with our broadcasters calling the action and we’ll have an audio broadcast of the title game, including the announcements of our All-American teams in our pregame coverage.

Second-Round Reactions

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As we sit here waiting for the sectional hosting announcements (women’s are in… not the men’s), it seems like a perfect time to look back on the second-round games last night.

I got the chance to see a very good Guilford team in a battle against Johns Hopkins. While Guilford was up for most of the game by double-digits, JHU made another comeback to claw within one possession… only to see Guilford eventually put the Blue Jays away. Ben Strong showed why so many are talking about his play and abilities. As my color guy Larry Carney said last night, if there was a category for altered-shots (not actual blocks), Strong would lead that category as well. Guilford also shot the lights out of the building both nights. First night, 50% from the field… last night 56%… including going like 60% or better from beyond the arc.

How about some of the other surprises:
On the men’s side Stevens got another win – this time over Ramapo – to advance to the Sweet 16 in the school’s first ever trip to the tournament… and after a couple of disastrous years. Lake Erie tried to garner some respect from many in the D3 world, only see John Carroll come back from ten down to win. Hope made quick work of Calvin, who almost cost Hope’s chances of making the tournament this year… 80-64. Rhode Island College continued to take advantage of its opportunities, getting past a tough Brandies squad. And Carroll continues to surprise… with a big win over St. Thomas to advance.

On the women’s side… Scranton’s M&M’s got the job done… and will lead the team into another sectional round of games at their site. Mary Washington made quick work of its opponents (Notre Dame and Christopher Newport). NYU was rewarded for their easy dispatch of Ursinus and then Gwynedd-Mercy and will host. And how about Puget Sound and Howard-Payne! Puget Sound is onto the Sweet 16 thanks to a big win over McMurry and George Fox… but next up is Howard-Payne which continues to impress with the attendances at their place.

How about other reactions after the second round?

First-round reaction

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Although there are a lot of mismatches in the first round since the expansion to 59 and 63 teams we still had a first round to remember. All those 2-15 games and 4-13 games didn’t exist in the old bracket.

As it turns out, Hope’s title defense in women’s basketball lasted only one round longer than the previous four attempts. Remember that the 2002-05 champs didn’t even make the field the next year. And Hope, the 2006 champ, went just 40 minutes longer than UW-Stevens Point, Trinity (Texas), Wilmington and Millikin before getting bounced by Denison. The depleted Calvin women advanced as well.

On the men’s side, Hope and Calvin set up an unprecedented fifth meeting of the season, where they will pack Aurora’s Thornton Gymnasium for a second-round game. Only seems appropriate now that the winner of the five-game series will move on.

Stevens, the subject of grumbling around the NJAC (basically, since they don’t play any of us, they can’t possibly be a tournament team) put up in the first round. I had one NJAC insider telling me they’d lose by 30. I countered that, no, it would be more like 71-59. Final score 68-57. Oh wait, they won? Shoot. Well, still better than a 30-point blowout loss. The Ducks absolutely could beat Ramapo.

And last night showed the importance of hosting the regionals — only one host team in men’s (Aurora) and one in women’s (UW-Stout) lost. The rest advanced.

Looking forward to hearing more about the Wheaton/St. Ben’s game, Johns Hopkins/Villa Julie and others.