Reporting from high above the floor at Oosting Gymnasium, where No. 1 Amherst is playing at Trinity (Conn.) and Amherst fans have made the relatively short trip down I-91 to Hartford and are making their presence felt.

Although Bantam fans outnumber Amherst fans about two and a half to one, the Amherst fans are loud. So loud, in fact, they couldn’t even manage to keep their mouths shut for the national anthem.

It’s senior day here at Trinity and the Bantams are off to a big lead early, up 14-6 with 15:19 to go in the first half.

And I’ve been in the Northeast so long I actually recognize one of the officials.

Tune in to WRTC-FM (link on our scoreboard page) to hear the Trinity students call the game. I’ll continue to update this blog entry but will also be downstairs on occasion taking pictures.

Regardless, not as packed as the games I saw last night, where NYU’s Coles Center was overflowing. Not to the tune of the 2,496 they announced, but probably in the 2,000 range. There was more crowd, and a lot more crowd control, at that game. Hopefully we don’t need it here.

Memorable crowd moments of last night:
•A student photographer for NYU, whom I had spoken briefly to earlier in the game and seemed very mild-mannered, yells “F— You!” at the top of his lungs after a call that he apparently didn’t agree with.
•NYU fans beneath one of the baskets waving pom-poms right behind the ears of a Rochester women’s player attempting to inbound the ball, with crowd control students literally pulling on two kids’ shirts to hold them back.
•One older Rochester fan talking to the NYU students sitting directly behind Rochester’s bench, apparently riling them up by holding a Rochester banner.
•An NYU fan in his mid-20s shouts at Rochester as they come down the floor, trailing 14-6 with 9:50 or so left: “You guys are on pace to score less than 24 points! You stink!” Three seconds later, easy layup for U of R. Five minutes later that had turned into an 11-0 run for Rochester and a 17-14 NYU deficit.

This is the calm before the storm that is tournament “week,” which runs from February 17 – 25.

Starting a week from tomorrow there will be a maelstrom of tournaments with dozens of teams getting one last chance to fulfill their NCAA tournament dreams. Until then, most teams are either fighting to build a Pool C resume, jostling for position in the regional rankings or trying to build momentum and gain home court advantage for their conference tournaments.

But a few races already have a playoff-type pitch starting this weekend. In most cases, teams are playing not just for home games in the conference playoffs, but for any games in the conference playoffs.

Here are five races to watch to whet your appetite for tournament week.

Touching turnaround: While No. 17 Johns Hopkins and Ursinus play for the Centennial Conference regular season title tomorrow, the struggle for the final two playoff spots is just as interesting.

Three teams – Gettysburg, McDaniel and Swarthmore – are tied for the fourth and fifth spot playoff spot in a five-team tournament (see standings). Muhlenberg and Franklin & Marshall are just one game out while Dickinson sits two back.

One compelling story is whether McDaniel can make the playoffs in a season marked by the death of Coach Bob Flynn. The Green Terror haven’t made the conference playoffs since 1995 when they did so as Western Maryland. Coach Flynn was in the process of turning this team around when he shockingly passed away in January.

While his legacy is about much more than wins and loses, it would be a special validation of Flynn’s work for this team to make the Centennial Conference tournament.

An unlikely team on the edge: While William Paterson isn’t the only team to be falling short of their preseason billing (No. 9), they are one of the few who may not even make their conference tournament.

While our standings page doesn’t reflect the ever-changing NJAC tournament structure, it’s a six-team field with the top three teams from the North and South Division qualifying. WPUNJ (5-6 NJAC) is currently fourth in the North, a game behind Rutgers-Newark (6-5) for the Division’s final slot. The Pioneers have struggled with injuries and struggled to score but they are running out of opportunities to return to the NCAA tournament.

Paterson needs to beat Ramapo, the top team in the first Atlantic regional rankings, at their place tomorrow to set up a showdown with Rutgers-Newark on Wednesday night.

My Lute Awake…or else: The women’s version of William Paterson resides in Tacoma, Washington where Pacific Lutheran is far removed from its preseason No. 16 ranking. The Lutes are 6-6 and tied for fifth in the NWC (see standings), which has just three teams in its playoffs. The good news is PLU plays three of its last four games against other playoff hopefuls. But that’s only good news if the Lutes can back on the winning track.

One down, three to go: With three games left in the regular season, all that seems certain is that Messiah will be the favorite and Moravian and Elizabethtown will be spectators for the four-team MAC Commonwealth tournament. The other five teams are left to wrestle over three spots (see standings).

The schedule advantage rests with Widener who has home games against E-town and Moravian before finishing on the road at Messiah. Susquehanna is trying to cobble together enough offence in the absence of Josh Robinson (pictured, 23.0 ppg). The Crusaders, Juniata, Albright and Lebanon Valley all play each other over the three final regular season games.

Deep Conference, Deep Trouble: When is a Top 25 team in real danger of missing the NCAA tournament? When it’s a UAA women’s team.

Five teams are in the NCAA’s first regional rankings, but two of them (Wash U sixth in the Central, Brandies at eighth in the Northeast) hold their region’s final slot and Chicago leads only Wash U in the Central. The Bears could miss the tournament (checking outside for flying pigs) if they stumble against Rochester or Chicago to close the season. The Judges, who are currently third in line for an at-large bid in their own region, also need to beat Rochester Sunday and/or NYU at the Coles Center.

Of course, this last one is also a little different from the others. The UAA teams aren’t playing for a conference tournament slot because they don’t have a conference tournament. But this still a race worth watching over the next two weeks.

… or as Jim Nantz might put it, a tradition unlike any other. While he’d be referring to the Masters, in Division III it’s the Hope/Calvin rivalry, the best rivalry in Division III.

(Note: Every time I say that, someone wants to challenge it, so I’ll respond now. Put 11,000 fans in the seats at your game, like this game did in the mid-’90s, and we’ll talk.)

I’ve seen Hope/Calvin once in person, once at one of the rivalry’s many satellite viewing parties and once on CSTV. In 1999 I saw the game at a sports bar in Arlington, Va., and wrote about it on the site. I saw it in person in February 2005 in the final Rivalry game played in the Holland Civic Center, Hope’s longtime home floor. And the CSTV broadcast was really just the local TV retransmitted, which was a shame, because the local broadcasters did nothing to educate the national audience about what this rivalry is about or why the game was even on. What a waste.

Hope won the last meeting, which is why we currently name it the Hope/Calvin rivalry. (When Calvin wins, we officially reverse the order.)

The teams meet tonight, and Josh Centor, who writes a blog for the NCAA, will be in the house and experiencing this for the first time. Follow his blog.