It’s an exciting weekend for us at D3hoops.com, as we’ll be staffing seven of the eight sectionals. (Unofficially, the best we can remember doing in previous years is five.) We’re getting it done in a very NCAA-like manner, paying for two flights and driving people to the rest.

For the second season, D3hoops.com is broadcasting NCAA Tournament games under contract with NCAAsports.com. You can find links there or on our Audio page.

Here’s who’s where for D3hoops.com:

At Amherst: Seth Cantor and Paul Schreel
At Lawrence: Pat Cummings. Hoopsville’s Bob Quillman will join on non-Illinois Wesleyan games.
At Virginia Wesleyan: Pat Coleman and Dave McHugh
At Wittenberg: Chris Condit and Jared Rosenbaum
At DePauw: Gordon Mann. He’ll be joined by WGRE’s Wes Anderson on non-DePauw games.
At Scranton: John McGraw.
At Southern Maine: Mark Simon.

Sorry, Pacific Lutheran sectional fans. Washington is too far from any of us at this point and we’re out of people! Maybe in the future we’ll be able to hit all eight.

Stop by and say hi, though we hope you’ll understand if we’re too busy to chat.

Go Pioneers!

At least, that’s the cry in four places this weekend. Elsewhere it’s Bears, Blue Devils, Cardinals, Choctaws, Cowgirls, Eagles, Ephs, Flying Dutchmen/Dutch, Huskies, Jumbos, Lions, Loggers, Lutes, Marlins, Polar Bears, Royals, Thunder, Tigers, Titans, Yellow Jackets and Yellowjackets.

Widener’s Pioneers are the ones I saw this weekend. Constantly kept both Catholic and York out of their game plan offensively, appeared to fluster both teams into taking ill-advised shots. I look forward to their matchup with William Paterson’s Pioneers. Kris Clarkson didn’t shoot well, but both teams gave him plenty of attention on defense. Clarkson still got his points both nights.

I was the last person out of Wolf Gym, as far as I could tell. Somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate. Hopefully there was someone else in the building after I left. For me to be the last one out on the last night of basketball just seems wrong. The new building looks fantastic, however.

The CCIW has two teams in the men’s Sweet 16, the UAA women and NESCAC women have two as well. But I was only at one game last night. You folks were presumably at the others.

We know one sectional host so far. Amherst is hosting the men’s sectional: Utica vs. St. John Fisher, Amherst vs. Tufts.

We’ll post the rest as we get them. Meanwhile, if you know where it is documented that a school is hosting a sectional, post it.

I’m going to start with the women’s side…Pat and others will fill in the men’s

First from the games I was at…Congrats to Baruch for getting the first NCAA Tourney win for the CUNYAC, a league that takes its fair share of knocks, and doing so on the road, showing nice poise after Mount St. Mary rallied from 17 down to take the lead.

Kudos also to Bridgewater for rallying from some early nerves, than battling back in OT to get a nice upset of Bates…and happy 21st birthday to 5-foot-4 point guard Katy Herr, who finished a hair shy of a triple-double.

I know they don’t hear it often, but my fellow broadcaster Paul and I thought both games were well reffed. Officials let the players decide the games at the end, which was fair both ways.

Medaille got rave reviews for its performance. No jitters for a VERY young team, going up against a W&J squad that started 5 seniors. The #25 ranking in this week’s poll appears legit.

It took all of about 5 minutes for Mary Washington to get back on track as the Eagles buried TCNJ early, taking out some frustration from last week’s defeat.

The NESCAC went 2-2…had figured on them getting 3 Opening Round wins, but Muhlenberg and Bridgewater were tough on neutral courts…UAA went 3-1…sets up a nice showdown Saturday for Bowdoin and Brandeis. Bowdoin has won 69 in a row at home. Brandeis has 30 straight non-league wins. Something has to give.

VERY tough way for NYU to go out, losing 5 straight to end the year after a promising beginning.

Based on reactions from a few I spoke to, one of the bigger upsets was Greensboro over Moravian. Greensboro’s 93 points were the high for the night. People in this part of the country (northeast) were also surprised that UW-Stout downed Concordia-Moorhead with ease.

Thumbs up as well to the NWC, which won 2 from the SCIAC. We’ll get an NWC title game rematch on Saturday (Puget-PLU) and an ASC pairing as well (Howard Payne-Hardin-Simmons). Hope-Capital and Messiah-Williams also figure to be games that are among the most worth checking out.

Hmm, a CCIW team out of the tournament already. Tough draw for North Central, playing a strong team on the road in a physical first-round game and the result is not all that surprising. After tonight, one has to think St. Thomas could win Saturday at Lawrence as well, though the Tommies fed off their crowd quite a bit and won’t have more than 350 in the house on Saturday.

For Occidental to score 22 points in the first half without Sam Betty in the game (three fouls early) is not too surprising. To allow 12 points is pretty good by any stretch. That has become a game, however.

Gotta feel for the Plattsburgh player who missed both free throws. The Hamilton student section was primarily under the opposite basket in the second half, but walked to the other end during the time out. That’s why higher seeds get home-court advantage … scratch that, why they used to get home-court advantage. We’ll see our first neutral-site games of this tournament tomorrow.

Second year in a row Ursinus goes one-and-out at home to an Atlantic Region team. It could signify the beginning of the end for the Centennial as a serious March competitor. This is three years out of four that the Bears have lost an NCAA Tournament opener. It’s the Skyline’s first playoff win since 2003.

Elms was held at arm’s length pretty much the whole night. And now the baby is awake so I have to wrap up. Comments appreciated.