Let the madness begin!
As Championship Week gets under way this week, many major conference \bubble"" teams try to build their resume to secure an NCAA tournament berth by pulling off some upsets in their conference tournaments.
However, many times the most intriguing and compelling stories go unwatched in this first week of March.
As important as March is to those mid-majors and ""bubble"" dwellers, nothing can compare to the intensity of the small, one-bid conference tournaments.
For many of these schools, their conference tournament marks the opportunity to start a new, captivating season.
They try to fight and claw their way into the NCAA Tournament. For these teams their conference tournament is their life, their survival, their season.
Most have no chance of ending up as anything more than a No. 15 or 16 seed, with the hope of reaching the Final Four as nothing more than an unrealistic dream.
However, it is a time of year when hope is revived. When season struggles and exhausting road trips are nothing but the past. A time when a 0-16 conference record means nothing, and three consecutive wins equals an NCAA berth. It is a time of upsets, a time of failures, a time of disappointments.
But for that one team that wins their conference tournament, it is the culmination of a long, difficult season, when all the hard work and disappointments have been rewarded with the prize of being invited to the Big Dance.
For those small schools their conference tournament is their Final Four.
Still not sold on how intriguing these match-ups can be?
Look no further than the game which handed out the first invitation to the Big Dance, a 76-75 victory for Florida Atlantic over a heavily favored Georgia State team that knocked Wisconsin out of the NCAA Tournament last year.
Keep in mind this is a Florida Atlantic program that won a mere seven games last year, and had an appalling two victories the year before.
Still not satisfied? How about the 49-48 victory by the No. 8 seed University of Wisconsin-Green Bay over top-seeded Butler (25-5) in the first round of the Horizon League Conference Tournament?
The focus of the college basketball weekend was the final game at Cole Field House in College Park, Md., and rightfully so, but this weekend was further evidence that these small conferences deserve more respect.
For years the small conferences have complained about the lack of respect that they are given. But every year, a few teams suprise the national ""powerhouses"" in March, and compile a Cinderella-type story.
Coaches and players in these small conferences are tired of the lack of respect that is given to them by the NCAA Tournament Committee.
""They ask us to play a tough schedule, so we play the fourth toughest non-conference schedule in the country,"" Pepperdine Head Coach Paul Westphal said. ""At one point we had the nation's longest winning streak at 13 in a row and our ratings dropped, which is kind of a weird thing.""
Kind of a weird thing? It looks as if it is a little more than that.
""I am still trying to figure out how UCLA is in,"" Westphal said. ""I think we have a better record and we did beat them at their place.""
Yet the likelihood of making it into the NCAA Tournament for these teams without winning the conference tournament is still nearly impossible.
""It is a night and day difference between trying to get into the tournament,"" said Minnesota Head Coach Dan Monson, who came to Minnesota from Gonzaga and understands the problem of getting into the tournament from a small conference.
Yet every year these small conference teams are overlooked and underappreciated.
These games mean a lot more than just an NCAA Tournament bid to these players; they mean the world.
Games with teams like Central Connecticut against Quinnipiac (Northeast) and American vs. Holy Cross (Patriot) might not seem like the most anticipated games of the year, but for those teams it is a chance to do the unthinkable, to go dancing with the big boys in the NCAA Tournament.
