march madness part 1: 3 feel good stories.

So, the brackets are out, and it’s march madness time once again.  Growing up in Kentucky, I am a big college basketball fan, so bracket time is one of my favorite times of the year.  Tomorrow, I’ll post my picks (though for tonights game, it’s Coppin State). 

One of the things that make sports so compelling are the “backstories” of the teams involved, often overcoming “adversity (often on many different levels).”  So, these are 3 teams that I think have cool stories.

1.  Georgia Bulldogs:  I’ve been a fan of Coach Dennis Felton since he coached at my alma mater, Western Kentucky years ago.  Back in 2003, he came to Georgia in the middle of a huge mess created by academic fraud and some other issues.  He promised to run the program in a clean matter.  But, he found out that can cause some problems down the road.

Throughout his time at Georgia, his teams have shown signs of potential, but haven’t quite had that breakout moment.  This season was supposed to be that breakout, but before the season started, he dismissed 2 top players due to rules violations.  As such, they had a difficult year.  In February, the buzz was that he was going to be fired.

But then the SEC tournament came around.  at 14-16 on the season, the Bulldogs had to win the tournament to go the the NCAA tournament.  But, they were the lowest seed in the tournament.  Being a low seed, winning the tournament meant winning 4 games in 4 days.  However, they hadn’t won than many conference games all season.

In the first round, they took out Ole Miss.  That set up a Friday game against Kentucky.  However, late in the game before them, Atlanta was hit by a tornado, postponing that game.  The next morning, the new format was established:  Kentucky vs. Georgia at noon, and then the winner would play Mississippi State at around 8:30 pm.

Such a double header is unheard of these days.  But, there was no choice.  However, now to make it to the tournament, they would have to win 3 games in the span of about 26 hours.  Long story short, they did just that.

Now, they are in the NCAA tournament, albeit with little chance of seeing the second round.  But, as Seth Davis said in the postgame wrap-up Sunday, “Firing Dennis Felton now would be criminal.”  Felton’s boss agreed, making a statement that Felton will be back next year.

 2.  Drake Bulldogs– A team of some local interest to me, only 30 mintues from here.  This team was picked preseason to finish 9th out of 10 teams in their conference.  Instead, they finished 1st, and ranked in the top 25 nationally for much of the season.  Their reward–a 5 seed in the tourney.  Unfortunately, I can’t root for them since they play may alma mater in the first round. It’s lucky for me though, since it guarantees I will get to see WKU play on TV.

3.  Baylor–Back in 2003, Baylor’s basketball team was a mess.  One of their players, Patrick Dennehy went missing.  Eventually he was found murdered.  And, it turns out that his roommate and teammate was the one responsible.  Meanwhile, during the investigation, Baylor’s coach, Dave Bliss, was found to have instructed players to make slanderous lies about Dennehy.  It was also determined that the program had committed several recruiting violations under Bliss.  As a result, Bliss resigned, the team was placed on major probation, and every player was granted a release, allowing them all to transfer without penalty, which many did.

Going into Selection Sunday, Baylor was on the bubble, but expected to get in.  However, due the the way the brackets were announced on CBS, they were the very last team to be announced on Sunday.  But, their excitement about getting in was quite the contrast to where the program was just 5 years ago.  It seemed like they may never recover from that.