NCAA Basketball Tournament: Thank-You Wichita State

It’s great that Wichita State earned a trip to the Final Four. The Shockers appearance will draw one tall fellow to the television set.

We need new blood in the championship round and as a ninth-seed the Shockers provide it. As their nickname represents, they have shocked many people in still standing in the tournament.

Many people picked their semi-final opponent Louisville to win the championship. But the Shockers shouldn’t be frightened as they have already taken out the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in their regions. Louisville should win, but should wins are only decided on paper. Wichita State needs to “play angry” as its coach Gregg Marshall says and it will be in the game.

Syracuse and Michigan play in the other game. Yawn. These teams like Louisville have been in this spot consistently and it doesn’t draw much interest for the tall fellow.

Hopefully, the Shockers can shock again and appear in the Monday night championship game. Then the tall fellow will need to watch, otherwise not so much.

The Tale of Three Coaches

Butler’s Brad Stevens, Virginia Commonwealth’s Shaka Smart and Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall were this year’s so called hot coaches.

All three had major success in the recently completed season. Steven’s took the Bulldogs to their second straight championship game. Smart led the Rams to the Final Four. Marshall helped the Shockers to the NIT championship. Yet, all three decided to remain at their mid-major schools.

I find that somewhat hard to believe.

Conventional wisdom says a coach should use postseason success as a springboard to more pay and a BCS job. But just maybe these guys didn’t want to go to the bright lights and start over. Generally, the reason the job is open in the first place is because of lack of success from the previous coach. And why leave a successful program for the unknown?

Just maybe these guys have learned from the bad experiences of other mid-major coaches.

We have two examples here in the state of Iowa.

Keno Davis led Drake to the NCAA tournament in his first season as coach. He cashed in on that success and moved on to Providence. The trouble was Davis lost his job at the end of this season after only three years.

Greg McDermott was laboring at Iowa State after leading Northern Iowa to three straight NCAA tournaments. The talk was Iowa State would give him one more year. But this had a happy ending for McDermott. Before Iowa State could pull the plug, Creighton offered McDermott a 10-year deal.

So maybe Stevens, Smart and Marshall subscribe to the theory that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Selling Out to ESPN

The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) was a darling of last season’s NCAA basketball tournament. The Panther defeated No. 1 Kansas in the second round and went to the Sweet Sixteen before bowing to Michigan State in that round.

Tonight, UNI hosts Wichita State in a Missouri Valley Conference game on ESPN. But here’s the kicker: the game starts at 9 p.m. central time. My question is this: who gave into ESPN to allow them to pick the 9 p.m. tipoff time? Was it the conference? Was it UNI? Was it UNI and Wichita State?

Didn’t UNI score enough points with the national basketball scene last year to deserve a better Saturday night start time? Is UNI desperate to be on ESPN?

I thought those 9 p.m. starts should go to the Mountain and Pacific Time Zone teams not some decent Midwest mid-major school.

Granted UNI isn’t having the amazing season the Panthers recorded last year. But when the games tips tonight, many people are usually thinking about getting their pjs on and relaxing before bed not attending a basketball game.

I feel for the fans. The locals are one case but think about the season ticket holders or general fans outside the Cedar Falls area. Many of those folks won’t get back to their residents before midnight or 1 a.m.

The fans could just not show up in protest of the start time. That would send a message to UNI and ESPN. UNI would get the message, but ESPN would probably just go down their list of schools dying for exposure at any time.