The best month of the year is now here. It is March, the month where college basketball takes center stage, even if takes center stage for me 12 months out of the year (or at least, used to). March Madness is a thing and has been for a long time, and this year, perhaps, it is even more eagerly awaited than usual in light of the postseason being canceled in the sport a year ago.
When I covered college basketball, March was when it all came together. After a long few months of covering many games, in most years the last week or so before Championship Week meant no nights off for me. Even in the years where teams played on predictable nights of the week, this would be the one time where every night was a game night. It was a great rush, albeit a busy one and a grind at times, but I loved every minute of it.
March is the time when everything is on the line, and not just in the NCAA Tournament. Sure, that’s where so many memories are made, but the conference tournaments were always where the real madness was for me. That was the time when we saw March at its finest, with the thrill of victory and the great stories with it, along with the agony of defeat and the times where any doubt about how much the kids care was put to rest.
To me, conference tournaments are March Madness. I always traveled to cover those, getting to see different schools, conferences and places. While on the road and not covering games, I would catch as many conference tournament games on TV as I could as well. To me, this is college basketball, especially in the one-bid leagues where every team hopes to get to the Big Dance but only one will make it, sometimes the most unexpected team of all.
This time has so many memories for me, because I was blessed to cover so many great games and tournaments. So many were memorable for different reasons, whether it was dramatic finishes, great stories in the forefront or the background, or just the overall experience of it.
I remember 2001, when I first went to the America East Tournament in Delaware, an old favorite spot, then traveled to Atlanta for the ACC Tournament at the Georgia Dome. It was not uneventful, though, as a big snowstorm hit the northeast the morning I was to fly to Atlanta. At this time, there was only dial-up Internet available to most of us, and as you can imagine, phone lines to the airlines were jammed that morning as many flights, including my own, were canceled. Instead of driving north on I-95 to Philadelphia International Airport, I headed south to BWI Airport and managed to get a flight without issue. The storm was not nearly as bad heading the other way.
In 2005, I covered a thrilling Patriot League championship game with Bucknell holding off Holy Cross in Worcester, then battled a driving snowstorm to get to Vermont so I could cover the America East championship game the next morning. In Tom Brennan’s last run, Vermont took care of Northeastern in the Huskies’ final go-round in America East and in a game that will also be remembered for an incident less than a minute into the game that I had a good press row seat for. This game was less than a week before the Catamounts would score a bigger win over Syracuse in Worcester, another game I was fortunate to cover.
More memories came 2006, when I covered the CAA Tournament for the first time, and what a time to do it. The CAA got an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in two decades, and in a semifinal game between Hofstra and George Mason was an infamous incident that is even more interesting to talk about now. Patriot guard Tony Skinn shared that he and Loren Stokes played together in the NBA summer league later on and became friends.
In 2007, I spent 11 days in the Midwest covering the Missouri Valley, Mid-Continent (now Summit League) and Big Ten Tournaments. I had one day off all that time, during which I flew from Tulsa to Chicago, was also writing for CSTV.com and was on a 9:30 p.m. flight on Selection Sunday so I could be in the office at my day job the next morning.
In 2009, I didn’t plan to cover the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament at first, but ended up doing so after other plans fell through. It worked out well since the championship game was a thriller that saw Morehead State reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a quarter of a century, and it was one of the best games I covered.
Then in 2014, I can’t help but remember Stony Brook losing another tough one in the America East championship game, and the contrast we saw after the game. The thrill of victory came with Albany and all they had to battle through, while the agony of defeat was seen in Stony Brook guard Dave Coley, an all-conference player and a tough competitor, who was at a loss for words.
And then there’s 2015, when I was fortunate to cover two double-overtime thrillers just a few days apart. First, there was Bryant finally breaking through for a win in the Northeast Conference Tournament, though they almost lost at home for the third year in a row. Then in Baltimore, Hofstra and William & Mary gave us all we could want in the semifinals of the CAA Tournament, a game that seemingly had a little bit of everything and made the second semifinal after it feel anticlimactic. Two games, numerous heart-stopping moments even for someone on press row with no rooting interest. Those games were so memorable that from time to time I even go back and read my stories on them to think back to those games.
Those are just some of the great memories I have, as they are too numerous to all recall here. This year, more are sure to be made, especially a year after so much of it was canceled. In that sense, I’ll be grateful that we have this once again.