Now
I’m sure there are many Chicagoans who went to college at various places across
the country who can turn to their alma maters that were worth anything this
past season to root for.
YET
FOR THOSE of us looking for a local team, there isn’t much of anything. No
Illinois school was able to get a bid to partake in the tourney.
Admittedly,
Valparaiso University in Indiana is on the outermost southeast fringe of what
could be called the Chicago area, although I’m sure people living north of 95th
Street would prefer think of it as alien turf. And some people like to think of
Notre Dame as an area college, while just as many detest the very concept.
But
the Hoosiers definitely got more on us this time of year – Indiana U. and Purdue
also made it while the west side of State Line Road got nothing.
Those
of us whose sporting attention isn’t totally dominated by spring training
baseball and fantasies of that all-Chicago World Series taking place this year
will have to look to the so-called lesser college basketball tournaments.
WITHIN
THE CHICAGO area, there is Loyola University which got an invitation to the
College Basketball Invitational. Where they will play their first (and
potentially only) game Tuesday night against Rider College, and we likely will
hear many repeats of how the Ramblers won the whole thing back in 1963!
There
also will be Tuesday night basketball for the University of Illinois in Urbana,
which got selected to participate in the National Invitational Tournament –
which once was a big deal but now comes across as the ultimate consolation
prize for failing to make it to the NCAA Division I tourney.
But
they get to play the University of Alabama, which is noteworthy because they
recently fired their basketball coach. Just BEFORE getting selected for the
NIT.
I’m
sure on a certain level, it would be a more intriguing story if Alabama were
able to achieve some success under these circumstances. Could this mean the
sporting nation would view a Fighting Illini victory as the ultimate bummer –
completely ruining the story line?
I
ALSO CAN’T see much enthusiasm for the other Illinois-based school that made it
to the NIT – Illinois State University in Normal, which on Wednesday will have
its first tournament game against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Will
anyone (outside of alumni with fond memories of Garcia’s pizza) get worked up
rooting for a team whose own NCAA tourney dreams came crashing down with a loss
in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament to the University of Northern Iowa
(which did get the NCAA bid)?
Perhaps
if we pretend to ourselves that the team from Green Bay is the Packers, then we
could get Chicagoans to care. Otherwise, I just don’t see it happening.
We
may wind up finding a better tale if we drop down to the NCAA Division III
level, where their national tourney began a couple of weeks ago. They already
are down to their “final four” schools (out of 64) playing for a national
title.
AND
THERE, WE find an Illinois-based school with a serious shot at winning a
championship – the Rock Island-based Augustana University, which will play
Babson College Friday and possibly the winner of Virginia Wesleyan/University
of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for the championship on Saturday.
Those
of us with an Illinois rooting interest may have to look to the banks of the
Mississippi River to find a local team to cheer for, although I’ll have to
confess to feeling some confusion about this prospect.
The
Illinois Wesleyan University alum in me knows of Augustana because the two
schools both play in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (and the
Vikings beat IWU in the conference tournament last month), while the Titans’
own national title dreams fell short last weekend with a loss to Stevens Point.
If
those two schools make it to the title game Saturday in Salem, Va., it really
would become a choice of which one’s victory would annoy me the least. It also
could have me looking forward to the coming of a new baseball season all the
more.
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