Illinois schools did make NCAA tourneys; you’re looking at wrong ones

I have read several commentaries by sports-types all decrying the fact that no Illinois-based university qualified for the NCAA basketball tourney now underway.

We in Chicago or the rest of the state have no rooting interest – unless we happened to acquire a higher education at an out-of-state university.

EXCEPT THAT IT’S really not true. Unless you’re one of those people who are misguided into believing that “March Madness” is nothing more than the Division 1 tourney. That attitude actually bothers me more than the fact that the tournament itself won’t end until early April.

March “Madness” my duff!

Personally, I’m more intrigued by the tourney for Division III, where my own alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, has managed to make it all the way to the “Final Four.”

Sure enough, on Friday, the IWU Titans will be playing the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Remember them. Many years ago, the Chicago Bears held their pre-season training camp on that campus.

IF THE BLOOMINGTON-based college prevails, THE championship game will be Saturday against the winner of Williams/Amherst – the latter of which was last year’s national champion. I’m sure they’d like to have two titles in a row – compared to the last IWU national title in 1997.

Now I know there are bound to be some nitwits who will retort that I’m bringing up a tourney involving institutions of higher learning that nobody’s ever heard of.

Although I’d argue none of them are any more obscure than Wolford College – which would consider it a miracle if it were to manage to beat the University of Michigan on Thursday. That’s a real-live Division I match!

So for those of you who are complaining that there’s nobody local to root for in college basketball, I’d argue you’re not looking deeply enough.

ALTHOUGH THE FACT that the other NCAA basketball tournaments get less attention also mean they breeze right past us. Why else would the Division III tourney be nearly done just as the Division I tourney is starting.

Now if by chance you don’t want to join me in rooting for the Titans (you’re probably one of those deluded fans of Millikin University in Decatur), there were other local schools that managed to get into post-season play.

You have to look to the women’s basketball programs to find them. But they’re there.

At the Division II level, Lewis University in Romeoville and Quincy University both managed to qualify – even though neither made it past the first round of their tournament.

AND FOR THE Division I level for women, DePaul University is actually worth something. They’ll play their first match Saturday against Oklahoma.

That could give Chicago basketball fans something to root for. And it shouldn’t be looked down up. I’m sure the Blue Demons’ men’s program would give anything to still be playing ball this season.

Or any of Illinois’ Division I men’s programs. A part of me thinks they are fantasizing these days that they could be in Illinois Wesleyan’s position. Just one game away from playing for THE championship for the year.

A game that the men likely would remember for the rest of their lives.

ALSO ONE THAT I’m sure the men and women who are playing these past few weeks will take with them as they advance their way through life.

Now for those of you who are just absolutely determined to root for a large-enrollment school, I suppose you can follow the Fighting Illini men’s team as they work their way through the NIT (the ultimate in athletic consolation prizes).

Although by the time you read this, their season may be over as well – they played Boston University on Thursday, with that winner going up against Clemson on Saturday.

I suspect the Illini will be back in Champaign for good following this weekend. Then again, so will the Titans – hopefully with some athletic hardware showing them as winners!

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Admit it. You're thankful I didn't write anything political for Thursday.

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): How many parades do we need?

Better in pictures, than in person?

Call it the controversy amongst Chicago’s Puerto Rican community that is likely to spill over toward all of us – activists are fighting about the Puerto Rican Day parades, which it seems this year will be a singular parade.

For officials reached a decision last week by which the funds that go toward a Puerto Rican parade along Columbus Drive near downtown will instead be put toward supporting a parade in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

PERSONALLY, I THINK this is a smart move, because I have always thought those downtown parades lost something significant in character when they were moved from Dearborn Street (in the actual downtown area) off to the drive where it felt like they were cut off from the city proper.

I’d be for taking all the ethnic-oriented parades that are held in Chicago and converting them into events held out in the neighborhoods – particularly if there is an ethnic character to the specific neighborhood.

Everybody these days knows that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade along Columbus Drive is generic, compared to the South Side Irish Parade along Western Avenue. If the Puerto Rican activists in Humboldt Park can’t put on a worthy event, then that is to their own discredit.

The same goes for just about any event. Mexican-oriented parades in the Little Village and South Chicago neighborhoods always manage to top the generic feel to a Mexican Independence Day march along Columbus Drive – to name the ethnic events that I would have any personal interest in.

NOW I REALIZE some are going to criticize me for being naïve, or clueless. Although I should say I appreciate the political considerations involved here. For many of the people who want a downtown parade are more opposed to cooperation with the activist-types who put together the neighborhood parade.

A lot of it does tie into the fact that there isn’t a consensus amongst Puerto Ricans as to whether their Caribbean island homeland ought to be the 51^st U.S. state, an independent nation or just keep its commonwealth status.

I’ve actually heard the phrase “Communist” tossed out by the downtown parade proponents to describe the neighborhood activists – which may well be an overstatement to try to lambast anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

What else is of interest as some people contemplate a Puerto Rican pride parade held a few miles further away from the shores of Lake Michigan come June?

 

I doubt any paper I wrote for will give me this sendoff

WORKING TO THE VERY END:  I never actually met Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, but he’s been around for so long that it felt like he was invincible.

Of course, no one is. Ebert himself succumbed last week to cancer – the same condition that took his voice several years ago, but didn’t stop him from being a heck of a communicator in his final years. Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at Holy Name Cathedral.

 

Much of the remembrance we’ve read in recent days tells tales of all those interviews with film business moguls throughout the years and how much influence he and Siskel actually had in terms of whether a film would achieve any commercial success, I must admit that I’m more impressed with his recent years. That, and his animated appearance on The Critic.

But the real significance of the Ebert life story is in the way in which he kept up the quality work, when many people would have decided it was time to pack it in. I’d like to think I could handle myself in a similar manner if I were confronted with his circumstances – although another part of me is honest enough to admit that I (and most of us) probably couldn’t even come close!



How would Lord Jeff of Amherst do...

MICHIGAN/LOUISVILLE WHO??!?:  Amherst College’s Lord Jeffs men’s basketball team beat Mary Hardin-Baylor 87-70 on Sunday, giving the Massachusetts-based college the national title for Division III this year – and their first since they pulled off titles in 2007 and ‘08.



... against Tommy Titan of IWU?

Watching those academically-inclined (but in many cases physically-challenged -- few 7-footers play Division III basketball) student/ballplayers out there on the same court that the Atlanta Hawks play on (and where the nationally-televised Division I game will be played Monday) convinced me all the more that small-school ball isn’t as inferior as some would want to believe.

A part of me was wondering how much nicer it would have been if my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, were playing instead. Amherst got to the final by beating North Central College of Naperville, who were the ones that knocked the Titans out in the Sweet Sixteen round of the DIII tournament. Oh well, maybe next year -- which we've been saying every season since 1997!

But it was still an enjoyable experience to watch Sunday’s game (even at the point when the game had to be halted for a bit because some of the arena’s lights went out). I got more of a kick than the masses will get from watching Michigan take on Louisville.

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EXTRA: Chicago-area’s true best team?

Suburban Naperville-based North Central College lost out Saturday on its chance to win a national title in men’s basketball, losing 52-44 to Amherst University – which now plays for the national title April 7 in Atlanta against Mary-Hardin Baylor College from Texas alongside the Division I tourney that will get all the public attention.

Although it should be noted that the Cardinals’ defense on Saturday managed to hold the Amherst defense to about 50 points – just one day after the Lord Jeffs managed to score 101 points in their victory over Cabrini College in Pennsylvania.

IT ALSO DOESN’T take away from the fact that North Central made it to the “Final Four” of the NCAA Division III tournament – which likely will make them the best-achieving college basketball program from Illinois for 2012-13.

I really doubt the Fighting Illini will make it much farther than their game Sunday against the University of Miami Hurricanes.

When was the last time any Chicago-area college did so well in a basketball tourney? There’s always that DePaul squad from 1979 that made it to the Final Four.

Or those North Park University basketball teams that between 1978 and 1987 won five national titles – including three in a row between 1978, 1979 and 1980. Which as far as I’m concerned is all the more reason to pay attention to the Division III athletic scene when considering college-level sports.

FOR THOSE OF you who are thinking I’m getting too worked up over small-college sports, think of it this way.

Would you really rather I get worked up over the thought of whether or not we should take Todd Stroger’s desires to serve as a commissioner on the Cook County Board that seriously?

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