Well, as most of you already know, we lost in the first round of the Missouri Valley Tournament to Bradley. Sam Maniscalco and his dirty half-goatee-type-thing (he only has facial hair on his chin, what is the specific name for this?) had 31 points against us and dashed any hope that our 9-0 opening game run had any significance whatsoever. The Braves ended up winning 81-62, and we were subsequently sent back to Omaha. The rest of the Valley Tourney really didn't garner any other surprises as the expected favorite, Northern Iowa, won the whole thing.
The week after St. Louis was spring break and most of the other conference tournaments were finishing up and/or beginning. It was a very exciting week filled with buzzer beaters, floor burns, a solid defensive stance and Frank Martin stepping WAY outside of his coaching box. Most of the favorites won their conference tournaments, with the exceptions of New Mexico State out of the WAC and Ohio out of the MAC.
Because of our first round exit in St. Louis we got the dubious honor of playing in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. Yes, you read that correctly. Now I know some of you probably didn't even know this tournament existed, and you have good merit to believe this; it's only the second year this tournament has been up and running. Some experts would have you believe it's the fourth and last best tournament in college basketball, trailing the Big Dance, NIT, and the CBI. So go ahead and get your CIT jokes in now, we're all really impressed. (Sorry, Seinfeld drop there.)
As we're drowning our sorrows in the CIT, fellow Valley...ers? Northern Iowa are doing their thing in the NCAA Tournament. ALLLLIIIII Farokmanesh (I think that's how you spell it) has been the Panther's version of Big Shot Bob Horry by hitting the game winning threes against UNLV Thursday night and everyone's favorite to win the tourney, Kansas, on Saturday night. The man can flat out shoot. About as pretty as a jump shot as you'll see, quite honestly. He looks like Steve Nash and Jeremy Piven's chubby kid, should those two ever mate, and probably shoots just as well as the Phoenix point guard, too. The Panthers' backbone is solid outside shooting, great help defense, and generally just playing much harder than their opponents. They're pretty much what you expect out of an almost all-Caucasian collegiate basketball team. They can't jump, they can't run, they sure as hell can't dunk (Ok, that's a lie), but they enjoy playing with each other and playing the game the right way. As Billy Hoyle once said to Sidney Deane in White Men Can't Jump (oh, the irony of that last sentence), "Yo, pretty boy! I looked up basketball player in the dictionary and it said 'Not you!'" Ok, so that sentence didn't pertain to anything I was discussing about the Northern Iowa Panthers, but I found it amusing and wanted to drop a White Men Can't Jump quote somewhere in this post.
As I finish this post about the hectic world in college basketball these days, I will forge ahead with my next post covering the NCAA Tournament. This next post could be epic, so I'm warning you ahead of time. As Ali Farokmanesh knows all too well...Simple Plays, fellas, simple plays.
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