The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Sports

March 23, 2008

Tourney lives up to its ‘tough’ billing

By Dave Morrison

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There are several reasons that the NAIA National Tournament is billed “College Basketball’s Toughest Tournament” on the front of this year’s tournament program.

First, to win the tournament you have to win five games in either six or seven days, depending on whether or not you play on Wednesday or Thursday in the first round.

This isn’t a two-games-a-week tournament.

Of course, you can dispute the validity of just how tough it is to play those five games, especially for today’s players. This generation of hoopsters, almost to a man, play AAU or summer league basketball, where two, maybe even three games a day are the norm.

Then again, they aren’t exactly expending a lot of energy on both ends of the court during the summer. In other words, defense is not a prerogative.

And the pressure to win is grueling.

Mentally and physically.

And the competition is keen.

That’s why an Azusa Pacific can come in ranked No. 13 and knock off No. 4 LSU Shreveport before falling to No. 5 Mountain State by 21 the next day.

That’s why an unseeded Campbellsville team can run to the Fab Four with victories over No. 6 Concordia and No. 11 McKendree and unranked Oklahoma Baptist.

Notice how the seeds were getting lower for unseeded Campbellsville.

Shouldn’t an unseeded team be playing better competition each round? That speaks to what is happening as the tournament progresses.

No. 3 Lambuth was ousted by unseeded Oklahoma Baptist.

No. 2 Lee, which beat Mountain State in the regular season in Beckley, was absolutely throttled by No. 7 seed Oklahoma City 86-66.

No. 1 and undefeated Georgetown was taken to the wire by Travecca Nazarene before pulling out an 85-83 win in a game Travecca probably should have won.

Leaving the court, Happy Osborne wasn’t exactly living up to his name.

As the top seed, perhaps Osborne, whose Tigers face Mountain State tonight at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time in the Fab Four (again), knows that MSU was the last top seed to win the national title in 2004.

If you’re scoring at home, only the No. 1, No. 5 and No. 7 seeds are still standing in a tournament which starts with 16 seeded teams and 16 unseeded teams.

That tells you everything you need to know about just how competitive and tough this tournament is to win.

You really have to be here to see the talent on display at this hoops bonanza. While most of West Virginia regards the NAIA with nothing more than a passing glance (one Charleston newspaper referred to WVU Tech’s conference as the “little known Mid-South Conference,” despite the fact that the conference features undefeated Georgetown and Campbellsville, both in the Fab Four), the competition here is strong.

The NAIA in general (and MSU in particular) is referred to as a renegade level because of its wealth of Division I transfers. Shouldn’t keeping kids in school be the idea?

The play is physical.

In Mountain State’s first three games, a total of 113 fouls were called.

The Cougars’ first three opponents, Olivet, Wayland and Azusa, are considered to be among the most physical teams in the tournament. Its fourth opponent, Georgetown, is maybe the most physical team in the nation, period. In their win over Robert Morris in the quarterfinals, two Tigers fouled out and four others had four fouls.

College Basketball’s Toughest Tournament?

You’d better believe it is.

— E-mail: demorrison@

register-herald.com

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