7 years ago, I started to write about my travels to College Basketball games. I kicked it off with my first ever visit to the First Four at the University of Dayton Arena. Like too many things like this, I never really followed through, so it sits in my draft posts for this blog. For that matter, I have pretty much forgotten about this blog since then.
I started something for myself back then, even if I did not chronicle it very well. I experienced March Madness in person year after year (for me it begins with conference tournaments). 2020 was cut short by COVID-19, 2021 was a weird year all around, but this year I set out to do it all again, and hopefully this time, I can share my experience with friends and anyone else who is interested.
A bit of background: 20 years ago, I started being a serious Valparaiso University Men's basketball fan. I am not an alumnus, but Valpo is my hometown. I was not a prolific traveler back then, and I had followed the team from afar since 1998 for obvious reasons, but 2002 was the year I decided to attend the conference tournament, held in Fort Wayne at the War Memorial Coliseum. I fell in love with the experience and resolved to do the same every March. Back then, Valpo played in the Mid-Continent conference (now known as The Summit League), and for every year through 2007, I enjoyed getting to see every single team (both Men's and Women's) play at least once.
Then Valpo moved to the Horizon League, and this was no longer possible because of their double-bye-1-seed-hosts format. The only years I attended at all during that format were 2008 (at Hinkle), 2012, 2013, and 2015 (all at Valpo). I enjoyed those years, but I missed the neutral site where all teams gathered. The Horizon League moved to a neutral site in 2016 and since then has generally held at least the semi-finals and finals of both tournaments at a neutral site.
Valpo moved to the Missouri Valley in the summer of 2017, which meant Arch Madness right here in St. Louis where I have lived for the past 42 years. The only rub: this conference holds its Women's tournament a week later at Tax Slayer Center in Moline, Illinois. Perfection for me is both tournaments at the same site during the same weekend, but that's okay.
Meanwhile, back in 2015, the year Valpo was a 13 seed taking on Maryland in Columbus, Ohio, I decided to add a new adventure to my annual March trips: The First Four in Dayton. In the early days of the P.I.G (play-in game, the field was not expanded to 68 until 2011), this was a favorite meet up spot for followers/subscribers to Kyle Whelliston's Mid-Majority. After hearing stories about this, I knew I had to experience it for myself. With Valpo being in Columbus and playing on Friday, it was very convenient. Once again, I was hooked and have gone every year except for 2020 and 2021. I met a couple of Mid-Majority friends by chance there in 2016, and every year since then we have gotten together for a late afternoon dinner at the Pine Club prior to heading over for the games. This cozy intimate restaurant is a fine eating establishment that is quite familiar with the First Four. Many of the patrons are there for the same reason we are: gather for a good meal prior to enjoying some exciting basketball at UD Arena.
2022 has been a cathartic year for College Basketball fans. For the most part, everything is back to normal (translation: pre-2020). Even where COVID restrictions were at least minimally in force, enforcement of said restrictions was not very aggressive. If you watched any tournament game on TV, not very obvious that we are still living with a pandemic. I decided this season to see if any of the pre-COVID magic was available to those who go to games, and for March, I decided to do what I had tried to do in 2020: Spend 2 solid weeks going to tournaments.
Arch Madness 2022
We start with Arch Madness at The Enterprise Center in downtown St. Louis. COVID-19: All participants were required to show proof of vaccination and wear a mask except while eating. These two factors were hold overs from 2021, but there were no capacity restrictions this year, and there was no enforcement of masking at all. Not surprisingly, on Sunday, March 6, the St. Louis City Board of Health COVID-19 rules expired, and they no longer asked for proof of vaccination. One other hold over from 2021: all concessions were credit card only and tickets were mobile only.
That guy in the redbird jacket sitting on press row? Recently fired Illinois State coach Dan Muller. Both Thursday and Friday, he put on the headsets to provide excellent color commentary on The Big 550 KTRS. I pulled up my Tune-in app to listen in. If no coaching jobs come his way, I think Dan Muller would make an outstanding CBB color commentator. Pure broadcasting gold.
As for me, I was overjoyed to once again be able to enjoy Arch Madness with some very good Valpo fan friends.
Unlike 2020, the higher seeds won all games on Thursday and Friday. Illinois State held on to be Indiana State, Valpo clobbered Evansville (which was surprising to us). Northern Iowa handled Illinois State fairly easily, Loyola buried Bradley in the first half and played them even in the second half, Missouri State was a bit too much for Valpo, and Drake pulled away from Southern Illinois in the second half.
In perhaps the closest game of the entire tournament, Drake took Missouri State to overtime and won by 1 point. Gaige Prim put Missouri State ahead by 1 on a layup, but with 1 second left, Tucker DeVries drew a foul on Isiaih Mosley. He hit both free throws and Donovan Clay missed a long shot at the buzzer to send the 3 seed to the title game
Then on Sunday, in a rematch from last year's title game, Loyola battled Drake to the final minutes before finally putting the game to bed by a margin of 6. With that, the MVC was a 1-bid league again.
Oh yeah, before I move on, mad props to the UNI pep band for doing a pretty good rendition of the Avengers theme during one of the timeouts. As a huge MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) fan, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
Horizon League Men's and Women's Semifinals and Finals
Breakfast was delightful, and the conversation was surprisingly serendipitous. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I shared the table with a mother and daughter from Northern Kentucky who were keeping tabs on their team though not attending the games.
This is a group of Green Bay fans who I hung out with in 2020 at this tournament. This year, the only two who made it were the two standing directly on either side of me (the guy in the blue T-shirt). Having gone to the same event in 2018 up in Detroit all by myself, it has been nice since then to hang out with people I know. I still have friends in the Horizon League, and it is always more fun to share a tournament with friends.
In the Women's semifinals, IUPUI (1 seed) trounced Oakland (7 seed), and Cleveland State (4 seed) trounced Green Bay (3 seed). The latter game was a real surprise. Green Bay usually does very well in this tournament. By the way, if those seed pairings look funny, it is because the Horizon League re-seeds after every round.
In between sessions (prior to the Men's semifinals), we walked across the fairgrounds to the Horizon League fan zone, which included this hokey gimmick. Get it? I'm the "I" in "Indy." Yes, that is me in my Missouri Valley fleece. We also grabbed something to eat from the limited bar that was there.
In the nightcap, Purdue Fort Wayne (2 seed and the team I decided to adopt) took on Northern Kentucky (3 seed).
I had seen Purdue Fort Wayne beat Milwaukee back on February 4 at that same War Memorial Coliseum where 20 years ago the Mid-Con held their conference tournament. They had also finished the regular season on a 9 game winning streak to finish in a first place tie, quite the accomplishment for a team that joined the Horizon League from the Summit League in the summer of 2020.
And again, like Arch Madness, the 4 seed (Wright State) beat the 3 seed (NKU), but in this case, the Norse had the game well in hand until Wright State mounted a furious rally. The Raiders took a 3 point lead with 1:20 to go. Trevon Faulkner drew a foul with 1:01 to go and split the free throws. The Norse got the offensive rebound but Sam Vinson turned it over. And then, Tanner Holden was called for a charging foul with 34 seconds to go On the ensuing possession, Bryson Langdon found Marques Warrick wide open on the wing for a 3 to put NKU up 71-70. Without calling a timeout, Trey Calvin drove the lane for a jumper to put Wright State up 72-71. Langdon missed a 3 pointer with 2 seconds left and that was it.
My Green Bay friends? I fully expect them to be back next year. One of them told me he has gone to 33 straight conference tournaments, dating all the way back to when Green Bay was in the Mid-Con. I am planning on joining them again next year for this tournament.
I did enjoy the privilege of saying hi to one of the co-hosts of The HoriZone Roundtable, a website that does an outstanding job of covering as much of the Horizon League as they can - both Men's and Women's basketball. They publish game stories and they do regular podcasts. If you go all the way back the first season when they just did podcasts, you can find one in which yours truly was invited to join the hosts for an episode. I had interacted with Bob McDonald (@BobMcDonald on twitter) virtually, but this year, I saw that he was covering the semifinals and finals on the Men's side, so I had to take the opportunity to say hi in person, and I am glad I did.
Hoops In The Heartland 2022
From the Bed and Breakfast to the Isle Casino Hotel - Bettendorf. The Hotel is in Bettendorf, Iowa, just across the Mississippi river from Tax Slayer Center in Moline, Illinois. These are part of the Quad Cities, after all. Masks were optional, though recommended, and tickets were old-style. All concessions were credit card only.
The same guy who was the PA announcer at Arch Madness performed that role for Hoops in the Heartland, and he is very good. They also used the same contest - the basketball version of the Cap Dance famously used at MLB stadiums. One thing we did not have was the super annoying Todd Thomas grabbing the microphone during timeouts and running contests with selected fans. Instead the PA guy simply announced the contest and invited everyone to play.
Welcome to Tax Slayer Center. I was in Moline in 2020 getting ready to attend the play-in round when everything was cancelled, so I never got to see inside the place. Last year, they did not allow fans outside of parents of the players.
Hoops in the Heartland went - seed wise - exactly the way Arch Madness went. The higher seed won every game on Thursday and Friday. The lower seeds won each semifinal game and the title game.
In the 8-9 game, Indiana State jumped out to a 10 point lead in the first quarter, and won the remaining 3 quarters by 4 points. In the 7-10 game, Drake pretty well dominated Bradley for a 15 point win. Since Gaby Haack went down with a season ending injury, Bradley has been a shell of their former selves.
On Friday, Southern Illinois (1 seed) handled Indiana State fairly easily after a close 1st quarter. Illinois State dominated Loyola in the opening quarter, and the Ramblers really never got close the rest of the way.
By the way, JuJu Redmond was - by my eyes, anyway - the best player in the tournament. Just checked the conference website and indeed she was voted the tournament's most outstanding player. Even as I was watching the tournament, her performance was very impressive.
If there was one game on Friday that trended toward an upset, it was Drake (7) vs. Missouri State (2). The Bulldogs have been on a surge down the stretch of the regular season. They lost some games in February, but they looked a lot better than they did in January. They went into halftime with an 8 point lead. However, the Lady Bears caught fire in the second half and won the game by 14.
The most forgettable game of the tournament for me was the nightcap, when UNI (3) crushed Valpo (6) by 24 points, and it was never close, even in the beginning. The story of this matchup this season goes like this: on January 7, Valpo hosted UNI who had not played for 19 days, and beat them by 2. On February 6, Valpo traveled to Cedar Falls and lost by 30. Then on a neutral court, they lost by 24. It's only 3 games, but it suggests that UNI was a really bad matchup for Valpo. In this game, the Panthers kept having their way with Valpo in the paint, and Valpo never really got anything going. There weren't that many Valpo fans there. I might have been the only one who was not a family member. It was disheartening.
On Saturday, the upsets began, with Illinois State besting Southern Illinois in a game that found Saluki coach Cindy Stein somewhat disappointed in the officiating. The Redbirds played a very physical brand of defense and did not suffer sufficiently enough on the free throw line for Stein's liking. She made it clear in the postgame that she gave a lot of credit to the Redbirds for the win, but she just wasn't happy with the way the game was officiated. This felt like a bit of a sour note for her to go into retirement (SIU got the automatic bid to the WNIT as the regular season champ, but got creamed by Purdue in their only game).
The UNI-Missouri State game featured a tight battle in the first and third quarters, the Lady Bears dominating the second quarter, and UNI dominating the fourth quarter. In the end, the Panthers won by 6. They looked like the better team in this game.
I was also fascinated and entertained by the three bros two rows in front of me who spent the whole game very loudly proclaiming either their undying love for their "Lady Bears" or their unmitigated rage at the referees every time a call didn't go their team's way. A couple of times, they became aware that the UNI fans found them entertaining as well. They responded by pointing out that UNI has never won a game in the first round of the NCAA tournament. These guys were a barrel of laughs. As the game went south down the stretch, one of them kept slamming his phone hard down on the ledge in front of them. Poor phone. I hope it survived the violence.
On Sunday, the Redbirds and Panthers played a very exciting, close game that went down to the wire. In the end, the Redbirds held on for a 50-48 win to secure the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. It was a very enjoyable game.
I immediately headed home to St. Louis to exchange dirty close for clean clothes.
The 2022 First Four
On Monday, March 14, I drove to Dayton to check in to the Radisson Hotel Dayton Convention Center, only to discover that it was the same hotel I stayed in four years ago when it was called the Crowne Plaza Hotel. To the left is a picture I took in 2018 of the arrival of one of the teams participating that year. The hotels in Dayton really roll out the red carpet for the teams that get sent to the First Four. This year, the IU Hoosiers' team bus was met with a bagpipe player out front and greeters inside. The elevators include pictures of highlights of the teams that are staying in the hotel. This year, Indiana and Texas Southern were the two teams staying in the Radisson.
I always try to get to my hotel in the afternoon, so I can check in and head over to UD Arena for open practice for the Tuesday teams (Texas Southern, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Indiana, and Wyoming). TAMUCC was taking their allotted 40 minutes on the floor when I got there.
During the Indiana open practice (while waiting for Wyoming to take their turn), I decided to check out the view from my seat. I usually get tickets in the 200 level, but this year I bought early and 300 level were the only ones being sold, so I ended up with this.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Wednesday teams (Bryant, Wright State, Rutgers, and Notre Dame) got their turn to practice on the court. This was Bryant's entrance to the court, greeted by their pep band and cheerleaders.
And this is the nation's leading scorer, Peter Kiss, who has developed something of reputation as a trash talker. I had heard about the controversy surrounding their conference title game, and wondered if anything extra-curricular would happen Wednesday night in their game against Wright State.
Then it was Wright State's turn. If 2015 was regrettable for giving the Dayton Flyers an absolute home game in the tournament, 2022 was ever so slightly regrettable in giving Wright State a near home town advantage (they actually play in Fairborn, which is 15 minutes away). There certainly were a lot of WSU fans in attendance for the open practice and even more for the game. The two Dayton fans who sat next to me for the games both rooted for Wright State, and expressed their sincere hope that other Flyers fans would also be rooting for them. I mentioned that the Gem City rivalry should be revived and they were at least somewhat agreeable with this.
Tuesday night, I decided to take a selfie at the entrance to my section during warmups for the Texas Southern-TAMUCC game. Mask wearing was optional, and not many wore them, though I was not the only one who did. No one was bothered by it. I am comfortable with my mask on and try to wear one in public on the off chance it might help protect others.
The two Texas teams played a decent, entertaining game. As games between 16 seeds go it was not half bad. I tend to root for good basketball in a game like this. Half of the mid-major fans out there think all auto-bids should be placed in the round of 64 and the First Four should only be at-large teams. The other side is that one of those teams in each of those games gets a NCAA tournament win, which means extra money for their conference.
This game, on the other hand, between 11 seed Indiana and 11 seed Wyoming (warming up in this picture) is one where I definitely have a rooting interest. I never root for power conference teams. Ever.
This game was pure frustration. Wyoming shot 15% from behind the arc and lost by 8. They also committed 19 turnovers to Indiana's 8.
I have now been to 6 straight Dayton-hosted First Fours, and the only other time I have seen a power conference team beat a mid-major at the First Four was in 2015, when Ole Miss beat BYU 94-90.
Wichita State trounced Vanderbilt in 2016, there were no mid-major at larges in Dayton in 2017, St. Bonaventure knocked off UCLA in 2018, and Belmont beat Temple in 2019. I had gotten used to seeing the big boys go down in Dayton, so this was kind of disheartening.
On Wednesday, several mid-major fan friends made their way to Dayton for the renewal of our annual ritual: late afternoon dinner at The Pine Club on the University of Dayton campus. This year, one of our group was a Wright State fan. The guy to his left is a Loyola fan I met at the First Four in 2016. I'm at the far end of the table. On the other side are fans I met in 2017, I believe, at this very restaurant. All of us were subscribers to the Mid-Majority website. Front and Center is the little Bally that Kyle had made for each of his subscribers.
Then we headed over the arena to watch Wright State take on Bryant in the 16 seed play-in game.
The crowd was indeed very much in Wright State's corner. During the game, there was a power glitch that caused an extended free timeout for both teams. The game was a high scoring affair, but Bryant's Peter Kiss did not grab center stage in the game. Instead, the star of the game was Wright State's Tanner Holden, who led all scorers with 37 points (Kiss did score 28 to lead Bryant). Grant Basile committed almost 50% of all of Wright State turnovers. By mid-way through the second half, the Wright State fan in the row in front of me had "had it up to here with him." He kept fumbling the ball in the paint. Like many centers I've seen play with Valpo, he had the habit of bringing the ball down to his waist and dribbling on his way to the basket. Bryant's defenders were constantly poking the ball away. He did score 14 points, and fortunately, Trey Calvin added 21 points. Other than the 29 turnovers by the two teams, it was a very exciting and well played game.
The HoriZone Roundtable has a far better story on this game.
The final game is often between two power conference teams, and this year was no exception - Notre Dame vs. Rutgers. Some years I have decided not to even stay for that game because I wanted to get an early start for whichever site I decided to go to. But this year I decided that the First Four would be the end of my March Madness journey, so I figured I might as well stay. It certainly was an exciting game, going to double overtime before the Fighting Irish prevailed. If I had decided to root for someone, it would have been Rutgers, because as a Valpo fan, I hate Notre Dame.
Two weeks, four different cities, 28 games. This is the odyssey I set out to make 2 years ago, but it was cut in half by COVID. I don't consider making it the whole way a triumph, but I did have the time of my life. I plan to try it again next year, and am genuinely looking forward to it.
