(The Beacon)
By PJ Marcello, Staff Writer -- marcello13@up.edu
This year's NCAA tournament is being shaken up by the success of Mid Majors like Butler and Virginia Commonwealth advancing to the Final Four.
This is by no means the first year Mid Majors have made a run in the tournament. In fact, the Butler Bulldogs did it last year before losing the championship to always favored, Duke.
However, this historic tournament, where no one or two seeded teams made the Final Four has people wondering if the Mid Majors have started catching up to the basketball powerhouses who seemed to win it all year after year.
So what has changed that makes smaller schools more of a contender in recent years? The best answer would probably be experience, being overlooked by big programs and fundamental team basketball.
"Experience can't be taught, the only way to learn it is by doing it and that's how Mid Major schools can make up for talent," Freshman Tyler Desmarais said.
In a time when many of the prominent basketball schools recruit the top freshmen in the country and then send them to the NBA year in and year out, schools like VCU, who start four seniors, can use their knowledge of the game to win games in the tournament.
This is a good sign for the University of Portland. Being a Mid Major is no longer such a disadvantage, especially in a strong conference like the WCC.
"Our conference is already one of the better one's for Mid Majors since we have Gonzaga and St. Mary's. Plus we are adding BYU to the conference next year which will only make our schedule stronger," Desmarais said. "If we keep our competitive schedule up like we did this year playing UW, WSU and Kentucky and we steal some of those games, we have a chance to go to the tournament."
Once a team makes it to the tournament it is all about getting hot at the right time. The best example of that this year is VCU, an eleven seed who many experts said should not even be in the tournament.
"Jay Bilas and a lot of ESPN analysts were ragging on how we shouldn't even be there and now seeing your team not only competing but winning when they weren't supposed to be is sweet!" VCU senior David Benson said.
The success in the tournament is huge for not only VCU but all Mid Majors because it shows that they can play with the big programs and should not be taken for granted.
"Winning games in the tournament is huge because it gets us that ESPN time. You're not going to see our conference games on TV so when we can get attention on a big stage it gets people to know who we are now," Benson said. "Mid Majors are competing and it might change how they feel about picking teams for the tournament. Winning a game might be luck, but not a run like this."
So next year, when you're filling out your tournament bracket, do not overlook the small schools.
