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Rated: · Column · Sports · #1085956
About the NcAA tourney
Midmajor. Define for me what a mid-major is. Well if you can't than I will. A mid-major is a small school in a small conference with 1 to 3 bids in the big dance. Now this year is being named Year of the Midmajor because so many midmajors got into the tourney and threatened to take the tourney by storm and prove that they could take on a team ranked 5-8 in their major conference. Here are the big midmajor conferences in the tourney. The 1st one is the Missouri Valley Conference that piled up 4 teams in the tourney and had a great case for 6 teams. The teams from the Missouri Valley Conference are Southern illinois who was defeated in Rd 1. by a very good West Virginia team, Northern Iowa who was defeated in Rd. 1 by Georgetown, Bradley who was just recently beaten by Memphis in the Sweet 16 and Wichita St. who was also recently beaten by George Mason in the Sweet 16. Missouri State and Creighton were the two other teams in the MVC who had good credentials but just couldn't get in. The other big midmajor conference was the Colonial Atletic Association or CAA who recieved 2 teams in UNC-Wilmington and George Mason. UNC-Wilmington was defeated in the 1st round by a tough George Washington team in overtime. George Mason on the other hand defeated Wichita State and advanced to the Elite 8 and earned americas heart for this tourney. The next conference who has the biggest midmajor team in the tourney is the Conference USA or C-USA. They recieved only two teams but the two teams were quality. UAB who played against Kentucky in Rd.1 was beaten by them and Memphis who is a 1 seed is still chugging along and is set to play UCLA for a shot to go to the Final Four. The one midmajor that we just can't go on without talking about is perhaps the greatest midmajor our era is Gonzaga. Gonzaga was the 1st real midmajor in this tourney to make noise and Gonzaga really paved their and all other midmajor's way into the tourney and gave a new light on a tourney that was mostly dominated by big conference teams so hats off to Gonzaga because without them we wouldn't be reading this article. So as the midmajor teams are carving through the tourney I just want you to see how many more at-large bids are given to midmajors in 3 years.
© Copyright 2006 TJ Schulte (sportdude58 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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