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The best part of Selection Sunday is also the worst part: one school’s joy is another school’s jealousy. One team’s ecstasy is another team’s agony. We don’t see the second half of those equations; that would be like televising the moment when you’re told you have to put your pet to sleep.
We are privy to the first one, though. And so there were the Dons of San Francisco, a proud basketball school, Bill Russell’s old school, and even before the CBS cameras were trained on them they were on their feet inside the school’s War Memorial Gym, celebrating their first NCAA berth since 1998, only the second such bid since the program was revived following a three-year shutdown in the early ’80s following a scandal.
It turns out the Dons didn’t really squeak into the bracket; they’re a 10 seed in the East, paired with Murray State, so they were safely in. It just turned out the East was the last of the four regions to be revealed. The wait was torment. The release was elation. Sometimes in March the highest highs don’t even have to come on a basketball court.
Then there is Dayton — poor Dayton. Two years ago, they were all but assured a No. 1 seed before COVID arrived and wiped out the NCAA Tournament a few days shy of Selection Sunday. Sunday, it was bad enough for the Flyers to still be licking their wounds from a Saturday upset to Richmond in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. No: Sunday also brought the reality that they are the first alternate to the tournament should another team be ransacked with COVID (as their A-10 Conference-mate, VCU, was a year ago).
Which is another way of saying: they were the first team left out.
Which makes for quite a two-punch gut-punch.
Sometimes in March, the lowest lows don’t have to come on the basketball court, either.
Some places, Sunday was old hat. There were no TV cameras on the Duke campus, where for the 36th time in Mike Krzyzewski’s 42 years at the helm the Blue Devils will take part in the NCAA. If they are to reach Krzyzewski’s 13th Final Four they will likely have to figure a way past Gonzaga, lately the tournament’s darling, thanks to two losses on consecutive Saturday nights that have greatly reduced Krzyzewski’s chances of a John Wooden goodbye.
Somehow, there will be four — four! — schools representing football-mad Alabama (Alabama, Auburn, UAB, Jacksonville State) and not one that plays its games within the five boroughs of basketball-obsessed New York City. Colgate, from upstate Hamilton, is the Empire State’s lone representative, though we can surely adopt Connecticut, as often happens, as well as three Jersey schools: Rutgers, Seton Hall, Saint Peter’s.
Rutgers’ crew was spared the misery of San Francisco, learning their fate within a minute of CBS’ bracket reveal, and their happiness was no less obvious — and no less well-earned — than what USF would show 25 minutes later and 3,000 miles away. Rutgers, of course, has unfinished business to tend to following last year’s epic collapse to Houston. That starts in Dayton, against Notre Dame. And that’ll be a party.
Saint Peter’s was spared Dayton, and instead gets to try and slay a legit dragon in Kentucky. For Shaheen Holloway, it is a triumphant return to March; 22 years ago, he led a dark horse Seton Hall team to within two points of the Elite Eight; now he guides the Peacocks to only their second NCAA in 27 years, and officially stamps himself a sizzling-hot candidate for any of the dozen elite jobs that are either open now or soon will be.
All across the country, at 68 campuses, there is still hope and there is still possibility. At Providence, folks wonder if the Friars can keep winning nail-biters as they have all year. At Villanova there is confidence bred by the annual proof that the Wildcats are an ultimate wild card, a tough out almost every time out. In South Orange, Seton Hall awaits an intriguing game against TCU, with Arizona lurking thereafter.
Starting Tuesday the whittling starts, and before we know it 68 will be 16, and 16 will become four (And, for kicks and giggles, here’s my four: Gonzaga, Kentucky, Tennessee and Wisconsin). That part is ahead, and that will be enjoyable enough.
Sunday? Sunday was a warm-up. Sunday was the first wave of giddiness and distress, delight and depression. Good for the Dons. Good for the Scarlet Knights. Good for the 66 others. It’s good — it’s very good — to be in.
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