A special bid; The second phase of Championship Week

What I like to call Act I of Championship Week (plus a few days) is now over. It has left us with a Old Dominion vs. Drexel debate somewhat analogous to the George Mason vs. Hofstra debate a year ago, Missouri State with an identical wait from last year's snub and countless ESPN askings of the question of "Who is this year's George Mason?"

More importantly though, fourteen teams have played their way into the field, the most important to me being North Texas winning the Sun Belt.

If you try and look through this blog, I'm not sure you will find one mention that I go to the University of North Texas. In fact, I think I have made only one passing reference to "my Mean Green" back in January. I just never talk about them on here because I didn't want to overdo this blog with Sun Belt/UNT talk, and have this be a total homer-ass website. But yet, I have been following this team for several years now, and Tuesday night was one of the more special ones I have had as a college hoops fan.

In the numerous amount of games I have attended at the UNT Coliseum (colloquially known as and always referred to as the Super Pit) over the past few years, dating back to when I was in high school, I always (at least once a game) took a look up at the banner saying "NCAA TOURNAMENT 1988". The 1988 is positioned below and to the left side of the text to have the room to put more years up on the banner, and to confidently say, "Yeah, we'll be back."

Games and wins and losses went by and I would always say to myself, "Man, it would be great if we could put up another year up there while I'm here." And two nights ago, after a thrilling and sometimes tense four-game conference tournament run, they earned the right to put another year on that banner.

Now back to Championship Week (plus a few days) and these next two days, usually the second wildest pair of back-to-back days coming behind the first two days of the big dance.

Today (and actually about an hour from now) will feature the most significant 8-9 game in ACC history between Clemson and Florida State. This isn't a play-in game, but it sure as hell is a play-out game. The loser would be well-advised to start lobbying for NIT home games right when the final buzzer sounds. A couple of other bubbilicious games include West Virginia probably needing a win against Louisville in the Garden to get in and Stanford trying to avoid a potential fall out of the field against USC.