COLUMN: March Madness may leave USD in the cold
March is a beautiful time of the year for basketball fans.
When one’s college basketball team is simply waiting for their school to start playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, every day looks bright and sunny.
For USD, things are a little gloomy and gray.
USD is at the breaking point of their first season as a post season eligible school. Both basketball teams’ seasons have struggled while trying to make it to their first “Big Dance” in the history of both programs.
The men have gone 9-18 overall, and have a record of 4-10 in the Summit League conference. Despite standout efforts from a few players, the Coyote men are having a difficult type excelling on the court.
The women have done a little better this season, but even they’ve struggled to be on the winning side after every game. They’re 14-14 overall, and have managed a winning Summit League mark of 9-6.
Regardless of the teams’ best efforts, neither of them have a chance of making it to the NCAA tournament on their record alone. When the selection committee of the NCAA Division-I championship looks at the group of teams vying for a spot in the field of 68, USD will be overlooked.
The Coyote teams’ RPI ratings are deep in the 200s. For men’s basketball, one would need to be in the top 68 or just under that to have a chance of being selected. For women, it would likely be around the top 64.
However, there’s still a chance. For USD, there’s championship week.
Championship week is a time when teams can keep their seasons alive. Conferences hold their tournaments at multiple sites across the country, giving teams a chance to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
When a team comes out as a conference tournament champion, their record doesn’t matter. That’s the beauty of championship week.
RPI ratings are thrown out the window. The selection committee can gladly overlook the under .500 mark of a conference champion. When the time was right, that particular team earned it.
USD has a chance to be that team. They can come out of the Sioux Falls Arena carrying the Summit League trophy high above their heads.
However, they have to do it now. It’s conference title or bust for the Coyotes.
The team’s coaches will definitely be helpful in bringing the Coyotes to their first NCAA tourneys.
Coaches Dave Boots and Amy Williams have had experience in winning conference titles at the D-I level. It’s nothing new for either of them, and winning the Summit League would merely add to their impressive resumes courtside.
Boots has seven conference titles on his mantle. Six of them were at the Division-II level.
However, Boots proved his team could succeed at the D-I level by leading them to the 2010 Great West Championship.
Williams spent time as a top assistant for multiple D-I women’s programs.
Her tenures with such major schools included a first ever automatic bid for Tulsa University in 2006. She was instrumental in helping build teams as well, becoming a nationally ranked recruiter for all of Division I.
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Add Williams’ time building an NAIA school into a national tournament contender while winning close to 100 games, and one can understand why fans are hoping for Williams to return to the Big Dance, this time as the USD women’s head coach.
USD essentially has home court advantage. They’ll only be an hour away from Vermillion and the DakotaDome.
A majority of the Summit League’s teams don’t have that type of fortune. The Coyotes winning a conference title would be incredible enough, but now they can do it in front of many of their classmates, families and friends. Staying in the state couldn’t have been better for either team.
The odds are against both schools, but winning the Summit League isn’t impossible for either of them.
Upsets happen in conference tournaments. Dominant teams have fallen to lower seeds in efforts to earn the automatic bid, and their seasons have ended in heartbreaking fashion.
The Summit League hasn’t brought more than one school to the Big Dance for either gender in over a decade.
On the men’s side, the conference even has the history of a losing team winning its tournament in order to make it to the championships.
Even though it’s conference title or bust for both USD teams, they’re more than capable of finishing strong, getting hot at the right moment and finding themselves in the NCAA tournament as Summit League champions.
