We're the Champs. You can't stop us.

2010 May 04

Last week I wrote a piece about how court storming has lost its novelty in College Basketball. On the heels of Siena's win on Monday, where the students and I rushed the floor, I've been getting a lot of feedback on how Siena fans and I should have remained in our seats. After all, I was the one who was growing tired of it. Which is true. I was growing tired of it in January (though I didn't feel the inclination to publish my thoughts until last week).

Most of the feedback is coming from fans of teams in the Power, or BCS if you like, conferences. Conferences that have a few teams ranked nationally and send even more to the NCAA tournament every year. For them, conference tournaments are for improving you seed, or lasting long enough to get off of the bubble and into an at-large slot. They're simply addition regular season games.

For teams in one bid-conferences, like the MAAC, the conference tournament is their post-season. And for the fans of those teams, who follow diligently through only local media outlets, and truly understand how fragile an at-large bid is, the conference tournament is as high an anxiety and excitement event as the Super Bowl.

So I'm sorry that some folks, especially MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor, will never know the elation and sense of community pride that the students, staff, faculty, season-ticket holders, and even casual fans feel when there hometown team and Alma Mater gets the chance to showcase our Institution to the country. I'm sorry they can't grasp the gravity of the tournaments in conferences like the MAAC. They are clearly not capable of enjoying the tournament the way I (we) do, and that's too bad because it's really a unique, uplifting experience. If that exuberance boils over on to the floor, well...That I'm not sorry about.