Patriot League Basketball

Jimmy Patsos is far from the conventional college basketball coach.

The combination of standing 6'3" and having a booming voice makes Patsos intimidating to his players, opponents, referees, and fans.

Patsos is college basketball's Rasheed Wallace. If he is on the floor, he is the favorite to pick up a technical foul.

During the course of most Loyola games, Patsos will sweat through his suit as the frown on his face becomes more parabolic.

Earlier in the season, the fifth-year head coach of Loyola Md. chose to sit in the stands instead of being ejected in an 82-72 loss against Cornell. The fan who sat next to Patsos must have been shocked because fans do not attend games to sit next to the head coach of one of the teams.

Fans were even more shocked when they saw Patsos' Greyhounds hold Stephen Curry to zero points last night. No, they did not hurt him—Bruce Bowen is on the Spurs. Curry only sat for eight minutes because of foul trouble, yet he could not get more than three shots—all three shots were misses.

Loyola became the first team to finish a game with the nation's leading scorer's stat line reading the same point total it read at tipoff. As big of a shock as the box score was to the college basketball world, more people were startled at the audacity that Patsos showed as he set up a triangle-and-two defense—the two man defenders were both assigned to Curry.

After a few minutes, Curry realized that the two Greyhounds were not going to let him escape for a shot, so he let his teammates take over as he watched from the corner. Davidson is deep enough that they can beat teams when they are given a four-on-three advantage, so that is what they did.

Despite trailing 39-17 at halftime, Patsos was obdurate and continued to double-team Curry.

It was clear that Patsos didn't care about winning the game, and that bothered the college basketball world. Analysts said that Patsos should have exhorted his players to back off of Curry, so the final score would be respectable.

Patsos, who was a history major at Catholic University, said after the game, "We had to play against an NBA player tonight. Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I'm a history major. Are they going to remember we held him scoreless or lost by 30?"

Patsos must have been a successful student at Catholic, considering that he brushed up on his history of Stephen Curry enough to know that he had never been held scoreless at the college level.

That line in the quotation from Patsos tells us all about what his intentions were going into the game: Keep Curry's point total at zero.

Even though Patsos succeeded, Curry still leads the nation with 29.2 points per game.

Photo and quotation courtesy of www.sportsline.com

Just a score or two: University of Akron 65, Florida State 60. Southern Illinois 69, Oklahoma State 53. Creighton 74, URI 73. Syracuse roughing up Robert Morris, 87-81?

I know its just the NIT, but do the BCS & "Big State U" teams only give their best in the "Big Dance"? It makes me sick to hear the sanctimonious posturing and the condescending attitude of the Network "talking heads" and "former" Coaches trumpet the notion that the A-10, Missouri Valley, MAC, WCC, and others are "nice little leagues" made up of schools in the flyover states, that at times really play well and are able to defeat the "heavyweights" of the Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, ACC, SEC, and Big XII on rare occasions when one of their "Powers" has a "down year", a "bad break," or a player scandal.

Most of the successful "Mid-Majors" will play "anybody, anywhere, anytime" and offer deserving opponents a home-and-home series to be fair about it. Until the last decade or so most of their players were not as skilled, athletic, or jumbo sized as the "factory" schools. Their student/athletes did however, stay around to gain experience, meld into the college experience, and graduate. Coaches were valued and judged by their knowledge of the game, teaching ability, and graduation rate rather than their wins & losses.

The two "P's" population and parity combined with the increase from 32 to 64 teams in the NCAA D-I basketball tourney made it possible for smaller schools to game fame and entice players. and the term "Mid-Majors came about. The exposure that Gonzaga University gained when reaching the Elite Eight and George Mason going to the Final Four, for example, are just two of the more well-known achievements of the mids.

The play of the Butlers, Davidsons, Southern Illinois, Creightons, Valpo's, St. Joes, and others have shown sports fans that "David slaying Goliath" happens far more than one suspects. Gonzaga is in the "dance" for the tenth straight year. How many of the BCS schools can make that claim?

So sit back and enjoy watching the greatest two weeks in sports, as all sixty-four teams start out with a clean slate and teams like, Butler, Drake, Gonzaga, St, Joes, San Diego, Davidson and others proudly carry the "Mid-Major" banner to more glory. Success and luv to the Schools I had to leave out for lack of space, poor memory, or individual preference.