The tension in the Reilly Center’s NCAA selection viewing party was palpable on Sunday evening as TBS announced the at-large teams … alphabetically.
A roar went up when the Bonnies’ spot was revealed. But that reaction was soon tempered by the reality that St. Bonaventure had to endure a play-in game against UCLA tonight in Dayton to earn the 11th seed in the East Region and the right to meet sixth-seeded Florida on Thursday night in Dallas.
Two other teams — Syracuse and Arizona State (coached by former UB boss Bobby Hurley) — meet tomorrow evening at Dayton to become the 11th seed in the Midwest and face six-seed TCU on Friday in Detroit.
How, fans wonder, can a team good enough to be an 11th seed have to play its way into the main bracket?
Tonight’s meeting between LIU-Brooklyn and Radford and tomorrow’s game with North Carolina Central facing Texas Southern match representatives from the four lowest-rated conferences getting automatic bids. The two teams which prevail enter the tourney as 16th seeds, with the LIU-Radford winner meeting East top seed Villanova Thursday in Pittsburgh. The NC Central-Texas Southern winner goes to Nashville to face Xavier, the West’s No. 1 seed.
The other teams are known as the “Last Four In,” and are at-large programs seen as being so close to being out, they have to play for the right to make the main bracket. This year it happens to be 11th seeds, but in the eight years since the new format was been added those spots have gone to anywhere from 11th to 14th seeds.
Of course, Bona’s foe tonight struck a nostalgic chord with long-time SBU fans.
The Bonnies and UCLA have met only twice. There was the 111-59 debacle at Pauley Pavilion in the 1973-74 campaign, the most one-sided loss in program history. Then, a season later, the Bruins prevailed 78-62 in a tournament game at Maryland’s Cole Fieldhouse.
But for the St. Bonaventure faithful, it’s the UCLA game-that-wasn’t which jars their memory.
It was Bona’s star-crossed 1969-70 season when Hall of Fame Center Bob Lanier tore up his knee in a blowout win over Villanova to earn a berth in the Final Four.
UCLA, under legendary coach John Wooden, was in the midst of a streak of 10 NCAA championships in 12 seasons.
But that year, the Bruins had a journeyman center named Steve Patterson. The perception by the Bonnie faithful was that Lanier would dominate the UCLA pivot man and SBU’s supporting cast — Matt Gantt, Greg Gary, Billy Kalbaugh and Mike Kull — would hold its own against Bruins counterparts Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, Henry Bibby and John Vallely.
Whether that would have happened is open to debate as all five UCLA starters went on to the NBA, Wicks, Rowe and Bibby having long, distinguished careers.
With Lanier sidelined, the Bonnies fell to Jacksonville, 91-83 in the national semifinal, and the championship meeting with UCLA never materialized. However, the circumstances have given Bona fans nearly 50 years to speculate, “What if.”
On Sunday, coach Mark Schmidt was fully aware of the significance and lore of tonight’s opponent, though UCLA hasn’t won an NCAA title since 1995.
But the 11th-year Bonnies boss joked, nodding toward seniors Jaylen Adams, Matt Mobley and Idris Taqqee, “Of course, these guys probably don’t even know who (former UCLA icon) Bill Walton is.”
It’s been an unprecedented season for Big 4 basketball.
All four teams are in tournaments, Bona and Buffalo in the NCAAs, Canisius in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) and Niagara in the College Insiders Tournament (CIT).
The four schools combined for a record 91 wins, an average of 23 per program.
The Bonnies and UB both making the NCAAs are the first time the Little 3 or Big 4 have sent two teams to the tournament since 1970 when Lanier and his mates and Calvin Murphy’s Niagara squad made the 25-team field. The Purple Eagles were ousted, 108-88, by North Carolina State in the first round.
Buffalo, despite winning the Mid-American Conference title and going 26-8, merited only a 13th seed and faces fourth-seeded Arizona (27-7), Thursday in Boise, Idaho.
Canisius (21-11) hosts Jacksonville State (21-12), tomorrow night while Niagara (19-13) travels to Ypsilanti, Michigan to face Eastern Michigan (21-12) also Wednesday.
Of course, teams have to pay their way into the 16-team CBI and 20-school CIT, but they stand as rewards for programs which have had an extended absence from the postseason.
That’s exactly what happened with St. Bonaventure in 2011, Schmidt’s fourth year. With Bona nine years removed from an NIT berth, the Bonnies bought a spot in the CBI.
Niagara last played in the postseason in 2013’s NIT, while Canisius, with first-year coach Reggie Witherspoon, had played in the CIT four of the last five campaigns before switching to the mid-major-oriented CBI this year.
And, oh yeah, Bona’s Atlantic 10 Conference didn’t get much love from the NCAA. Besides the Bonnies earning an 11th seed, regular-season champion Rhode Island (25-7) was seeded seventh and will face 10th seed Oklahoma (18-13) in Thursday’s West Regional at Pittsburgh. Davidson (21-11), which won the A-10 Tournament, got a 12th seed and meet fifth-seeded Kentucky (24-10) in Thursday’s South Regional at Boise.
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
