THE DAILY DIVERSION

Well, I'm sure most people in this world don't know this, but there is basketball played outside of the NCAA, at the college level. My alma mater, Brescia University (or College, when I attended back in the good ol' days), competes at the NAIA level.

Every year the NAIA has a national tournament, both men's and women's, consisting of the best 32 teams in the country. The men's tournament is held in Kansas City, Missouri, while the women's is held in Jackson, Tennessee.

Brescia's men's team made the tournament in back to back years, just a few years ago, while the women actually made the final four back in 2004. The basketball gods haven't been so polite to my beloved Bearcats since those times though, as both teams have fallen on some hard times.

For example, the Lady Bearcats went a combined 3-30 last season. Yes, that is three wins and thirty losses. The guys hovered somewhere around .500.

However, this year, under a new coach (and one of my best friends as his assistant coach), the Lady Bearcats made the biggest turnaround of any collegiate program in the country, at any level. In the regular season, the Lady Bearcats finished 19-11, while winning the independent tournament (since we are not a member of any conference). Winning this tournament automatically qualified the team for the National Tournament, but the record actually bumped our ranking from playing the overall #1 seed to playing worst of the four #1 seeds, in Lee University.

I know, many have probably stopped reading already, if they were reading at all, but this is actually where the story gets interesting. Lee University is led by the same coach who took the Lady Bearcats to the NAIA Final Four in 2004. When he left Brescia for Lee, he took nearly all of the freshmen on that team with him, sans one or two.

Well, this game was as good a chance for some "pay back" for the ladies and program he left behind to rot. Well, they did exactly that.

Brescia led most of the way and lost the lead, momentarily, around the seven minute mark of the second half, due mainly to an "iffy" call at best. However, the Ladies continued to fight and wiggled their way into overtime. Down to a very short bench, due to an injury and two players fouling out, Brescia dominated the extra session, never relinquishing the lead they got within 20 seconds of the tip.

Now, you've got a team that won a whole three games the season before, with 20 wins on the season. There's turning around a program, and then there is this!

I'm really proud of the coaches and the ladies. It is an accomplishment, in and of itself, to even have a basketball program at a school like Brescia, which puts so little in the athletic coffers that the coaches end up paying for most of the traveling expenses out of their own pockets.

I have a strange feeling this isn't the last we'll hear out of these coaches, kids, and this program.

Now, this takes me to a whole other subject (well, back anyway)...

I think I've adequately explained how incredibly horrendous the attendance was at the Sun Belt Conference tournament, earlier this month, and how horribly marketed it was. Now, on the other hand, Jackson (and the people of this city) made Lafayette look like a bunch of dingle-berries.

I'll start with the first thing I saw when I got off the I-40 exit which took me to the arena in Jackson. As I'm turning right off of the off ramp, there is a huge, illuminated billboard stating "Welcome all NAIA Women's National Championship Fans! Thank you for coming to Jackson!"

Gee, do you think they were happy to have the extra tourism? That was just the first sign I saw. In other words, I actually knew there was a basketball tournament being held in the city and I knew the city was happy it was there. Needless to say, I didn't get either of these feelings in Lafayette.

Now, on to attendance... There was not a single game at the Sun Belt Conference Tournament that had more attendance than any game at the NAIA Women's National Tournament (that I saw anyway, and I watched four or five). This is sad on so many levels, but I'll give you this...

The average enrollment at Sun Belt schools is somewhere around 13,000, with several schools having enrollments in excess of 30,000. Now, the average enrollment at most NAIA schools is about 1,800 (all of the NAIA schools combined, probably total the enrollment of the Sun Belt Schools). So, how in the world can there be more fans at this tournament than at the Sun Belt Tournament? Enquiring minds want to know!

Okay, I'm done ranting for today. I want to close by saying, again, how proud I am of the Lady Bearcats and their coaches. You all did a wonderful job and made at least one alumnus very, very proud!