March Madness: Take a look at Radford University
One of the delights of every NCAA tournament is the little or little-known school that makes its way into the “sweet sixteen” or even the final eight. Even if I weren’t a professor at Radford and didn’t know some of the fine young men on the team, I would keep an eye on them. RU has a cool story — a 6′11′ 260-pound center who has only played B-ball for 5 years and spoken English for 2 and a 55 year old rookie coach. Check out the story on USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/bigsouth/2009-03-12-radford-cover_N.htm
Or the local press coverage:
http://www.roanoke.com/sports/mcfarling/wb/197116
The bad news? The #$%@ seeded them 16th, so they play game one against North Carolina, who ESPN says is the most talented team in the country and who the NYT said is the favorite to win it all. As noted in the USA Today story a 15th or 16th seeded team has never gotten to play Cinderella…
March 24, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
I liked this article alot. I actually watched the Radford/UNC game and everyone around me said the same thing about the two teams playing. Why is the ranked #16 school playing the #1 team? It seems to be a kind of ‘weeding-out’ process. In my opinion it doesnt seem fair. I believe that everyone, at sometime in their lives, wants the underdog to win. Too bad it doesnt seem like that will be happening in the case of the NCAA.
September 24, 2009 at 12:25 pm |
I am going to have to agree with this article. I felt that a number 1 team should have not played a number 16 team. I believe that it is not fair to Radford, they finally make it to the NCAA tournament and in one game they are already out. I felt like the NCAA tournament should have made the games a little bit more fair and had Radford play against someone that they could potentially beat. I watched the game and that game was not something I could watch. I know the boys on the team, and when they got back from the game they were pissed off about the whole situation and how they had to play a team that was number 1.
October 20, 2009 at 3:28 am |
I agree, Radford did so well to get to the dance and to be forced to play UNC was unfair. I understand that because UNC was a #1 seed they should play a weaker team first but there should be a game played to determine who plays UNC, like Radford against #8 seed? RU just didnt have the depth to keep up. We will be back this year and harder to beat for sure.
October 23, 2009 at 8:29 pm |
It was really good to make the tournament. Even though the game didn’t end in our favor I still thought they played well and gave a good name for Radford Athletics. I’ll be looking forward to this upcoming season to see if we can make it again. I wish them all the luck. It would do great things for our University and our Basketball program.