The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
March comes early
Jerry Hinnen
PUBLISHED: February 28, 2008
Two days from now, it's going to be March.
Advertisement
Too bad it's not the usual single day because I love March. Not for the alleged thaw in the weather -- if I recall correctly, the first baseball game I went to last year without feeling like my ears were about to fall off was on Memorial Day -- not for St. Patty's Day (green's not my color), but for the greatest annual sporting event of them all, the NCAA Tournament.
Why are the NCAAs so great? The first two days are the best celebration in American sport of the underdog, the David, the Cinderella. Over and over for two days, mid-major teams with half the talent, a quarter of the resources, and a tenth of the name recognition will draw a bead on the giants of the sport.
More often than not they will fail — that's how the world works — but every now and again they will succeed. Northwestern State (La.) will beat Iowa. Santa Clara will beat Arizona. George Mason will beat Connecticut. It will be glorious.
And, truth be told, it's glorious even when they come close. To see a basketball team stand tall and battle nose-to-nose with an opponent who has a few inches on them, talent-wise, through sheer grit and hustle and playing their very best basketball possible because that's what the game demands ... it's as inspiring as sports gets, win or lose.
Which is why it's time for a tip of the cap to the Saline and Milan girls' basketball teams, who did exactly that in their four- and five-point district losses last week to Bedford and Chelsea, respectively.
First, let me be clear that neither the Hornets nor Big Reds exactly came into those games as 16 seeds, to use the NCAA equivalent for a team that might need an actual, bona fide miracle to win a game.
Saline went 13-7 and beat all manner of good teams, and even if Milan went 2-18 in the regular season, nearly all of those losses came without injured point guard Lindsey Lammers. By the end of the season, the Big Reds had made clear they had substantially more talent than their record suggested.
Nonetheless, neither team entered its district game as something other than a sizable underdog. Saline had been swept by the 19-2 Mules in the regular season, with the losses coming by a combined 43 points, and were dealing both with injuries and a loss to Chelsea in its final game. Milan was, well, still 2-18 and had fallen to Chelsea by 40 in the 2007 districts.
But watching the first half of either game, you'd have never guessed those facts by the way either team was playing. The Hornets blanketed and straight shut down the Mules for most of the first two quarters with some of the best in-your-face defense I've seen from any team this year. All Milan did was lead by as many as eight before taking a 25-20 lead into the locker room.
Neither situation would last. Chelsea hit three straight threes at the end of the third quarter and eventually went up by 10. Saline suffered a rash of turnovers and trailed by nine early in the fourth.
But both teams fought back. Both teams whittled their way back within two. Both teams showed why I rarely sit in press boxes; you can't cheer from there, and when you see the team you cover and know playing their guts out, it takes a very calm and reserved sports fan not to give that team the vocal (in my case, occasionally very vocal) support they deserve.
It's not terribly professional, I can admit, but some things go beyond everyday, clock-punch professionalism. In fact, those are the things we watch sports for in the first place, and even after Bedford and Chelsea escaped, I'd already gotten a glimpse of that March-style thing that makes basketball special.
So thank you for that, Hornets and Big Reds. Heck, maybe next year I'll start talking about how much I love February.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
