OT LaVall Jordan taking his team to the Dance???!!!
Gotta love college basketball. Former Beilein assistant LaVall Jordan is one game away from taking his team, the Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers to the NCAA Tournament!
Coming into the Horizon League final, as a 10 seed, having lost 9 in a row. They beat Valpo the 1 seed and just beat UIC in the semis. They beat Northern Kentucky and they are dancing! With a record of 12-23!!
Even though the purists hate it, I love these kinds of NCAA tournament stories.
Should a 12-23 team make the tournament? No.
But the fact that one could play their way in is awesome.
Win three at the Joe and renew your yearly handshake.
Win 7 in a row starting at the Joe and I'll be happy with that handshake.
EDIT: sorry, didn't see tonight's result. Crazy after a tough season. Good for him!
It would be the worst team to make the tournament based on 23 losses (next worse is Liberty in 2013 with 20 losses) and also on a win percentage of 0.343 (next worse is George Washington in 1961 with 0.360). History in the making.
Caveat: source article was from 2013 (LINK).
of any team to ever make it, but per kenpom, they wouldn't necessarily be the "worst."
They're ranked 262 right now and would necessarily move up a bit if they beat 148th ranked NKU. Last year Farleigh Dickinson was 263rd entering the tourney. The year before that, Hampton was 250th. In 2014, Texas Southern was 258th, so they're right there with the worst teams of each year.
It's a very tall order to get the second one against a team with a much better record, but crazy shit happens sometimes.
Well that's great to hear, good for LaVall. Hopefully he can continue the success (preferably with a better record). Either way happy for him. All is seemingly going well in the realm of Michigan basketball: UM playing good, MSU sucks, UM players in the NBA doing good, and former coaches doing good.
It is great to see all the UM alumni performing well, and doing such a good job.
If anyone cares, in the Illinois high school tournament last weekend, Milwaukee recruit Carson Newsome outplayed Justin Smith, who chose Indiana over Michigan, and won the game.
If LaVall beats Beilein in the tournament, would the anti-Beileinites explode or implode? Might be worth it, either way,
They play Northern Kentucky @ 7 on ESPN for those who are interested.
...unless that team is coached by an ex-Michigan assistant with a UM alum staff.
I bought a new house in Ann Arbor last June. Needed a little more space, and wanted to move a little farther away from central Ann Arbor. When I had viewed the house a few times, I noticed a lot of UM memorabilia, specifically basketball memorabilia. I didn't think much of it, because that is hardly unique here in Ann Arbor. When I get to the closing, I notice a name on the seller documents that looks familiar... Lavall Jordan. So yeah, I want him to make the dance, so I can say, "I am showering in the same shower as an NCAA tourney coach used to shower in!" Or something like that... It can't hurt resale value, right? :-)
I think it's possible that bringing up all the people that have used the shower in the past might hurt resale value.
It would probably hurt the resale value if I said to a potential buyer, "Hey, me and Laval Jordan showered here! I mean, at separate times. Wait, NOT together, seriously! We just both used this same shower, is what I meant. Well hey, thanks for looking at the house!"
Gotta root for Richie Cunningham's alma mater.
Milwaukee grad here - the athletic director at Milwaukee is horrible.
Hopefully Lavall does his thing and gets out for a better job before she throws him under too.
Hope the Panthers can beat the Norse tonight
This will be the start of March Madness!!!
While it makes for some great stories and makes the smaller conference tourneys more marketable for TV coverage, I hate automatic bids awarded to conference tournament champions. I think they should get automatic bids to the NIT, not the NCAA. Feel bad for the teams that have proven to be the best team during conference play and then get screwed because they slipped up in a single elimination tournament.
Would be better for NCAA tournament to guarantee the best teams from the smaller conferences get in, increasing the amount of upsets, theoretically.
System needs fixing. Bid has to go to the regular season winner.
The key here is if UW-M grads a spot that may help keep out Iowa, IL or even Sparty.
Believe it or not, the Horizon once got three teams into the NCAA Tournament. The year was 1998 and the league was known as the Midwestern Collegiate Conference.
/boring
Is a real thing in March
Amanda Braun is the AD at Milwaukee
Hand selected by ANDY GEIGER, former OSU AD, who was the interim AD at Milwaukee for a year after MILWAUKEE went thrua stretch of like 4 AD's in 4 years.
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
TRUTH
I cant post for some reason the link from UWM announcer bill johnson quitting after 17 years as the basketball team radio announcer, but its great and straight truth
Yeah well to me the allowance of an autobid to a team that wins just 3 games at the end after abysmal season is a blight on the whole tournament and totally unfair to the real conference winner. Let's compare 18 games vs 3. Since the conference will probably never get an at large bid, the seasons of its various teams may as well just be 3 games
The Ivy is the only conference that doesn't do this selling out and gives its autobid to the regular season winner. Smartest conference for a reason
The Ivy League will have its first conference tournament this week. The top four teams are invited with the auto-bid going to the winner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Ivy_League_Men's_Basketball_Tourname…