Cold weather arrives
2008 World AIDS Day
Canine Christmas
Will Wright State continue Horizon League's history of upsets?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
BUFFALO — We'll find out, won't we, if the big time basketball conferences really deserve all those bids to the NCAA tournament and the little time guys deserve only a few.
Our clash of concern is Wright State of the Horizon League taking on Pittsburgh of the Big East.
Extras
Pittsburgh did not win the Big East regular-season or tournament championships, yet is a No. 3 seed and one of six Big East teams in the NCAA field.
Wright State won both the regular-season and Horizon League tournament championships, yet is a No. 14 seed, one of only two teams for the league in the tournament — and would have been left out had it not beaten Butler in the tournament championship game to secure an automatic bid.
That's the way it is in basketball these days, but at least know going in the Raiders are part of a successful league that wins games in the NCAA.
In three of the last four years, Horizon League teams have won at least one game in the NCAA, and in six of the last nine years.
Butler made it to the Sweet 16 in 2003 and Milwaukee made it in 2005.
So the Horizon League has had success.
What that means for Wright State is unknown. The Raiders haven't participated for so long, no one knows how well they'll do.
At least they don't look frightened. At least they've played some teams that are in the field — Butler three times and Miami University once — and a team that usually can be found in the field, LSU. Wright State won three of those games, beating Butler twice and Miami, by a point just short of the buzzer, way back in the first game of the season on Nov. 11.
It didn't feel like WSU was on its way to the NCAA then.
But the Raiders are here now, looking like it won't take 14 years to get back.
