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February 23, 2006
March Madness comes early for local teams
The regular-season conference championships won last week by the the Aquinas and Calvin men's teams, and the Aquinas and Hope women's squads, were considered major accomplishments.
This week those achievements won't even make the four favorites in their respective Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association and Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference tournaments.
That includes Hope, which is 24-1 overall, ranked fourth on the latest NCAA Division III coaches poll, and rolled through the MIAA regular season with a 16-0 mark.
"Obviously, everyone around this area wants to point toward a Calvin-Hope showdown in Saturday's championship game, but I think there's five teams that can win our tournament," said Hope coach Brian Morehouse. "And we've stumbled as a favorite the last two years, which cost us a chance to go to the (Division III) tournament, so we have a monkey on our back because of that."
The Calvin women (21-3) are 14th in Division III. The Knights lost just twice in conference competition, as both setbacks came against Hope.
According to both Morehouse and Calvin coach John Ross, it's imperative to win the league tournament crown to get an automatic bid to the Division III tournament, rather than hope for an at-large berth.
No guarantees
"We can't rely on anyone but ourselves to make sure we get back to the national tournament," said Ross, whose Knights upset favored Albion College in last season's league title game, then reached the Elite Eight in the national tournament.
That is especially true with the WHAC tournaments.
Over the years, the WHAC men traditionally have had their league tournament champion and one or two at-large teams head to the NAIA II tourney.
Posted by admin at February 23, 2006 03:12 PM