Little guys command respect on big stage

Shakespeare put it this way in Henry V:

“From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered – we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

OK, so maybe Wichita State, Bradley and George Mason won’t be on any end-of-days lists. But for the Missouri Valley Conference and the Colonial Athletic Association, those three teams’ survival to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament is historic stuff.

“This says we belong, we belong in this tournament,” George Mason’s Will Thomas said after the 11th-seeded Patriots ended defending champion North Carolina’s season. “There are no doubts that we can play with anyone in the country.”

Thomas was talking of George Mason, but that’s a blanket statement that covers Wichita State and Bradley. The Shockers, the MVC’s regular-season champions, beat No. 2 seed Tennessee in the second round to advance to the Washington D.C. Regional semi.

Bradley, a No. 13 seed, beat No. 4 seed Kansas and No. 5 seed Pitt to advance to the Oakland Regional semifinals, where the Braves will meet former MVC foe Memphis.

MVC commissioner Doug Elgin pointed out that Bradley finished fifth in the league standings.

“I’ve never been offended by the ‘midmajor’ label,” Elgin said Monday from his office in St. Louis. “I think one of the biggest reality checks of the weekend was the fact that Bradley’s two victories were upsets only according to the seeding. If you watched Bradley play those two games, you could see it was the better team.”

A week ago, the controversy regarding the NCAA tournament revolved around the MVC receiving three at-large bids and the Colonial receiving one.

CBS Sports college basketball announcers Jim Nantz and Billy Packer both were cranky inquisitors of NCAA selection committee chair Craig Littlepage.

How in the name of Naismith, they wondered, could the 10-member committee decide teams such as George Mason, Wichita State and Bradley were more worthy than Maryland or Colorado (teams from “Big Six” power conferences that, by the way, lost in the NIT?)

Guided by history, Nantz and Packer had legitimate points. Since the current bracket format was adopted in 1985, there have been 352 Sweet 16 slots available.

Teams from the Big Six – Big 12 (including Big Eight and SWC), Big Ten, Big East, SEC, Pac-10 and ACC – have claimed 80 percent of those spots. (The number rises to 87 percent if you remove Sweet 16 appearances by Temple, Louisville, UNLV, Cincinnati, Memphis and Utah — teams have a combined 140 NCAA tournament appearances.)

George Mason, Wichita State and Bradley are carrying the torch for the Little Guys.

“We all feel a kinship this time of year,” said Mid-American Conference commissioner Rick Chryst, whose league’s one team (Kent State) was one and done. “We’re all rooting for each other. When one midmajor team wins, we all win.”

George Mason, which had never won an NCAA tournament game, defeated sixth-seeded Michigan State and third-seeded North Carolina – teams with a combined 129 NCAA victories. UNC-Wilmington, the Colonial automatic qualifier, lost its first-round game to George Washington.

“What was said (by Packer and Nantz) really took the luster off what we had accomplished during the season,” Colonial commissioner Thomas Yeager said. “We were having to defend ourselves. Is there a sense of validation now? Oh, hell, yeah.”

George Mason will face Wichita State on Friday in the regional semifinals. In the “Bracket Buster” event a month ago, the Patriots beat the Shockers in Wichita. By contract, the teams will play a regular-season game next November or December.

“We’re negotiating the television rights for that game for $10 million,” Elgin joked Monday.

What was once an NCAA tournament habit for bracket pool players – advance teams with the single-digit seeds – is no longer excellent advice. True, six of the top eight seeds, including all four No. 1s, are still playing. But the carnage in the three, four, five and six seed lines was significant.