Back in the day, Selection Sunday was a big deal because I would finally learn where I would be going to begin covering the NCAA tournament for The Courier-Journal, Sports Illustrated, or The Lexington Herald-Leader.
Once the field and bracket were announced, all of us involved with college basketball would talk to our administrators about where we should go. Then, with the help of our travel department, we would make our airplane and hotel reservations, and apply for our credentials.
The first tournament games always were on Thursday, so Wednesday was usually our travel day. One year I went to Pocatello, Idaho. Usually, though, it was some place in the Eastern time zone because that’s usually where the teams I covered the most – Kentucky, Louisville, and Indiana – were placed.
The first NCAA games I covered were in the first round of the 1962 Mideast Regional in Lexington’s Memorial Coliseum. Butler and Western Kentucky advanced, beating Bowling Green and Detroit, respectively. The Final Four was right up the road in Louisville’s Freedom Hall, but I didn’t have enough seniority to qualify for a credential.
I finally got to cover a Final Four in 1967, when Lew Alcindor, UCLA’s phenomenal 7-foot-1 sophomore from New York City, led the Bruins to easy wins over Houston and Dayton to win Coach John Wooden his third national title in four years.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon. I even got some national attention for a story I did for The Courier-Journal. After Houston’s loss to UCLA, I followed Houston star Elvin “The Big E” Hayes into the locker room. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I guess I was so young I was mistaken for a manager.
Sitting in front of his locker, an angry Hayes said the Cougars were the better team and his teammates had choked. When the story was published, all hell broke loose. The NCAA even put out a statement apologizing for a writer’s presence in the locker room.
For the next 30 years, I covered a lot of Final Fours. I saw UK win championships in 1978, ’96, and ’98. I saw Louisville do it in 1980 and ’86, and Indiana in 1981 and ’87. I can’t pick out a favorite, because all were special.
So today I may feel a couple of twinges of nostalgia when the NCAA announces the field and pairings. It won’t be too bad, though, because the Coronavirus pandemic has pretty much ruined this season for me.
Oh, rest assured, I’ll watch some of the early games and the Final Four for sure. But the worst Kentucky team ever won’t be in the field, and neither will Duke, which ended its virus-plagued season after being U of L in the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.
For the first time ever, all the games will be held in one city, Indianapolis, which the NCAA hopes to turn into a sort of safety bubble. Attendance will be limited, of course, I would expect that people who have jobs like I used to have, a rare breed, will mostly stay home.
Going into Selection Sunday, unbeaten Gonzaga certainly deserves to be the overall seed. However, the Zags’ schedule has been so soft so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them knocked off by a team that has played much tougher competition.
Other names being tossed around as potential national champs are Baylor, Michigan, Ohio State, and Alabama. Without UK, the Commonwealth will be represented by Louisville, Western Kentucky, and Morehead State.
Although it’s a darkhorse, I really like Morehead State, mainly because of Coach Preston Spradlin. The Eagles are 23-7 in their fourth year under Spradlin, a native of Pikeville who played his college ball at Alice Lloyd College. He is about as Kentucky as it’s possible to be.
My other darkhorse favorite is Iona College, a small Catholic institution in New Rochelle, N.Y. I assume most basketball fans know Iona as the place that gave Rick Pitino, who won national championships at UK and U of L, a second chance.
But what they may not know is that Iona president Seamus Carey, the man who hired Pitino, is a former president at Transylvania University in Lexington. That’s my alma mater, and I enjoyed my relationship with Dr. Carey very much.
The Gaels won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s automatic big yesterday by beating Fairfield in the conference tournament championship game. Their 60-51 victory made Pitino only the third coach in NCAA history to lead five teams to the tournament.
Now let me say this: the NCAA has no guts or imagination if it doesn’t find a way to set up an Iona-U of L game in the first or second round. That would be beyond interesting.
Thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, this tournament is more March Sadness than March Madness. But there still will be some memorable games and individual performances. It’s just the nature of college basketball.
But I fervently hope that a year from today, it will be safe for the tournament to return to its usual format. Heck, if there are some early-round games in or near Louisville, I might even apply for a credential.
