Go figure

Gene Steinmeyer

I started writing blogs for my university basketball website in about 2009 or 2010. The Northwest Sports Information Director at that time suggested he didn’t have enough time to write for the website. My assistant coach and now assistant athletic director, Lori Hopkins, suggested I write my own blog.

I figured what could I hurt? How many people would actually open the women’s basketball page of the Northwest website and click on my blog? So I started writing and I couldn’t believe who read my innocent, little blog.

For instance, KQ2 Sport Director, Ryan Menley, read one blog where I mentioned a coach from an opposing team had stolen our postgame pizza. He interviewed me and I told on air what I thought was a funny story. The opposing team, Arkansas Tech, didn’t think it was so funny and they called my athletic director, Bob Boerigter, to complain. Dr. Boerigter called me in to hear my side of the story. After listening, Bob thought it was funny, but did make me change the verb “stolen” to the verb “taken.”

I did get in real trouble once when I was critical of the NCAA for one of its policies. I can’t remember what the issue was, but I know my administrators were more upset than accusing Tech of stealing a pizza.

I’m going to write some unflattering things about the NCAA. I don’t think my boss at the Forum will mind if I take a couple of shots at the NCAA.

As I write this, I’m not sure how the Northwest men’s basketball team did in their championship game with Minnesota State-Moorhead. I know for sure that the Bearcats beat the host school and No. 1 seed, Augustana. It’s the second year in a row they have knocked out the No. 1 seed on their own court.

Since the turn of the century, the Northwest men have played in 10 NCAA Division II Regional Tournaments. In three of those years, the Bearcats beat the host school. In 2006, they beat Southwest Baptist in the semifinals, only to lose in the championship game when the officials failed to call an obvious traveling violation on the game-winning shot at the buzzer. The blown call is my first NCAA nudge.

It’s shocking to me that Northwest has never hosted a regional tournament in either men’s or women’s basketball. That means never, and remember Hank Iba coached at Northwest. I thought the women might break the streak in 2011. It was my best team I had in my 13 years at Northwest. We went into the MIAA Tournament ranked third in the region.

When the two teams in front of us both lost in their conference semifinal games, I told the media we might have a chance to host. I thought that if we beat Emporia in the championship game, our chances looked good. Immediately after that interview, I was pulled aside by a conference official in charge of our region and he told me we wouldn’t host no matter what the outcome. We won that championship game by 16 points and still traveled to Oklahoma for the region. In my opinion, that was a hasty decision. Also, that’s my second NCAA jab.

If you ask Ben McCollum, I’m sure this isn’t very high on his list of worries. He’d probably say it gave his team motivation. However, the coach’s poll ranked the Bearcats only fourth best in the preseason poll. That’s not unusual for Northwest to be ranked low and it’s not unusual either, to exceed that ranking. That’s not an NCAA jab, however.

Here’s a head scratcher. Check out the NCAA Division I men’s basketball regions. You’ll find Midwest games played in Omaha this weekend. Look a little closer and you’ll find games from the West Region played in Omaha, too.

Pittsburgh has Midwest Region games, Jacksonville has West Region games, Seattle has East Region games, and Portland and Seattle have South Region games.

Back in third, fourth and fifth grades, in the little school I attended, my teacher, Helen Hunt, loved geography. We would sit in a semicircle around a map as she would read cities, countries, landmarks and bodies of water. We were expected to point to them with a ruler. If I didn’t know, I would point to a continent and hoped I was close. The consequences for wrong answers were severe.

All that time I spent guessing in Helen Hunt’s geography class gave me a pretty good idea of American geography. I’m not sure Jacksonville would be a popular place for college kids on spring break if it was in the west. That’s jab three at the NCAA.

I have many more but just one more I want to mention. For years, the NCAA had refused to play a tournament setting in NCAA Division I football. They said it hurt the academic integrity. Even though Division II and III held tournaments, the NCAA administrators wouldn’t budge.

Most of those football games would be played during the Christmas break. No one has explained to me how the NCAA thinks taking basically three weeks, not counting a fourth week for conference tournaments, to play their basketball tournament is good for academics. Maybe spring semester classes are easier, maybe academic integrity is overrated in basketball or maybe the billion dollar television contract made up for a lot of missed geography classes.

The NCAA people who set up the regions obviously missed those classes. Jab four.