March Madness: Take a look at Radford University

One of the delights of every NCAA tournament is the little or little-known school that makes its way into the “sweet sixteen” or even the final eight. Even if I weren’t a professor at Radford and didn’t know some of the fine young men on the team, I would keep an eye on them. RU has a cool story — a 6’11’ 260-pound center who has only played B-ball for 5 years and spoken English for 2 and a 55 year old rookie coach. Check out the story on USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/bigsouth/2009-03-12-radford-cover_N.htm

Or the local press coverage:

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/mcfarling/wb/197116

The bad news? The #$%@ seeded them 16th, so they play game one against North Carolina, who ESPN says is the most talented team in the country and who the NYT said is the favorite to win it all. As noted in the USA Today story a 15th or 16th seeded team has never gotten to play Cinderella…