Established 1979.
Essays I wrote on the history of mid-major college basketball for the final season of The Mid-Majority.
(See Tuesday’s Part One to learn how we got here.) At the end of the 1969-70 season, Marquette coach Al McGuire turned down the team’s invitation to the NCAA Tournament, protesting the selection committee’s choice to send the Warriors to …
On October 4, 1951, the New York Herald Tribune published the greatest lede ever written. It lay at the top of Red Smith’s dispatch from the Polo Grounds, where a one-game playoff for the National League pennant had been decided …
April 2, 2011. Game 7-104. A national semifinal. The unofficial mid-major national championship.
I don’t really know how I got here. Not in the straightforward biological sense. Not really, even, in the more complex what-are-any-of-us-doing-on-this-here-Earth construction. But when it comes to the question of how I wound up writing about the long, weird …
Here in the Mid-Majority, our definitions of success are more malleable than the usual. They’re shaped according to the team and the time, and with ten seasons’ understanding of the uphill nature of our battles.
Anyone who’s read this site knows that we don’t put much stock in the old saw that “sports are an escape from real life.” On the contrary: sports are played, coached, and officiated by real people. Fans experience real joy …
Here in the frozen Midwest, temperatures have spent more time below zero than above over the last two weeks; the rare respites on the thermometer usually just mean the clear, cold skies are replaced by another coating of slick, wet …
Penn vs. Princeton: One Year, Two Rivals, Three Games Read more »
As Ray pointed out last week, Season X has finally bid adieu to one of the Mid-Majority’s betes noires: the guarantee game, in which one of our own earns a much-needed paycheck (and a likely loss) for visiting a power-conference …
In the early years of NCAA basketball, Our Game had its unquestioned capital in New York City. The finest players and smartest coaches came up through the five boroughs, and an NIT victory at Madison Square Garden was the pinnacle …
I know it’s not scientifically proven, but everyone who’s spent a decent chunk of time with an iPod on shuffle knows that the little music robot has some kind of psychic connection with its owner’s mood. It was no surprise, …