UMass in the NIT
Don't know if the UMass basketball team can win the NIT tomorrow (Thursday) night, but it would be a nice end to a season that, overall, has been very much up and down. It's been an interesting year for mens' basketball teams in Amherst. The Amherst College mens' team went to the National Division III finals for the third year in a row. Last year, they won it. This year, they were beaten. But it speaks well of the overall program.
As for UMass, it's nice to see the program on an upswing. Certainly, we aren't near the heady days of the mid-1990s, when the Minutemen were a ranked powerhouse, and finished 1996 as the Number One team in the nation. But to see the team competitive in a mid-major conference is always good for the western Massachusetts region. I still like to watch basketball games live, and while the Celtics, too, are playing well, it's good to be able to see a competitive team that's only a little more than an hour away.
I remember the first time I saw the Minutemen, or the Redmen, as they were called then. A junior forward, Julius Erving, was the star of the team. I went to the game with my father. As we were waiting for the team to come out for warmups, I asked dad, "Hey, do you think we'll be able to tell which guy is Erving?" We were. It was the guy who palmed two basketballs and laid them in one after the other in warmups. Whoa. The game was meorable, because Erving had 25 points and 25 rebounds. That number has stuck with me all this time because it was so symmetrical, I guess. And the guy was double-teamed all night!