You know, I think of all the finales of all the sports that I’ve been involved with over the years. Obviously you think of the Super Bowl in football; you think of the World Series in baseball, and in basketball, I think, I just think they’ve got the best of all – at least in the NCAA tournament. I think all of them have it down pretty good but basketball just absolutely amazes me. Fact is, I really fell in love with basketball back in the early ‘60’s when NAIA teams went to Kansas City for one tournament. Every champion NAIA team went to Kansas City. Fact is, thirty-two teams got invited. It was single elimination, throw them all in the old Kansas City Memorial Auditorium, and let them get after it. The place seated about fourteen or fifteen thousand people and a lot of the time it would be full. The top thirty-two teams in the Nation went and I loved it. Howard Payne got to go three or four times, something like that. We won a grand total of one game but that’s ok. It was just the experience and it was always a great tournament. I couldn’t tell you who won any year, but whoever did, it was a great, great tournament.

Today, Howard Payne is NCAA Division III and they do it their way. NCAA Division II does it another way but most of you are watching the NCAA Division 1 tournament, and I believe they do it right. When I started watching back in ’63, women’s basketball was a select sport by a very few colleges. Now they’ve got the same thing that the guys have and they always put on a great tournament, but unlike Kansas City it’s at different sites and it changes year by year. Kansas City – it’s still I guess what it’s always been, the old Memorial Auditorium, I don’t think they use that for basketball any more, but they have a beautiful facility where they have their tournaments now.

There aren’t nearly as many NAIA teams as there used to be. Fact is, I was looking through the NCAA tournament brackets from both Thursday and Friday, and unlike Kansas City where they have thirty-two

teams, sixty-eight go in NCAA Division I men’s tournament and at least sixty-four in the women’s tournament.

Anyway, I’m going through the scores on Thursday and I start looking at some of these and I mean I can’t just go out and prove it right now, but I can tell you there are at least two or three that you could certainly call them an upset – huge upsets. It seems like every year they provide us with one or two or three you could certainly call an upset. Oakland beat Kentucky in the first round 80 to 76. WOW! Bye-bye to the legendary Kentucky Wildcats and hello to Oakland, whoever the heck you are. Oakland, I almost can guarantee you back when, was an NAIA team. They beat Kentucky and there are two or three others that could be considered upsets. For instance, Number 12 Grand Canyon beat Number 5 St. Mary’s. How about Number 12 James Madison. They used to be an NAIA team, and they beat Number 5 Wisconsin. Then Number 13 Yale beat Number 4 Auburn. So, there have been more than a hand full of upsets. That, to me, is what makes it absolutely great! Fill out a bracket or two and have fun and pick a big underdog for me. I’m telling you what, it’s got to where, over the last several years, they’ve become more numerous than ever.

I love basketball. I love college basketball and this is about as good as it gets. I hope you enjoy it this year.

Until next time, so long everybody.

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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].