Barring miracle runs at their conference tournaments, Iowa and Iowa State will join Northern Iowa and Drake as NCAA tournament watchers instead of participants.
Two years ago, Iowa, ISU and UNI were all in the NCAAs. Maybe it will happen again some year. Not in 2007. It's not a pleasant deal when the NCAA takes 65 teams, but none of them will be from our state. But we'll survive, because ... well, because it would be stupid if we didn't.
So who represents us? Is it Creighton, which is just across the Iowa border in Omaha and relies on Sioux City's Nate Funk? Is it Wisconsin? Madison is close to eastern Iowa, and the Badgers have Marion's Jason Bohannon.
Maybe it's the Albany Great Danes, if they can win at Vermont Saturday for their second-straight America East Conference title. Junior forward Brent Wilson of Cedar Rapids Prairie is a double-figure scorer for Albany, which almost shocked Connecticut in the first round of last year's NCAAs.
I say it's Winthrop. We can pretend that the Big South Conference champion Eagles are from Winthrop in Buchanan County (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop,_Iowa) instead of Rock Hill, S.C. Since Winthrop is 28-4 and a very chic pick to be this year's George Mason, it's not like we'll be stuck with a Belmont or Davidson that has no hope of advancing out of the first round of the NCAAs.
Yes, we're for Winthrop. We love Craig Bradshaw, the big man from New Zealand. We love Jason Killeen, the backup center from Limerick, Ireland. We identify with Winthrop's assistant athletic director for media relations, since his name is Jack Frost.
We like Winthrop Coach Gregg Marshall. He accepted an offer to coach the College of Charleston last June, but changed his mind after the press conference introducing him as coach and returned to Winthrop. That showed he loves Winthrop as much as we do.
Oh, we pity the poor team from some big-shot conference that has to play us in the first round of the NCAAs. You know, we went to Wisconsin last December and pushed the Badgers to overtime on their own court before losing, 82-79. Then we came home and smashed Limestone, 80-46. We never have trouble regaining focus.
We are Winthrop. We are Iowa's team.