'Big Thursday,' at least in its smallish, but feisty Mid-American Conference version, was back at The Q. So on semifinal Friday will be top-seeded Akron, but not without duress.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Twos abound in sports, as they did on Noah's ark. Two-on, two-out. Two-and-two count. Twin bill. Double play. Two-point conversion. Deuces are wild!
Threes are rife, two. Er, too.
Three-point shots rule in the NBA.
The 3-point field goal became so automatic in the NFL that rules were changed to prevent it from being the game-winner on the first possession of overtime.
There's also three-up, three down in baseball, and three strikes and you're out.
The score on four
Four is different.
Four games in one day at one arena, as at the Mid-American Conference men's basketball tournament on Thursday at The Q, is a double-double dip of ice cream for basketball fans.
It is a long day's journey into midnight, serenaded by pep bands, with scoreboard leads flipping like cheerleaders. It commingles boosters from eight schools that share geography and educational missions.
Four is a neglected number in sports. Four-point plays in basketball occur but rarely. On fourth down in football, most teams punt.
It's fitting that the maneuvering before the Big Dance again includes the Thursday quadrille. Because four is a very good score in the office pool.
It takes four wins, for example, to get to the Final Four for most teams, but five for the First Four. That's the term for the play-in games in Dayton.
The MAC's "Big Thursday"
The return this year of the traditional MAC quarterfinals, after three years of a distorted format that featured more byes than departing Browns players, has brought back Cinderella, the most cherished figure in the month since the March Hare.
The old format was a disaster. Without a potential NCAA Tournament representative of the caliber of Gonzaga or Butler, the MAC still tried to steer the top four teams to the title.
The two top teams in the regular season, regardless of division, got a double bye into the semifinals. One bye each went to the teams that finished third and fourth.Tiebreakers often needed to be consulted.
"Big Thursday," with the eight quarterfinalists, was eliminated in favor of doubleheaders Wednesday and Thursday. In that format, Cinderella had to win five games in six days. It was an unfair, unbalanced scheme in a league dominated by parity.
Now it's back to four games, matching the fifth through 12th-place teams at campus sites on Monday and then with four more games on Thursday here.
The view from the top
Akron coach Keith Dambrot's top-seeded Zips were almost done in by the format, climbing out of a 12-point hole down the stretch to beat eighth-seeded Eastern Michigan, 65-63, in the first quarterfinal.
"Last year, I was crazy enough to think we could win playing five games. We won three and were nip-and-tuck with Buffalo (in the semifinals)," said Dambrot.
With the MAC's best program, Dambrot has seen it all at The Q. "This time of year, I want to play," he said.
But not too often.
"The year we lost to Miami (2007), I had Jeremiah Wood. He was a beast, but he had trouble playing successive days," Dambrot said.
Dambrot might have the best team now. But he might not have the best for three games in three days.
With the loss of 6-11 Pat Forsythe to shoulder surgery, the coach must monitor the minutes of a tiring 6-10 Isaiah Johnson, whose power layup won the Eastern game in the last half-minute, and of his backup, 6-9 Kwan Cheatham.
In Friday's first semifinal, Akron will face 12th-seeded Bowling Green, which rode 26 points by Central Catholic freshman Antwon Lillard to a comeback 62-59 upset of fourth-seeded Central Michigan.
Quarterfinals, quadrangles and quadrilaterals
Thursday quarterfinals were seldom a boresome foursome. In the MAC Tournament's first year here in 2000, the four games were decided by a total of six points.
Fours, in the form of quads (short for quadrangles) are a big part of college life. They are often the face of a school, the central courtyard, the college green. Students have strolled on quads from time immemorial.
The quad has a sports mystique too. A quad, a jump of four complete bodily revolutions, is the gold medal standard in figure skating.
When Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam of Golf in 1930, writers called it "The Impregnable Quadrilateral."
In the most chaste way, one of the four MAC teams left standing after Thursday is going to take home a bundle of joy.
