The NCAA tournament field, from A to Z

An alphabet soup of transfers, upstarts, survivors and a coach who got fired and still won.

A is for Auburn’s Johni Broome,  the All-SEC center, who had an unexpected brush with fame at Ole Miss. As Broome ranged into the front row to track down a loose ball, he felt a fan grab his leg, and he reached down to slap it away. Only then did he realize that the fan was trying to keep him from falling — and that the fan was Morgan Freeman. “Just keep playing,” Freeman said.

B is for Baylor Scheierman of Creighton, who threw 59 touchdown passes at Aurora High in Nebraska. That was a state record, but Scheierman preferred basketball and played at South Dakota State before he became one of the Big East’s best.

C is for Colgate, which won the Patriot League for the sixth consecutive year. Coach Matt Langel’s dad John, a lawyer, was a key figure in getting commensurate pay for the U.S. Women’s National Team in soccer, and upgrading pay and benefits for the national women’s hockey team as well as the players in the new Professional Women’s Hockey Association.

D is for Drake’s Tucker DeVries, who is the two-time Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year. His dad Darian is his coach. Darian had been an assistant at Creighton, where Greg McDermott coached his son Doug, and Tucker saw how that relationship could work. Still, Tucker didn’t enjoy his dad’s first recruiting pitch. “I was taking a nap and he woke me up,” Tucker said.

E is for Purdue’s behemoth Zack Edey, who probably will become the first 2-time National Player of the Year since Ralph Sampson in 1981-82. Edey is 7-foot-4, 285, and is Problem No. 1 for anyone who meets the top-ranked Boilermakers. He also has shot 351 free throws, far and away the most in Division I.

Mason Forbes

F is for Mason Forbes of St. Mary’s, whose sister McKenzie was the MVP of the Pac-12 tournament for victorious (and top-seeded) USC. Both were at Harvard, together, for one year. Mason’s dad Sterling was a Lakers draft pick, from Pepperdine, and grandfather Sterling Sr. was a Harlem Globetrotter.

G is for Grambling coach Donte’ Jackson, who led the Tigers to their first Division I tournament spot. Jackson once coached at Central State in Ohio, but needed to moonlight in order to pay bills. He worked at Lowe’s, “slinging mulch and bricks in the lawn and garden department.”

H is for Howard’s Seth Towns, who is in his eighth year of college hoops. That’s a year of Covid-19 and two years to rehab from knee injuries. Towns had 16 points and eight boards in the MEAC championship win over Delaware State. He had played at Harvard and Ohio State, where he was detained while protesting the death of George Floyd. “People tell me to stay out of harm’s way,” he told a crowd, “but I’m always in harm’s way.”

I is for Ileri Ayo-Faleye, the Vermont shot blocker who transferred from Rhode Island and wears No. 0 to signify how many recruiting offers he got. Vermont’s a familiar name at this time of year. Coach John Becker is 177-31 in America East conference games with seven championships.

J is for James Madison, which upended Michigan State in the season opener. The Dukes were having trouble scheduling, so assistant coach Mark Bucklin decided to call his uncle for some help. The uncle was Spartans’ coach Tom Izzo, who said yes. No need to call next season.

K is for Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, the first-team All-American who averaged 21.1 points as a transfer from Northern Colorado. He was at Northeastern Colorado JC before that, primarily because poor grades wiped out his junior year of high school. But he grew to 6-foot-6 at JC and was highly sought when it came time for the transfer portal. Why Tennessee? Because Kevin Durant is Knecht’s favorite player, and coach Rick Barnes was Durant’s coach at Texas.

Dan Monson

L is for Long Beach State, which began the week by accepting Dan Monson’s offer to resign and announcing it before the Big West tournament. Those administrators ended the week by watching Monson cut down the nets, after three consecutive wins at the Big West tournament. 

M is for Mohamed Diarra, who set the ACC tournament record for rebounds as 10th seeded North Carolina State won five games in five days and sneaked into the NCAAs. Only one team has done that previously: Kemba Walker’s UConn team in 2011. Jim “Never give up” Valvano would have been delighted. Plus, Diarra had reasons to be sluggish. He was observing Ramadan, which meant he had to fast until sundown until Friday.

N is for Norm Nixon, the Showtime Laker who was Duquesne’s point guard the last time the Dukes got into the NCAAs. That was in 1977. Keith Dambrot is the coach, after he had made a name by coaching LeBron James in $1 clinics when The King was 13 in Akron, then coaching James again in high school. This year Dambrot’s wife Donna was fighting breast cancer, but she showed up — “my lucky charm,” Dambrot said – at the Atlantic-10 tournament that Duquesne won. On Monday Dambrot announced his retirement after this run ends.

O is for Oregon’s N’Faly Dante, who had a Waltonesque performance in the final Pac-12 tournament. Dante was 25 for 30 from the field as Oregon won its way into the NCAAs. From Mali, he attended a basketball-oriented high school in Kansas, but not before he got his first pair of Jordans. He and his Mom hoarded peanuts and made and sold peanut butter to pull that off.

P is for Richard Pitino, who coached sixth-seeded New Mexico to an unexpected Mountain West title. His dad Rick thought he might get there with St. John’s, but the committee disagreed. Richard coaches Jaelen House, whose dad Eddie, uncle Mike Bibby and grandfather Henry Bibby all played in the NBA. House is the heel of the Mountain West, taunting opponents and fans alike. “You have to get over yourself when you coach him,” Pitino said, “because the worst thing you can do is not let him be himself.”

Q is for Quarterback. Wagner needed to recruit one after injuries had reduced their working roster to seven. Damien Mazil, the QB for Wagner, volunteered to help. The team shot 38.2 for the year but beat the top three teams in the Northeast Conference, all on the road, to get here.

R is for Latrell Reid, the only St. Peter’s player who was on the Peacocks’ 2022 ride to the regional final. St. Peter’s knocked off Kentucky and Purdue on the way. Reid, the Defensive Player of the Year in the MAAC, was unrecruited at Coffeyville (Kans.) JC and was working at the desk of Blink Fitness in Willingboro, N.J. when St. Peter’s offered a tryout. Reid also faced down heart surgery, from Wolff Parkinson’s syndrome. He had 142 assists this season.

S is for Stetson’s Jalen Blackmon, who scored 43 in the ASUN title game against Austin Peay. Blackmon is from Marion, Ind., where he broke the scoring records that his dad James had set. James was a runnerup in state Mr. Basketball voting to Steve Alford, who has coached Nevada into the tournament.

Keisei Tominaga

T is for Keisei Tominaga of Nebraska, who is known as the Japanese Steph Curry. Tominaga has represented Japan in Olympic 3-on-3 competition. His dad Hiroyuki was on the Japanesse national team and is 6-foot-11. Keisei averaged 14 points this year and shot threes at a 37 percent clip. This is the Cornhuskers’ third tournament trip in the past 30 years.

U is for Unbroken, a quality personified by Montana State’s Robert Ford III. He was the Bobcats’ heart and soul this season, with 100 steals, and he puts tape on his shoes and writes the initials of his dad, uncle and brother, all of whom were shot to death in Portland as Robert was growing up. “Basketball,” he said, “is my getaway place.”

V is for Veteran, as in Oakland University coach Greg Kampe, who leads all Division I coaches with 40 years at one school. In fact, he leads that category by seven years. Kampe got the job when the school in Detroit’s northern suburbs was Division II. Over the years Kampe has 12 wins over “power conference” schools.

W is for Washington State’s Myles Rice, who finally got to play in his third year on the Palouse. Rice was redshirted two years ago and was fighting his way through Hodgkin’s lymphoma last year. He was one reason the Cougars made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008.

X is for XBox, which found its way into our homes in 2003, which means it isn’t as old as North Carolina’s Cormac Ryan. He played at Stanford and Notre Dame before coming to Chapel Hill and helping the Tar Heels earn a No. 1 seed. He’s also 25, which means he’s older than Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards, Zion Williamson and Tyrese Halliburton and, for that matter, would be the second-oldest starter for the Orlando Magic, most nights.

Y is for Yaxel Lendeborg, the MVP of the American Athletic Conference tournament for UAB. Lendeborg was born in the Dominican Republic and traveled with his family to Ohio and Pennsauken, N.J., where he was a reluctant student and player. His mother made him attend a showcase for Dominican-born players in New York, and from there he got an offer from Arizona Western JC in Yuma. Now, at 6–foot-9, he averages 13.9 points and 10.7 rebounds.

Z is for Zeke Mayo, who leads South Dakota State into the tournament as he fights off Type 1 diabetes. Like many “mid-major” stars, he thought about transferring to a bigger arena, but then got some advice from a fellow who spent his whole career at Weber State and seems to be getting by: Damian Lillard.