![]() ![]() When the Catholic Book Club selected Miracles on the Hardwood as one of its selections for Spring 2022 (along with legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr.’s memoir I Came as a Shadow, reviewed in America in 2021 by Bill McGarvey), CBC moderator Kevin Spinale, S.J., noted that many of the social issues Americans faced during the 20th century were reflected in the struggles and victories of Catholic collegiate basketball. Immaculata University won the first three women’s basketball championships, while Notre Dame’s women’s team has appeared in five title games since 2011, winning the national championship in 2018. hoops fans often link Catholic colleges with basketball excellence.” Indeed, she quotes Gasaway to that effect: “If there were no game of basketball, Catholic colleges and universities would have been deprived of one of their defining characteristics in the public imagination.” From USF to Georgetown to Loyola Marymount to Dayton to Marquette to Loyola Chicago to Villanova (and I guess now Gonzaga, harrumph), she notes, men’s college basketball has always been an arena in which Catholic schools played an outsized role. In her 2021 review of John Gasaway’s Miracles on the Hardwood: The Hope-and-a-Prayer Story of a Winning Tradition in Catholic College Basketball, Jenny Shank noted that “N.C.A.A. Jones, America paid them zero attention-but things have gotten better in recent years, particularly in the book reviews. ![]() Admittedly, when the University of San Francisco Dons (“ the greatest sports story of the century”) won two national championships in 1955-56 with future N.B.A. Over the years, America has covered college basketball a lot better than other sports, in part because Catholic schools (and Jesuit schools in particular) have always played a prominent role in the sport. I won America’s March Madness pool last year, mostly because I was one of the few Catholics not sucker enough to put my hopes on Gonzaga.Īnd yes, I won America’s March Madness pool last year, mostly because I was one of the few Catholics not sucker enough to put my hopes on Gonzaga. You might also have noticed some illegal gambling in your office these days ( shocked, shocked!), part of $2.5 billion in informal wagers on the tournament-and a drop in the bucket compared to the $6.5 billion gambled legally in the new free-for-all that is the American gaming industry. ![]() championship tournament, more famously known as “March Madness,” which begins on March 16 this year.Īll told, over 700 million viewers took in a March Madness game in 2022, and that’s just counting the men’s games (and not counting those in actual attendance). Division I basketball programs find out where they are seeded-or if they are seeded at all-in the N.C.A.A. (Our company kickball team won a single game in its inaugural season…and that by forfeit.) But for the uninitiated, Selection Sunday is the day when N.C.A.A. ![]() Guess what this coming weekend brings? That’s right, Selection Sunday! If you don’t know or care what Selection Sunday is, we are undaunted, because we work at America Media, where sports is a dirty word and there are more fans of Quidditch than of baseball, football and basketball combined. ![]()
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