Okay, so maybe one more college basketball post before the fall, but only because of a book I recently read. Over the last five or six years, I’ve read several books on high school, college or professional basketball teams (or leagues). I now try to read a couple each year. Here’s a list of a few of my favorites:

• Five Point Play - Mike Krzyzewski’s book in which he documented Duke’s 2001 season and his third national championship. You get a pretty good look at how they accomplished what they did, Krzyzewski’s coaching style and how they overcame the adversity of Carlos Boozer’s injury late in the season to win the title.
• A Season Is A Lifetime - Former Durham Herald-Sun sports editor (and Duke alum) Bill Brill’s book following the 1992 Blue Devils en route to their repeat championship. It includes stories of how the team was like a rock band when they traveled, how everyone hated Laettner - even many of his teammates at times, the two games with Michgan’s Fab Five, and the classic Duke-Kentucky game. I bought this book 10 years after that season, and it was a blast reliving that again.
• Where The Game Matters Most - William Gildea’s account of the 1997 season in Indiana basketball, following four teams from different parts of the state. This was the final season of one-class basketball in Indiana, after the controversial decision (opposed by many) to create a class system. This would, of course, result in multiple champions instead of a single state champion, thus eliminating the possibility of a story such as the one told in the movie Hoosiers ever happening again.
• The Last Amateurs - John Feinstein’s account of the 2000 season in the Patriot League (Bucknell, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Army, Navy, etc.) The name of the book comes from the fact that the Patriot League schools (along with the Ivy League) were the only ones that did not offer scholarships to it’s players (although some Patriot League schools, at least, have since offered both full and partial scholarships.) A very good book about “small time” college basketball.
• The Last Banner - Peter May contends in this book that his subject - the 1986 Boston Celtics team - is the greatest team in NBA history. He tells the story of that championship season, the last to date for the Celtics. With the talent they had on that team, all the way down the bench, he may be right about being the greatest. If not, though, they’re definitely near the top.
• A March To Madness - Another Feinstein title, this one about the 1997 season in the ACC. This was especially interesting to me as it was the year Duke was officially “back” after the Krzyzewski-less 1995 season where they went 13-18. Two years later, in that 1997 season Feinstein writes about, Duke won the ACC regular season title over a more talented North Carolina team that included Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter.

Ironically, being both a Feinstein fan and a Bob Knight fan, I’ve still yet to read one of his best known books, A Season On The Brink, in which he spent the 1986 season with Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. It’s still on my shelf, though, and I’ll eventually get to it.

So, I’ve enjoyed all of these books, and when I recently found that a new book on mid-major basketball had been released, I knew it would be next on my list. Michael Litos is a sportswriter from Virginia who is an avid fan of mid-major college basketball, particularly the Colonial Athletic Association and VCU. (Ouch. Still hurts to say that school’s name.) He chose to spend the 2006 college season writing about the CAA, and did he pick the right year or what? His new book, Cinderella: Inside the Rise of Mid-Major College Basketball, tells the story of a phenomenal season in the CAA in which the national spotlight was fixed on the conference like never before.

The CAA began the year with a team in the preseason NIT final four, where Drexel put up quite a fight against #1 ranked Duke, nearly pulling off a huge upset in the semifinals. They then gave away the consolation game against eventual national runner-up UCLA, losing by a single point. From there, the CAA had a strong regular season that propelled them into a great postseason. Four teams in the conference - all with 20+ wins - reached the postseason tournaments. Hofstra and Old Dominion played in the NIT, where ODU reached the semifinals before falling to Michigan. UNCW went to the NCAA tournament as the winner of the conference tournament (having tied George Mason for the regular season title.) Unfortunately, they gave up an 18 point lead in the second half of their opening round game and fell to George Washington.

But, the story of the 2006 season was the biggest not only for the CAA, but for all of college basketball. It was the story of the other CAA team that “went dancing.”

You would assume that the biggest headline of the year for the 2006 NCAA tournament would have been Florida and Billy Donovan winning their first national championship. Yet, it really wasn’t. Tournament favorite Connecticut failing to reach the Final Four was also a big story, but not the biggest. And players of the year Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick falling in the sweet 16 got it’s share of attention, but it wasn’t number one, either. No, the story for 2006 was two words:

George Mason.

The Patriots were a team some argued shouldn’t have been in the NCAA tournament. They made it via an at-large bid - the first for the CAA since 1986. And, they got the bid over another CAA team - Hofstra - which some thought was more deserving. As I mentioned, GMU and UNCW had tied for the regular season title, and Hofstra had finished second, one game behind those two. But due to the fact that they’d beaten GMU twice in the final weeks of the season, including in the CAA tournament semifinals, some thought Hofstra would get the second CAA bid. Of course, some even thought they deserved three bids, and still others - like perennial windbag Billy Packer - only the single automatic bid for the tournament winner. But GMU went on a mission to prove that they did belong. And not only did they change people’s minds, they left absolutely no doubt about it.

First, they knocked off 2004 Final Four team Michigan State. Next, they ended defending champion North Carollina’s bid (albeit slim) to repeat. Then, after defeating fellow mid-major Wichita State, they faced the most talented team in the country and the favorite to win it all, the Connecticut Huskies. After playing a fantastic game and being on the verge of victory, they allowed UConn to tie the game at the end of regulation to send it into overtime. It appeared UConn, who’d already had a couple of narrow escapes in the tournament, was poised once again to survive a scare and advance. GMU’s run would end. But as Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend.” Not only did GMU not fold up, they again put UConn in the position of being behind in the final seconds. This time, UConn could not keep up. GMU had punched their ticket to the Final Four.

To be clear, the book is not about George Mason alone. It’s about all of the CAA teams, although it focuses a bit more on the top half of the conference, which included GMU, UNCW, Hofstra, VCU and Old Dominion. Litos begins with the end of the 2005 season, then reviews the all-important preseason games, the many intra-conference games, the off court struggles of various players and coaches, and, of course, the conference’s tremendous postseason.

He touches on one of the difficulties of being a mid-major - keeping your coach after you have success. He discusses past coaches who have fled mid-major schools for the “BCS” conferences, and then at the end of the book he recounts the changes that occurred in the CAA last year, most notably Jeff Capel’s bolt from VCU and the CAA to Oklahoma and the Big Twelve.

He also discusses how the mid-majors struggle to compete with the major conferences in other areas as well. In terms of money, obviously there’s a huge difference in the budgets of mid-majors compared to “majors”. In terms of scheduling, mid-majors want to play the big boys, but the big boys don’t want to play them. It used to be that they would only play them at home (which is still the case when they do), but now many shy away from them altogether. The mid-majors need the big schools on their schedule to bolster their NCAA tournament resumes. However, the big schools know that a loss to a mid-major is a negative on their resumes, especially a loss at home, and so they’d rather schedule even lower and get the win. And even when they do get their shot at BCS conference teams and improve their resume, and even pull off an upset or two, sometimes that’s not even enough for the NCAA selection committee.

Life for the mid-majors is tough. But 2006 was a great year for the conference. While the impact of their successes last year may not be fully known for years, it was, in Litos’ words, a very good first step.

Overall, I thought this was a good book. It could have benefited from a better editor, particularly in one of the final chapters. There was one paragraph where he was comparing GMU’s upset of Connecticut to another upset. He mentioned that Michigan State’s Mateen Cleaves stated they would “shock the world” against Duke, and then did so by pulling off the upset. He was speaking of the 1999 Final Four, but he was wrong for several reasons. Cleaves said no such thing, and in fact Duke beat Michigan State on Saturday. It was, instead, Connecticut’s Khalid El-Amin who made the “shock the world” comment prior to the Huskies beating Duke in the finals.

(I won’t go into the many reasons why this was not really an upset, or at best, a very mild one. I’ve done that before. Just more media-created nonsense. If you really want to know what I think about it, it’s in this post. But I digress.)

I can’t be certain of any possible factual errors regarding the CAA, since I’m far less familiar with it’s players, coaches, and history, but this was a glaring error that made me wonder if there was more misinformation in the book.

Regardless, Litos did a good job of telling the story and it was a very enjoyable read.

I don’t know what will be next on my sports book list, but it could be the story of this year’s Florida team. I don’t know if the book is currently being written or not, but I’d be quite surprised if it wasn’t. That seems to be the norm these days - win a title, release a book chronicling the season. In fact, a book on the last year in Florida’s sports - what with the basketball and football championships - would be a great book. So, I’ll keep an eye out for something out of Florida soon.