Anything Can Happen

What does it mean for a school dominated by politics to go to the NCAA Tournament two years in a row?

For little American University this may be as close as they can get to a college basketball dynasty. With the Inauguration and President Obama being the center of attention the men’s basketball team had to fight to get students interested despite only losing one game in Patriot League play. The team played second fiddle for much of the season but when the Patriot League Tournament rolled around the school was sure not to let them down.

Students turned out in the hundreds for the Patriot League finals, game many of them coming back early from spring break. The Eagles returned the favor as they showed up against Holy Cross and captured their second Patriot League title in the schools history. The school has now transformed from a political powerhouse to a basketball bad boy.

With the tournament less than a week away students packed into the Tavern and watched anxiously as they were told whom their Eagles would be playing. It was filled with boos and cheers for team’s students did or didn’t like. The whole place would become dead silent every time a potential seed came up and then everyone would let out a sigh of relief when it wasn’t the Eagles. Finally in the last bracket, it was announced that AU would be playing the Villanova Wildcats in Philadelphia on Thursday.

The announcement was bittersweet. Even though the game couldn’t get any closer to school, accept if it was in the actual District, they had to face a team many had in their elite eight. Even with the tough match up the campus was a buzz with hope. It seems like almost everyone has American winning in his or her bracket and no one is counting the Eagles out.

Even with the improbable match up, AU is going to bask in the glory of thinking anything can happen while they can.