Better than Snoop Dogg.
Better than your brother winning the Super Bowl.
Better than those pots and pans Savannah Felgemacher got for Christmas.
Better than Radford coach Mike McGuire ever dreamed. In fact, when he watches Selection Monday and sees Radford unveiled as one of the 64 teams in the bracket, he might just pinch himself.“You grow up and fall in love with basketball and wait for Selection Sunday, to see a bracket and to fill it out. Now the fact that Radford is going to be in the field on Monday night night . . . it’s incredible. I never thought I’d be in a position like this.”
Radford’s 57-45 victory over Campbell on Sunday afternoon at the Dedmon Center lifted the Highlanders (26-6) to the Big South tournament championship and to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1996.
If you’ve followed this program all season, as feel-good as this story is, it’s no surprise. Radford has won its last 18 since the 68-54 loss at Hampton on Jan. 10. That included a sweep of Campbell. So it wasn’t all that stunning when Radford outscored the Camels 21-2 in the second quarter and led by 19 with just under four minutes to play in the third quarter.
Only it wasn’t over. Campbell cut it to five midway through the fourth, and we couldn’t help but remember what happened to the Highlanders two years ago. Seven up against UNC Asheville in this same spot, Radford failed to score in the final five minutes and lost by a point.
“That was the year I was out with my ACL and it was really hard to see,” said Lydia Rivers, named Tournament MVP . “It’s always in the back of our heads that anything can happen in a tournament and they give it their best shot. They made a few runs, and we just had answers for each of them.”
McGuire credited the poise of his team. “I felt like we’d get the stops when we needed them,” he said. “For them to have the regular season they had and win it on their floor is a special thing. It’s something I’ll personally never forget.”
McGuire got baptized afterward. Or in Felgemacher put it, “Payback.”
Seems like the coach and his staff doused the players pretty good with water bottles when Radford clinched the regular-season title on March 2 against USC Upstate.
Felgemacher and Sydney Nunley plotted out the revenge and carried it out as efficiently as the Highlanders’ defense, which limited the Camels to 30 percent shooting.
“I’m still soaking wet,” McGuire said an hour after the buzzer. (He also got bumped on the head by the jug; go easy next time, Highlanders!)
Players and coaches will will meet up on Monday night with their fans at the student union to learn their NCAA Tournament opponent. The Selection Monday show is at 7 p.m. on ESPN. Radford is projected as a 14 seed.
The Highlanders hold the distinction of being the only team in the state of Virginia to earn an automatic bid. Virginia Tech and JMU are long shots to make the field, so it’s possible the HIghlanders will be the only of the 13 Division I teams in our state to advance to the dance. It would be just the second time since the NCAA Tournament began in 1982 that only one state team has received an invite. Old Dominion received the lone bid in Virginia for what was then a 36-team event in 1983.
Now 23 years between appearances, Radford is dancing again. The euphoria with the confetti falling on their home court was hard for the Highlanders to capture in words, but Rivers said it was a better feeling than the New England Patriots winning the Super Bowl (her brother, Derek, is on the team) or the afterparty that she attended with Snoop Dogg in attendance.
“Well deserved, I think,” Felgemacher said.
We think so, too.