NEWS: NCAA Championship Basketball Comes to Fredericksburg This Weekend
Seeded fourth, the UMW Eagles host three teams from Massachusetts this weekend in the opening round of the Division III NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. For sports fans, it gets no better.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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March Madness has landed in Fredericksburg, and the action starts Friday afternoon, when the University of Mary Washington Eagles take on the state of Massachusetts — in a manner of speaking.
Ranked fourth in the 64-team field, the Eagles will host three first-round tournament games this weekend.
The action starts Friday at 5 p.m. when Amherst College (18-7) takes on Worcester Polytechnic Institute (21-5).
The Eagles (24-3) will then play Worcester State University (15-12) at 7: 30 p.m.
Excluding UMW, all of the teams playing this weekend call Massachusetts home.
The two winners face off Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. for the right to advance to the Sweet 16 the following weekend.
Aggressive Basketball
Coach Marcus Kahn is in his 12th season as the Eagles’ head coach. To borrow a line from Indiana University football coach Curt Cignetti, all Kahn does is “win.”
Over a 24-year career as a head coach, all at the Division III level, Kahn has a record of 410 wins vs 228 loses. He picked up win 400 this January.
Kahn’s winning percentage of just over 64% puts him in some elite company. It’s roughly the same winning percentage as college coaching legends Tubby Smith (Kentucky), Gary Williams (Maryland), Rollie Massimino (Villanova), and Clarence “Big House” Gaines (Winston-Salem State University).
Kahn has been to the tournament many times, twice taking Cabrini College to the Final Four. Even with that experience, however, every entry into the tournament is a pressure cooker. But that doesn’t mitigate the joy.
Kahn told the Advance Thursday morning that while “mistakes get magnified” during tournament games and getting the team prepared puts a lot of pressure on “me and my staff to make sure the team is ready to go, It’s fun because of the excitement behind the NCAA Tournament.”
That fun should be visible Friday and Saturday night. The Eagles play a physical defensive game and have players who can light-up a score board.
For sports fans, it doesn’t get much better than this time of year, especially when the tournament is being played in one’s backyard.
Tickets for the games go on sale Friday at 3:30 at the Anderson center.
Follow the Game with the Advance
This year, the Advance will be at the games filing reports at half and at the conclusion of play.
Follow along as the Eagles make their case on the hardwood to compete on April 5 for a national title in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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