George Mason beats the Powers that Be

Prophetic isn't that a school named after a genuine U.S. patriot George Mason helped to take down the Powers that Be in college basketball just as Mason helped to take down the British so long ago.

George Mason proved there's a place in college basketball for any school willing to make even a modest investment in the sport as they do. There are plenty of good players out there. All one needs is a good coach and good teams and you can do anything with it. That's truly the joy of college basketball and basketball in general really outside the NBA. Football takes an army. Baseball requires specialty skills like pitching and hockey requires goaltending. But in basketball, you only need five guys.

I made mention of the major/mid-major divide in college basketball as part of the way we sort of divide the haves and have-less in American society or bigs and littles. It's the same difference between the major and non-major political parties. But just as George Mason proved there's a place for schools like themselves in the Final Four, there's a place for non-major parties in U.S. poltics if they do it right. George Mason (which happens to be where Walter Williams teaches) did it the right way and won and so can the non-major parties.

Holy Cross too in the NCAA Hockey Tournament became the first No. 4 seed in a region to beat a No. 1, Minnesota, another non-major fiding its place.

Speaking of hockey, kudos to my University of Wisconsin teams, the women for winning their first national championship and men making the Frozen Four for the first time since 1992. Go Big Red! Wisconsin is the real state of hockey.

---Sean Scallon