It's All Been Worth It

In the 2003-2004 school year, South Dakota State University began the transition from NCAA Division II to NCAA Division I.  As my Alma mater, I was interested, though saddened because as a Division II school, we were always competitive in the 2 sports that mattered most...basketball and football.  But, being a big D1 school did bring some perks, like more national exposure and the possibility to be in the NCAA tournament.

My favorite sport when I was a student at SDSU was basketball.  I loved going to both the Men's and Women's games and both teams were always competitive.  When the transition to Division I happened, the school went into it's 5 year transition period, which meant no post season play for 5 years.  For the first several years, the Men's Basketball team was terrible, while the Women's team was good right away. 

During their first year of eligibility for the NCAA Tournament, the women's team went 32-3, made the tournament and won a game in the tournament before losing to the #5 team in the country.  The success of the women's team continued, and this season, they won the Summit League title and made it to their 4th consecutive NCAA Tournament.

While the women's team has had tremendous success, the men's team has struggled.  A few years back, they went 6-24...it was brutal!  But, 2 years ago, things started to turn around.  The players started getting better and the record started getting better.  Last season, the Jackrabbits men's team had their first winning season at the D1 level.  This season, the Jacks came into the conference tournament as the #2 seed in the conference with a 24-7 record and they have one of the best point guards in the country in Nate Wolters.

The Jackrabbits easily won their first game of the Summit League tournament, and won the 2nd game with a big second half.  With the upset of the #1 team, Oral Roberts, SDSU was the favorite in last night's Summit League title game.  But, with this team, nothing is ever easy.  They played a very good Western Illinois team, and were down 12 points at one time.  But they rallied back to force overtime, and then won the game by 2 points in Overtime. 

I was so hyped up after the game last night that I really struggled to fall asleep, but I finally did.  Today, several people at work congratulated me on the victories (like I had anything to do with it!).  This win makes the move to D1 and all the heartache that went with it worth it.  We are now a competitive Division I program, and while taking any self worth out of this is stupid, it is fun to be watching and reading about good basketball again.