The 2008 NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Tournament has already produced some history. For the first time ever, all the games at one site (Tampa) have resulted in the lower seed beating the higher seed:

• Western Kentucky (12) beat Drake (5) 101-99 (OT) in the West bracket
• San Diego (13) beat Connecticut (4) 70-69 (OT) in the West bracket
• Siena (13) beat Vanderbilt (4) 83-62 in the Midwest bracket
• Villanova (12) beat Clemson (5) 75-69 in the Midwest bracket

Tampa doesn’t host any more games this year, but I’m sure it will become a lucky charm for underdogs in the years to come.

At this time of year, basketball fans are in a frenzy about the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, which brings together the best 64 collegiate teams in the country to play in an elimination tournament to determine the national champion. I just watched some first-round games last night.

But at hundreds of smaller schools, the frenzy is about to peak this very weekend. The Divison III Final Four is coming to its conclusion, with the semi-finals being played tonight, and the final tomorrow. This year’s final four are Illinois Wesleyan, Virginia Wesleyan, Amherst, and Wittenberg. There must be something about those Wesleyans!

My own brush with basketball greatness is that I attended Western Michigan Division III powerhouse Calvin College for a year back in the early 90s. They actually won the national championship in 1992 and 2000, but this year, were knocked out in the second round by local archrival Hope College.

List of Division III National Champions from 1975-2002

Though the focus of this time of year is almost exclusively on the Division I Men’s College Basketball Championship (the NCAA Tournament), there is an even older tournament that has been relegated to the role of hosting the teams that didn’t qualify for March Madness. The National Invitation Tournament (or NIT) was established back in 1938, the year before the NCAA Tournament began. It seems almost ironic that this year’s final was played on April 1st. It’s also ironic (and frankly, sad) that the winner of the tournament isn’t even posted on the official web site yet. Despite the fact that it was played at Madison Square Garden, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows who won. The 2004 winner? The University of Michigan, who topped Rutgers 62-55.

A bit of trivia. The NIT also hosts a preseason tournament and this year’s winner was none other than Georgia Tech, who finished as, you guessed it, runner-up to National Champion Connecticut by a score of 82-73.