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http://blog.newsok.com/berrytramel/2012/03/28/bob-hoffman-coaching-mercer-in-championship-game/
Bob Hoffman: Coaching Mercer in championship game
Posted by Berry Tramel
on March 28, 2012M at 4:00 pm
Bob Hoffman coached Southern Nazarene to the NAIA women’s basketball national championship 23 years ago. Wednesday night, he tries to produce another title.
This one, you probably haven’t heard of. Hoffman, in his fourth season as the men’s coach at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., has coached Mercer to the championship game of the collegeinsider.com Tournament. Mercer plays at Utah State at 8 p.m. (Oklahoma time) Wednesday in a game that will be televised by Fox College Sports.
Hoffman also coached Oklahoma Baptist’s men to the 1993 NAIA championship game. He spent five years as the head coach at Texas-Pan American, was an assistant on Kelvin Sampson’s staff at OU and coached minor-league teams in the Rio Grande Valley (NBA D-League) and Little Rock (American Basketball Association).
Hoffman took the Mercer job in March 2008. His first three teams went 48-50 overall, 32-28 in the Atlantic Sun Conference. But this Mercer team is 26-11; the Bears went 13-5 in the A-Sun, runnerup to Belmont. Mercer lost to Florida Gulf Coast in the Atlantic Sun Tournament, ending the Bears’ NCAA Tournament dreams.
But tournaments like the CIT give teams like Mercer renewed life. We like to make fun of the NIT, and the CBI (College Basketball Invitational), and the CIT, which clearly is a fourth-tier tournament.
The first CIT was played in 2009. Old Dominion won it. Missouri State followed in 2010 as champion, and Santa Clara won in 2011. Three fairly-prominent mid-major programs, in terms of NCAA Tournament history. And Utah State would certainly follow in that vein.
But a Mercer championship would be different. Mercer is a low-major. Its NCAA Tournament history includes first-round losses to Georgia Tech in 1985 and Arkansas in 1981. Both games were won by single digits. That was 26 years ago.
Mercer touted its CIT first-round victory over Tennessee State as its first post-season victory ever. The Mercer website includes photos of the tournament, which includes student excitement awaiting the tournament announcement and Hoffman celebrating on the sideline after a big play. Just because most of America doesn’t care about these tournament doesn’t mean the schools involved don’t care.
The CIT expanded to 32 teams this season, and the field includes some schools you either didn’t know existed or didn’t know was Division I: South Carolina-Upstate, Cal State-Bakersfield and Utah Valley. It also included some names that have contributed to March Madness: Indiana State, Old Dominion, Drake, Utah State.
The CIT is one of those homecourt tournaments. Mercer got home games against Tennessee State (and drew 1,773) and Georgia State (2,132) in the first two rounds. But Mercer then won road games at Old Dominion and Fairfield.
Don’t get the CIT and the College Basketball Invitational confused. The CBI was formed in 2008, and Tulsa won it. Subsequent champs have included Oregon State in 2009, Virginia Commonwealth in 2010 and Oregon in 2011. The CBI is a 16-team bracket, with a best-of-three championship series. Washington State beat Pittsburgh in Game 1 of the CBI series, but now the series shifts to Pitt for Game 2 and Game 3, if necessary.
While the CIT explicitly bans teams from the six power conferences, the CBI courts them. Doesn’t always get them, though. The only other power conference team, outside of Washington State and Pitt, in the 2012 CBI was Oregon State. But Butler, which has made the past two NCAA championship games, was in the field.
Homecourt advantage is paramount, of course. In the CBI, only Princeton (at Evansville) and Washington State (at San Francisco) won on the road in the first round. Only Butler (at Penn) won on the road in the quarterfinals.
And we haven’t even mentioned the NIT, the historic National Invitation Tournament, which traditionally has been the second-class tournament. Stanford and Minnesota are in the championship game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dude can coach.
Bob Hoffman: Coaching Mercer in championship game
Posted by Berry Tramel
on March 28, 2012M at 4:00 pm
Bob Hoffman coached Southern Nazarene to the NAIA women’s basketball national championship 23 years ago. Wednesday night, he tries to produce another title.
This one, you probably haven’t heard of. Hoffman, in his fourth season as the men’s coach at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., has coached Mercer to the championship game of the collegeinsider.com Tournament. Mercer plays at Utah State at 8 p.m. (Oklahoma time) Wednesday in a game that will be televised by Fox College Sports.
Hoffman also coached Oklahoma Baptist’s men to the 1993 NAIA championship game. He spent five years as the head coach at Texas-Pan American, was an assistant on Kelvin Sampson’s staff at OU and coached minor-league teams in the Rio Grande Valley (NBA D-League) and Little Rock (American Basketball Association).
Hoffman took the Mercer job in March 2008. His first three teams went 48-50 overall, 32-28 in the Atlantic Sun Conference. But this Mercer team is 26-11; the Bears went 13-5 in the A-Sun, runnerup to Belmont. Mercer lost to Florida Gulf Coast in the Atlantic Sun Tournament, ending the Bears’ NCAA Tournament dreams.
But tournaments like the CIT give teams like Mercer renewed life. We like to make fun of the NIT, and the CBI (College Basketball Invitational), and the CIT, which clearly is a fourth-tier tournament.
The first CIT was played in 2009. Old Dominion won it. Missouri State followed in 2010 as champion, and Santa Clara won in 2011. Three fairly-prominent mid-major programs, in terms of NCAA Tournament history. And Utah State would certainly follow in that vein.
But a Mercer championship would be different. Mercer is a low-major. Its NCAA Tournament history includes first-round losses to Georgia Tech in 1985 and Arkansas in 1981. Both games were won by single digits. That was 26 years ago.
Mercer touted its CIT first-round victory over Tennessee State as its first post-season victory ever. The Mercer website includes photos of the tournament, which includes student excitement awaiting the tournament announcement and Hoffman celebrating on the sideline after a big play. Just because most of America doesn’t care about these tournament doesn’t mean the schools involved don’t care.
The CIT expanded to 32 teams this season, and the field includes some schools you either didn’t know existed or didn’t know was Division I: South Carolina-Upstate, Cal State-Bakersfield and Utah Valley. It also included some names that have contributed to March Madness: Indiana State, Old Dominion, Drake, Utah State.
The CIT is one of those homecourt tournaments. Mercer got home games against Tennessee State (and drew 1,773) and Georgia State (2,132) in the first two rounds. But Mercer then won road games at Old Dominion and Fairfield.
Don’t get the CIT and the College Basketball Invitational confused. The CBI was formed in 2008, and Tulsa won it. Subsequent champs have included Oregon State in 2009, Virginia Commonwealth in 2010 and Oregon in 2011. The CBI is a 16-team bracket, with a best-of-three championship series. Washington State beat Pittsburgh in Game 1 of the CBI series, but now the series shifts to Pitt for Game 2 and Game 3, if necessary.
While the CIT explicitly bans teams from the six power conferences, the CBI courts them. Doesn’t always get them, though. The only other power conference team, outside of Washington State and Pitt, in the 2012 CBI was Oregon State. But Butler, which has made the past two NCAA championship games, was in the field.
Homecourt advantage is paramount, of course. In the CBI, only Princeton (at Evansville) and Washington State (at San Francisco) won on the road in the first round. Only Butler (at Penn) won on the road in the quarterfinals.
And we haven’t even mentioned the NIT, the historic National Invitation Tournament, which traditionally has been the second-class tournament. Stanford and Minnesota are in the championship game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dude can coach.
