MCT Campus

Last year, the Missouri Valley Conference landed three teams in the NCAA Tournament, with two of those, Bradley and Wichita State, reaching the Sweet 16.

George Mason, from the Colonial Conference, shredded everyone’s office pool and inexplicably reached the Final Four.

2006 was a banner year for mid-major conferences.

2007 will be better.

The MVC, the Mountain West Conference and several other mid-majors should send more than one team to the NCAA Tournament.

In the MWC alone, San Diego State, Air Force and BYU all have a shot at spending Spring Break in drag as Cinderella.

The mid-major revolution started a few years ago, when Gonzaga began punching its dance card before the year even started. Before the first jump-ball of the season, you knew that Mark Few and his band of eventual NBA washouts would make a run through the NCAA Tournament.

Then the upsets became more frequent. Teams with four-year senior starters playing in the last basketball games of their careers would will their way past a team with three and four McDonald’s All-Americans.

Vermont over Syracuse. Bradley over Kansas. Winthrop over North Carolina.

This year, it’s wrong to call some of these wins an upset.

Watching the first half of the Butler-Tennessee game the other night, I found myself wondering how long the scrappy Bulldogs could stay with the Volunteers.

Whoops.

The “scrappy” Bulldogs not only handled Tennessee, winning 56-44, they also beat Notre Dame, Indiana and Gonzaga. The team I assumed would get run out of the gym is now ranked No. 19 in the nation.

Maybe I shouldn’t have awarded myself the title of “Mr. College Basketball” so soon.

And Butler wasn’t the only team to surprise Mr. College Basketball.

Gonzaga knocked off then-No. 2 North Carolina, the Wichita State Shockers shocked an LSU team that was in the Final Four last season and Southern Illinois beat the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Virginia Tech.

If you’re looking at NCAA r