| The Cinderella Matchup Few Will Watch
When Davidson visits St. Mary's tonight, it could be one of the most intriguing tournament games of the 2008-09 NCAA basketball season. If it hadn't been for a couple of late-season injuries to each team's star, perhaps it would've been the most intriguing first-round matchup in the NCAA Tournament, a 10 seed against a 7 seed. But now it's relegated to an 11:30pm tipoff, on ESPN2, in the National Invitational Tournament.
Before Patty Mills broke his hand in a Jan. 29 game against Gonzaga, the St. Mary's Gaels were rolling. They got Mills back in time for the WCC conference tournament, but they lost to the same Gonzaga team in the tournament finals, had lost too many games without Mills in the lineup, and didn't qualify for the tourney.
Commentators, reporters and analysts have described Mills in much the same way as last year's NCAA tourney folk hero, Stephen Curry. Both are undersized guards from smaller, lesser known schools with a penchant for dazzling offensive plays and outside shots that would impress Jerry West. Unfortunately for Davidson and the basketball world, Curry sprained an ankle in a late-season game against Furman, setting the team back just enough to not earn an at-large bid after they were upset in the Southern Conference semis.
The absence of Davidson (Curry) and St. Mary's (Mills) is even more glaring in this NCAA tourney, as there is not a single team remaining worthy of Cinderella status. When Western Kentucky, with their dynamic and crafty guard-oriented style couldn't upend higher-seeded Gonzaga (those annoying 'Zags rear their ugly heads again), and when Cleveland State (a gritty, fearless bunch who had to upset Butler in the Horizon League tourney just to make the NCAAs) lost to perennial power Arizona in the second round, the slipper was lost/didn't fit/Cinderella was no more. And for this college basketball fan, the NCAA Tournament got a whole lot less interesting.
That's why tonight's game means so much to me. It's not just that Davidson's season is on the line; it's the matchup many of us wished we'd seen, on CBS, during primetime, in the NCAA Tournament.
But hey - Mills is just a sophomore, and Curry may return for his senior season. Maybe Cinderella is just taking a year off. | 
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