Time to Get Ready for the Dance

Mid-March means two things for me- spring break from school and the college basketball postseason.  It is my custom every year to track the results of all colleges that I have an art connection to and are also in the NCAA tournament.  I had hoped that this year my oldest alma mater, the College of William and Mary, would make the list.  Unfortunately W&M has a 321 year streak of not being selected for the NCAA basketball tournament.  Okay technically they didn't start playing basketball until the beginning of the 20th century, and they were classified as Division I in 1948, but that still means 66 years of eligibility for this event without making it, and no Division I school has a longer record of futility (four other colleges are tied).  However, for the second consecutive year, the Tribe made it to their conference final, but lost the game and the automatic bid it brings, so they are heading to the NIT instead.

That still leaves me with 5 of my art related colleges in the tournament: Villanova (exhibited two saint prints as part of a group exhibition in 1997), Harvard (purchased one of my saint prints for a museum collection in 2000), Texas (exhibited the Culture Rot group folio in 2001), Northern Iowa (exhibited two Ecclesiastes prints as part of group exhibition in 2001, and used those images as covers for an academic  journal in 2002 and 2009), and LSU (exhibited the School Days group folio in 2006).  Three of the teams are in the same region, so at best only one can win three games.  The other two are each in different regions, but aren't expected to get out of the first round.  I'll update the progress of the teams here as the games play out.