Yesterday was a sad day for me. Charlie and I were super excited for the James Madison game. The Sun Belt Conference Tournament looked like it would be a free-for-all where anyone could be. And the Dukes were on a streak – as they had won 7 of their last 8 games.

I was all ready to write my “The Dukes Are Hot” article to support them. But then as I have watched painfully a few times this season with my Boilermakers, the JMU shots stopped falling. The game was tied at 43 with about 16 minutes to play. And then a horrible stretch of 2 minutes happened where Tylik Weeks, Isaac Taveras and Tegra Izay from Southern Miss led a 9-0 run and never looked back on the way to an 86-80 victory to knock out the Dukes from the Sun Belt tournament.

Then, in the second game, one of the 6 teams tied for 2nd place, Arkansas State lost by 3 points to a Georgia Southern team that they had beaten by 17 points on the road in January. To put into perspective the type of upset this was, ESPN did a guide by Jeff Borzello, Myron Medcalf and Joe Lunardi to predict who will win all 31 conference tournaments. All three of them predicted Arkansas State to win the entire tournament – certainly not expecting them to lose in their first game.

It is a constant reminder that in March, it doesn’t matter who the favorite is. Vegas had JMU as a 2.5 point favorite and Arkansas State as a 7.5 point favorite. But the games are not played in a Vegas sportsbook or in an ESPN article, they are played on the court. And if you go cold for 2 minutes, your March can be over.

I feel bad for the Dukes – I was hoping that they were going to make a Cinderella run. But as I mentioned before, the Sun Belt is brutal. March is brutal. And when the month of madness is done, only one team will still be happy and 360 schools will see their dreams for a national championship at some point end.