You see it every year: the videos of college basketball teams, from the title favorites to the mid-majors to the ones on the bubble, watching the NCAA tournament selection show and celebrating when their names get called. It’s part of the ritual of March Madness, and the common emotion, from the power conference teams for whom this is nothing new to those who have never danced before, is unbridled joy.
Contrast that, though, with the reaction of the Albany women’s basketball team, winners of the America East Conference title and its automatic tournament spot. The video taken of the purple-clad players, coaches and program personnel gathered together on Albany’s campus shows what happens when a team learns that it has been given the equivalent of a tournament death sentence in women’s basketball: a first-round matchup with Connecticut.