Ralph's Rag

Yes, schools that sponsor NCAA championship football also challenge for the NCAA basketball trophy. FBS schools don't (they do not win an NCAA football championship) but FCS schools do. Georgetown, Villanova, La Salle and Holy Cross have all won the basketball championship... but only Villanova has also won the football trophy.

Looking at the selections for this year's basketball tourney I see we have a number of FCS names.

Schools that currently sponsor FCS (*) that either won or were runner-up in the basketball tournament (I think):
2011 Connecticut (32-9) Jim Calhoun 53-41 *Butler Houston, Texas
2010 Duke (35-5) Mike Krzyzewski 61-59 *Butler Indianapolis, Ind.
1985 *Villanova (25-10) Rollie Massimino 66-64 *Georgetown Lexington, Ky,
1984 *Georgetown (34-3) John Thompson 84-75 Houston Seattle, Wash.
1982 North Carolina (32-2) Dean Smith 63-62 *Georgetown New Orleans, La.
1979 Michigan State (26-6) Jud Heathcote 75-64 *Indiana State Salt Lake City, Utah
1971 UCLA (29-1) John Wooden 68-62 *Villanova Houston, Texas
1970 UCLA (28-2) John Wooden 80-69 *Jacksonville College Park, Md.
1967 UCLA (30-0) John Wooden 79-64 *Dayton Louisville, Ky.
1955 San Francisco (28-1) Phil Woolpert 77-63 *LaSalle Kansas City, Mo.
1954 *La Salle (26-4) Ken Loeffler 92-76 Bradley Kansas City, Mo.
1947 *Holy Cross (27-3) Doggie Julian 58-47 Oklahoma New York, N.Y.
1944 Utah (21-4) Vadal Peterson 42-40 (OT) *Dartmouth New York, N.Y.
1943 Wyoming (31-2) Everett Shelton 46-34 *Georgetown New York, N.Y.
1942 Stanford (28-4) Everett Dean 53-38 *Dartmouth Kansas City, Mo.

CURRENT FCS SPONSORING SCHOOLS IN THE 2012 NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT BRACKET

FIRST FOUR (Dayton)
Tuesday, March 13
*Mississippi Valley State vs. Western Kentucky
BYU vs. *Iona

Wednesday, March 14
*Lamar vs. Vermont

SOUTH (Atlanta)

Louisville
Thursday, March 15
? No.1 Kentucky vs. No. 16 Mississippi Valley State/Western Kentucky winner

Albuquerque
Thursday, March 15
No. 3 Baylor vs. *No. 14 South Dakota State

Greensboro
Friday, March 16
No. 2 Duke vs. *No. 15 Lehigh

WEST (Phoenix)

Portland
Thursday, March 15
No. 4 Louisville vs. *No. 13 Davidson

Louisville
Thursday, March 15
*No. 6 Murray State vs. No. 11 Colorado State
? No. 3 Marquette vs. No. 14 BYU/Iona winner

Omaha
Friday, March 16
No. 2 Missouri vs. *No. 15 Norfolk State

EAST (Boston)

Albuquerque
Thursday, March 15
No. 5 Vanderbilt vs. *No. 12 Harvard
No. 4 Wisconsin vs. *No. 13 Montana

MIDWEST (St. Louis)

Greensboro
Friday, March 16
? No. 1 North Carolina vs. No. 16 Lamar/Vermont winner

Columbus
Friday, March 16
*No. 3 Georgetown vs. No. 14 Belmont

Best of luck to Mississippi Valley State, Lamar, South Dakota State, Lehigh, Davidson, Murray State, Norfolk State, Harvard, Montana and Georgetown!

The round ball, short pants, no helmets and other things may be distracting to FCS fans but look at the school logo and know that the FCS sponsoring schools do fine at D-I basketball too.