Tag: Howard basketball

Howard’s 3 failed chances to defeat Wagner for a 16 seed summed up the heartbreak of March Madness

March Madness holds some very real heartbreak for some teams.

If you want to know the thin margin for error in March Madness, look no further than the First Four game between Howard and Wagner on Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio.

The two programs duked it out for one of the 16 seeds in this year’s NCAA tournament on the men’s side, with Wagner eventually coming out victorious at the very last second with a 71-68 victory.

What made it such a devastating moment for Howard is that the team had three 3-point attempts right before the buzzer to get the walk-off victory.

Sadly for Howard, none of the three attempts connected with the basket, and the team had to end its March Madness appearance early.

This is exactly why losing in March can be such a tough thing for a college basketball team, and why it’s often so, so close between who advances and who gets sent home when it’s tournament time.

Wagner escaped to make it past the First Four, while Howard had to soak in one of the most difficult feelings of disappointment for any sports team this time of year: so close, yet just not quite enough.

Kamala Harris delivered a classy postgame speech to Howard after NCAA tournament loss

This was such a classy move by Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Howard men’s basketball team got a special visitor to the locker room after its 96-68 loss to the Kansas Jayhawks in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

After making history and punching its ticket to March Madness for the first time in about three decades, the No. 16 seed Howard couldn’t quite get past No. 1 seed Kansas during Thursday’s West Region game in Des Moines, Iowa.

However, Howard alumna and Vice President Kamala Harris attended Thursday’s game and visited with the Bison after the loss. She gave them words of encouragement and talked about how proud their fellow Bison were of the program.

“You played hard; you played to the very last second,” Harris told the locker room. “You made all us Bison so, so proud. You hustled out there. You are smart. You are disciplined. You put everything you had into the game.”

It’s an incredibly classy move by the vice president, and her message likely gave this locker room the encouragement it needed after such a tough defeat.

While Howard didn’t advance in the NCAA tournament, the team did get a really special moment to mark its March Madness experience.

The Bison also got an invitation from Harris for a tour of the White House, which is a pretty cool consolation prize.

The radio call of Howard basketball punching its ticket to the NCAA tournament will give you goosebumps

For the first time since 1992, Howard men’s basketball is going dancing.

Howard is going dancing for the first time since 1992.

The school’s men’s basketball team won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference on Saturday in a close contest with Norfolk State, 65-64, and punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament.

If you want to know how much this victory means to Bison nation, be sure to listen in on the school’s official radio call.

Even though March Madness doesn’t officially start until next week when the brackets are set, this is exactly why we all block out so much time to watch these college programs vie for a spot in the tournament.

This is just so cool for Howard and its fans.

If that doesn’t give you goosebumps, we’re not sure what will.

Howard will try and shock the world by pushing ahead in next week’s NCAA Tournament games. Could they be the next team to write a Cinderella story? This is March; time will tell. For now, the Bison will celebrate.

Feature photo courtesy of ESPN.