Editorial: Good luck to the Roadrunners during our March Madness

Published 12:01 am Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The eyes of casual basketball fans will be on their brackets as March Madness — the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — begins tonight.

Plenty of brackets will be busted as the games take inevitable twists and turns. Let’s face it. Your office mate who doesn’t even follow college basketball will probably win your office pool.

But there’s another March Madness kicking off this week, and it’s much closer to home.

The Dalton State College Roadrunners men’s basketball team plays in the NAIA Men’s National Championship Tournament in Kansas City, Mo. The Roadrunners’ first game is Thursday at 6:45 p.m. EST against Harris-Stowe State University of St. Louis, Mo. If Dalton State wins its first game, the Roadrunners play the winner of Montana Western/LSU-Shreveport in the second round on Friday at 10:15 p.m. EDT.

The Roadrunners hope to add a second national championship to their trophy case. In 2015, Dalton State won the NAIA national championship by winning five games in seven days with their final victory over California’s Westmont College.

The Roadrunners (27-4) enter this year’s tournament on a roll. Last month, the team won its first Southern States Athletic Conference tournament championship. Dalton State is one of four No. 1-seeded teams in the 32-team NAIA tournament.

Since Dalton State students are on spring break this week, the college had a pep rally for the team last week. We wish the team safe travels to the tournament, and we hope they bring another championship back to Dalton.

If you want to watch the games, the first four rounds of the tournament are video-streamed online at www.naianetwork.com, while the championship is streamed online at watchespn.com.

While The Daily Citizen can’t make the trip to Missouri to cover the tournament, we’ve hired a veteran freelance sports reporter to cover the Roadrunners. So check the newspaper and our website (www.daltonnow.com) for game stories as Dalton State (hopefully) makes its way through the tournament and wins another title.