I heard it suggested on a local podcast earlier this week that no one cared who won the regular season Summit League title. On the surface his assertion made sense. It seemed nearly every seed other than the one seed had won the title in recent years.
Saturday afternoon in Vermillion, I learned differently however. It most certainly did matter. Two of the teams still in the hunt for the prize fought back and forth in game that was seemingly coming down to the wire. While the Yotes had controlled throughout, their hold on the game seemed tenuous at best. The clock was somewhere around 2:30 left in the game. AJ, who was having an AJ type of game, approached half court.
And the world stopped. It is the closest I’ve ever been to something like that. Seemingly happening right below me. A collective punch to the stomach and resulting groan fell over the arena. For myself, I felt like crying and maybe even did so. “This can’t be happening.”
As AJ was helped off the floor, you tried to refocus on what was left to be decided. A conference championship. Did it even matter? What I saw as the clock ticked to zero was it most certainly did matter. It mattered to the Bison, and it dang sure mattered to the Yotes. Credit to Coach Lee and the entire Yotes squad, on this night, they saw it through and won.
Who wins the “meaningless” regular season remains unknown. What is no longer unknown is if it matters to anyone. I can say for certain it mattered to NDSU, it mattered to AJ Plitzuweit and tomorrow it will dang sure matter to the Coyotes.