Both Puget Sound and St. Thomas ran the table in their respective conferences, but only one emerged unscathed in Friday's Sweet 16 showdown. The Tommies shot 54 percent in their 86-69 victory. It's apparently the first road victory in St. Thomas history, a fact I find stunning.

The top-ranked Tommies advance to Saturday's game against No. 2 Washington University, the defending national champion.

I don't have any details since I was "stuck" doing my day job, but St. Thomas Vice President Doug Hennes went all newspaper guy on his recap. SID Gene McGivern was busy updating his blog and doing an in-game blog.

What's next? The Tommies are three wins from the greatest basketball season in MIAC history, and one of the most impressive seasons in the history of college basketball. If you believe the rankings, Saturday's game is the de-facto national championship game. Too bad the crowd will likely be small and quiet compared to what it deserves.

Naturally, I'll be working again and miss all the fireworks. Perhaps even worse, I'll be watching a stud headed to St. Thomas next year tear apart "my" team. The rich get richer, I guess.

What was Tubby Smith doing five hours after coaching his way out of the NCAA tournament? He was giving pre-game speeches to both St. Thomas and Steven's Point, apparently.

I didn't make an official sighting, but the stats can't be mere coincidence. How else do you explain the horrendous perimeter shooting (22.5 percent), rash of missed layups and general offensive malaise on display? The Tommies scored 26 points less than their average and shot almost 20 percent below their season average. The Pointers finished 24 points below their average and shot 14 percent worse than normal.

Plain and simple, it was Tubby Time in the final game ever played at The Shoe. It made for an ugly display of basketball between two of the best teams in the nation, though the Tommies survived and that's all that matters in March. They travel to Wheaton next weekend to play Puget Sound, who finished the #7 in the final D3Hoops.com poll.

Joking aside, was the slow start by design? Tommie assistant coach Johnny Tauer had asked Gustavus coach Mark Hanson for advice in beating the Pointers earlier in the week. The response was classic Hans.

"Let them get ahead by 10 early so they don't take you seriously. Being up at halftime certainly didn't work for us."

The Tommies tried to follow that advice. Here's a glance at their possessions over the first eight minutes of the game: turnover, miss, miss, miss, MAKE, turnover, turnover, miss, turnover, miss, turnover, miss. The Pointers were equally as inept, leaving the score at a very Gophers-like 6-5 with 11:52 remaining. It never really got much better. Somewhere Tubby had to be smiling.

Even on crutches, I'm pretty sure I could have played a more aesthetically pleasing game of 1v1 with former Macalester scrapper Adam Denny. Assuming no fouls would get called, anyway. We were hackers.

For the first time in awhile, I've got no major beef with the way things were officiated. The fouls and free throws were almost exactly even and there were no egregious mistakes. But that doesn't really tell the whole story, judging by the reactions from the UWSP coach and the various MIAC coaches sitting in my section.

Every game is filled with 50/50 calls, some of which are called and some that aren't. As a largely unbiased observer, I'd say the Tommies owned the 50/50 calls by a count of at least 80/20. I'm not sure that it changed the outcome, but it certainly was a factor — the Pointer big men battled foul trouble all night. You could literally see the Steven's Point coach begin to boil as every close call went against him, particularly down the stretch.

So what's the bottom line? The Tommies claimed an ugly, impressive win over one of the best programs in Division III. In many ways, it finally legitimized the product St. Thomas has been putting on the court all year.

As I reflected on the performance while crutching down the stairs, Hanson disappeared for a few minutes. I've got to imagine he either spotted Tubby or wanted to help pull the playoff gorilla off Fritz's back.

The Tommies officially kick off their postseason run tonight when Aurora comes to town. No disrespect to the squad from Ilinois, but the top-ranked, undefeated home team should win handily. Still, some are preaching caution in an apparent attempt to lower expectations and relieve the pressure.

It's a fair point, but not something I entirely agree with. For better or for worse — make no mistake, it's been the latter the last few years — St. Thomas carries the standard for the entire league. It's been voted the best team in the nation for months and now has the chance to back it up after so many lopsided victories. An early upset would simply add to the recent embarrassments. However, a loss to Steven's Point or Cornell in the second round would be nothing to hang your head about. Disappointing to be sure, but hardly shocking. A loss to Aurora would be both disappointing and shocking.

Here's a quick breakdown of the teams playing at the Shoe this weekend.

The Division I comparison I've used for these Tommies is that of St. Joseph's and Memphis — neither played a difficult schedule during their magical regular seasons and one was exposed early in the Big Dance. The other went to the title game.

Are these Tommies more like Jameer Nelson or Derrick Rose? It's a debate that could go on all day. Thankfully, we have a very quantitative measurement called the NCAA Tournament to answer that question. When the final buzzer sounds, only one can walk off the court victorious.

Not everything is so cut and dried. Take the recently announced postseason awards, for example. There are some very compelling cases to be made for those who got "snubbed."

MVP Race
Joe Scott vs. Zach Johnson vs. Tim Madson

To most observers, this was a two-man race all year. Johnson or Madson? Madson or Johnson? Supporters of either player could make a very strong case. Johnson led the league in scoring and was 12th nationally at 22.4 a game. He also became Carleton's all-time leading scorer and the 18th MIAC player to score 2,000 points in his career. Madson put up 19 PPG and led Bethel to a second-place finish in the league.

Scott averaged just 13 PPG — the lowest ever for a MIAC MVP, I believe — but also led the league in steals at 1.75 and 3-pointers made (44). However, he isn't a big rebounder and doesn't register in the assists department. In fact, you have to go back 10 years to find numbers even remotely similar to Scott's.

Augsburg's Jeoffrey Reed split the MVP award with St. John's Troy Bigalke in the 1999-2000 season. He still averaged more points, more rebounds, more assists, more steals and shot better than Scott did in almost exactly the same amount of minutes. The eight recipient's between Scott and Reed averaged a cool 18.97 PPG.

If you're primary skill is scoring and you aren't among the top scorers in the league, how does this system work? Is the vote perhaps a nod to the Tommies' undefeated season? I guess four on the All-MIAC team and three on the All-Defensive team weren't historic enough. As best as I can tell, neither of these feats has ever happened before — even during UST's undefeated run in 1994-95 and in the multiple times the defensive team has included seven players.

Can I pull a Franken and demand a recount?

The Last All-Conference spot
McCoy vs. Robinson vs. Van Sickle vs. Hipp vs. Fong

This is highway robbery at its finest. How does Hipp not earn a spot? He was eighth in scoring (13.1), fifth in rebounding (9.1), sixth in FG percentage (57%) and first in blocks by a wide margin (2.6). Are you really telling me he isn't one of the best 16 players in the league? If so, I'm calling you a liar.

It's not like the current list is extraordinary. St. Thomas seniors Al McCoy and Lonnie Robinson, along with Gustie junior Jesse Van Sickle are all very marginal candidates. McCoy is an undersized post who isn't among the Top 30 in scoring, Top 15 in rebounding or Top 15 in blocks — but he did lead in the league is layup conversions at 69 percent and make the All-Defensive team.

Robinson is the best defender in the league, but not much of a factor on the offensive end. He averaged just 7.6 PPG, while sitting sixth in assists (2.85) and third in assist/turnover ratio.

Van Sickle is, essentially, a one-trick pony. He's an amazing shooter, as evidenced by his league-leading 48.6 perent shooting from deep. However, he often struggles to create his own shot and isn't really a factor anywhere else on the court.

St. Olaf freshman Bobby Fong is another player some feel might have been snubbed. He led the Oles in scoring at 11.8 and pulled down 3.1 rebounds a night. However, he was invisible defensively, shot 38 percent on a bad team and missed time to end the year. That's not a very glowing resume.

Buena Vista gets a turd sandwich

The Beavers, who returned everyone from a team who upset the Tommies last year, finished this season 23-3 and ranked No. 14 in the last D3hoops.com poll. But they are still home crying right now. The BVU coach doesn't like it — and I don't blame him — but they'd be better off looking in the mirror than pointing fingers.

You lost on your home court to a decidedly average Wartburg team in the conference semifinals. You knew the West region was stacked and this was possible. If you're truly as good as your record indicates, just win. Any excuses ring hollow otherwise.

But I feel a little bad that the Beavers got beat out for local coverage by a chunky kid who just made state.