The Justice

I just wanted to write and remind everyone of this.

On the weekend of March 5 and 6, 2010, the UAA has already booked Brandeis to host the UAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at Gosman Fieldhouse. Our track surrounds the Auerbach Arena court, so it would be very difficult at best (and I would suggest impossible, given the configuration of our building-- there would need to be extensive set up time between the meet and the basketball games-- so track and field meets are usually done on a weekend when both basketball teams are out of town anyway) to host both the track and field championships and the NCAA basketball playoff games on the same weekend, as in the 2 previous years when Brandeis hosted an NCAA basketball tournament weekend, the NCAA required the fieldhouse to be shut down and secured for a time before the games were to be played.

Brandeis last hosted the UAA indoor track and field championships in March 2007 on the first weekend of the NCAA Division III basketball tournament. In that event, both Brandeis basketball teams played in the local area with the men going down to Rhode Island College ajd the women playing at Emmanuel. I would suggest that this year may be similar if both teams end up qualifying for the NCAA tournament in basketball, although nothing is certain until those events happen. Still, it would be more advantageous to have the basketball teams play close to home on the first weekend should they qualify for the NCAAs than to have to go on an extended road trip.

Why no freshmen on the roster? Meehan has been a fantastic recruiter since his arrival and it's very unusual to see the absence of any newcomers on the roster. What's the story behind this?
Second, what happened to some good players from last year, still Brandeis students, who are not on the team anymore?
Third, and in my opinion most importantly, what about the walk-ons? The last time there were walk ons, if I'm not mistaken, was Meehan's first year, which was a complete rebuilding phase. This is clearly not the case now and I suppose it has something to do with the lack of recruits. But walk-on stories are often the most interesting for a team like Brandeis, which has been so successful lately and relied on top flight recruited talent. Considering the two walk-ons are a sophomore and a junior and were last seen playing Brandeis IMs, how did they get on the team? Did they convince Meehan to give them a chance? Was it an open tryout? I'm sure Warren and Jojo's stories are very compelling, and probably deserve some sort of feature in the future. I remember reading a fantastic Justice feature in Meehan's first year as Brandeis coach about a non-recruited student--I think a senior--who fulfilled a dream by playing on the team. To not even mention these walk-ons in the preview missed a great opportunity to delve beyond the somewhat generic preview tone and expose the tip of the iceberg of what is sure to be an intriguing story.