The Lady Bulldogs’ Gulf South Conference Tournament run came to an end Saturday night in Birmingham after a 68-62 semifinal loss to Valdosta State, who would go on to lose the championship to Lee University on Sunday.
Union went into halftime having only given up 24 points and clinging to a six-point lead, but the tides turned quickly in the third, when an 8-0 run erased what would be Union’s last lead of the game.
Kayla Bonilla alone scored 22 for VSU in the second half, and Morgan Martin fouled out with just under three minutes left after a frustrating night of double teams and blown whistles on touch fouls.
Despite losing their best player, though, Union made a run and got within two with 37 seconds left and came up just short when Bonilla drained six free throws down the stretch to ice it.
Union finished its season 27-3, and, as most predicted, earned the second seed in the South Region for the National Tournament that begins on Friday. Most also expected, though, that Valdosta State would join Union in the South Region for a rematch at the seventh seed after finishing the season at 21-10 and a narrow conference championship loss.
When the selection show came on Sunday night, though, the committee had selected Nova Southeastern, an 18-11 squad, who is 0-1 against the Lady Bulldogs this season, for a rematch with Union. Due to Lane’s unexpected conference tournament victory, Valdosta was left to watch the tournament from home for the first time in head coach Carley Kuhns’ three-year tenure.
As a fan of the game of basketball and a fan of good rivalries, it was difficult to see Valdosta left out of the mix. This wasn’t the first postseason game that’s come down to the wire between these two teams recently; in fact, last year’s Sweet 16 contest, which Union won by one, is one of the classic games ever played at the Fred DeLay Gymnasium. The crowd’s electric buzz, both teams clearly leaving it all on the floor and Chelsey Shumpert’s late game heroics put it over the top, and another matchup in the National Tournament could give Union its first true rival since the NAIA days with Freed-Hardeman et al.
Since the jump to Division II, as Ted Kluck pointed out in Layup Lines a couple of years back, Union has struggled to hype up games the way they did in NAIA. Part of it is the fact that they play a bunch of still relatively new teams as the fans see it and another part is it’s hard to get fans in seats consistently when another one of the Gulf South’s West *insert name of Southeastern state here* is coming in every week.
(1) Proximity
This is the most common rivalry spark plug out there. It plays a large role in almost all high school rivalries, and even some of the best college ones (Auburn-Alabama, Duke-UNC) are predicated on mere proximity.
While this is a good starting point, it can easily breed the dreaded we’re-two-schools-close-to-each-other-but-one-team-is-historically-dominant-and-games-are-only-exciting-when-big-brother-is-having-a-down-year rivalry (read: Vandy-Tennessee, Union-Lane). So, keep in mind that this isn’t a great place to put a ton of stock in a rivalry, but this point obviously goes to Lee, which is both closer and within state lines.
(2) Cultural similarities
This one goes hand-in-hand with proximity, and it also matters way more in contexts like high school and lower-level, non-Division I college. Specifically, great rivals often belong to the same culture but different subcultures. It’s why everyone shows up when SAE plays ATO in intramurals: they want to prove, on the court, who does Greek life better.
In the context of Union, Lee is actually a perfect match is this category. Lee is a Christian school, but they’re Church of God, which gives Union the great opportunity to show Lee that Baptists are more theologically sound on the basketball court (you wouldn’t believe how real this is for some people).
(3) Individual matchups
I refer to this one simply as the Manning-Brady effect. If you have two people who are in the same role on each team and they’re both doing it at an all-time level, people will tune in when they play. They just will.
Unfortunately, this is hard to accomplish at a player level in college, as a given player is playing at most four years for your team. Plus, due to the same principle, anytime this does happen it ends just as quickly, leaving a long-term rivalry absent of these other four factors out of the mix (think along the lines of Jameis Winston-Marcus Mariota in college – so good the couple times they played but so unsustainable). Where I think this could factor in with Union is a rivalry between Campbell and Kuhns.
After watching Kuhns’ press conference after the Union loss last season, I’m completely convinced that Valdosta will be relevant as long as she’s there. Three of her seniors gathered around her on the podium as the four helped each other through a teary, season-ending media session.
They cried because it was the last time they’d get to play with each other, which told me that Kuhns, like Campbell, runs a program based on building relationships, and that the winning comes from that instead of the other way around.
When you play in a conference where the talent at the top is so even across the board, it’s coaches like these that create successful, sustained programs. The only possible question for this is whether or not Kuhns leaves for a Division I job, but for now this category goes solidly to Valdosta, if only for the potential Campbell-Kuhns storyline.
(4) Sustained success from both sides
Valdosta will stay successful for all the reasons listed above about why Kuhns is a great coach. Lee is obviously a solid program that will probably stay that way, but if I had to put money on who will be more relevant in five years it’s absolutely going to Valdosta.
(5) History of playing with all the chips on the table
This one’s huge. Some of the best short-term rivalries (Warriors-Cavs, Alabama-Clemson to name the two from this era) were based only on this. Heck, most people still consider the Cowboys and Steelers rivals based solely on three Super Bowl matchups that all came over two decades ago.
This one can also push a rivalry over the top if they have a good blend of at least three of the other four, most notably happening in the Lakers-Celtics rivalry in the ’80s. Those finals between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird helped bring basketball to new heights and continues to this day to captivate millions of fans around the world, more proof of the importance of rivalries.
Right now, Valdosta has this one against Union, but Lee and Union could play in the Sweet 16 this year if all goes well for both teams, so check in on that in a week.
Union’s next first round matchup against Nova will take place at 1:30 p.m. CDT on Friday, March 15, in Lakeland, Florida. Florida Southern College, who is first seed and hosting the South Region, will post steaming options on their athletics website later this week.
