Plenty of storylines in the tournament's opening game

Since it was added in 2001, the first game of the NCAA Tournament has featured some of the best stories.

Game One of March Madness is the opening round game in Dayton, Ohio. The game matches the No. 64 and No. 65 seeds with the winner advancing as a No. 16 seed to face a No. 1 seed.

This year, the opening round matches Coppin State of the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Athletic Conference against Mount St. Mary’s of the Northeast Conference.

For one night, those two teams get the NCAA basketball stage to themselves. The game airs on ESPN at 6:30 p.m. The winner will advance to Raleigh, N.C. to top-seeded North Carolina on Friday.

With a 16-20 record, Coppin State has more losses than any team that has ever played in the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles were 4-19 and 0-8 in their conference in early February.

“A lot of people could have quit in that situation,’’ coach Ron “Fang” Mitchell told the Baltimore Sun. “These guys didn't quit. I was really proud of them for having that fight in them ... even though it seemed that the season was over for them.’’

To earn the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, Coppin State won four MEAC tourney games by a total of six points and defeated the top three seeds.

“We were life and death," Mitchell told the Sun after the MEAC title game victory. “Last night we were in Afghanistan, and today we're in Iraq. We were in a battle. That's all we knew. So when we got out of there alive, we were happy.’’

Mitchell, whose team recorded one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history when the 15th-seeded Eagles upset No. 2 South Carolina in 1997, has no quarrel with his team playing in the opening round.

“We have 20 losses,’’ he said. “That's the hand we dealt ourselves. We dealt it to ourselves, and we had to handle it. We did, and it was something for them to learn from.’’

Party poopers

Mount St. Mary’s sophomore point guard Jeremy Goode was disappointed that his team will need to win another game to advance to the “real” NCAA Tournament bracket.

“I mean, we won our conference,’’ sophomore point guard Jeremy Goode said. “I don't expect to have to win a game to get to a tournament that I feel we worked hard enough to get to.’’

Sunday also turned out to be deflating on the school’s campus in Emmitsburg, Md.

The Mountaineers won the Northeast Conference tournament and the automatic bid on Wednesday. The school planned a watch party so the players and fans could celebrate seeing the school’s name show up on national televison.

However, the NCAA tournament committee announced the teams in the play-in game at halftime of the Big Ten Conference tournament game Sunday afternoon. The announcement was made early to give the two opening round teams extra time to make travel arrangements to Dayton.

“I liked knowing (early from a coaching standpoint,’’ Mount St. Mary's coach Milan Brown said. “But as a fan, I didn't like it because we already knew when we walked in here who we were playing and where we were going.

“This part of March, just figuring out where you're going, that's so exciting for the kids and to have that taken away from them is a little bit of a downer.”

Heavy hearts

Mount St. Mary’s triumph in the Northeast Conference tournament was bittersweet.

At the time of the game, Mount St. Mary’s student Dustin Bauer was on life support. He suffered a head injury after falling from a railing on the first floor of a student resident hall on March 9. He died later Wednesday night after the Mountaineers had won.

Bauer, a senior, was a loyal fan of the Mountaineers basketball team.

"He would've been at that game," sophomore forward Kelly Beidler told the Virginia Pilot. "I know his favorite number was 13. And we ended up beating Sacred Heart by 13. It's crazy how that happened.’’

Mount St. Mary's students held signs that said “Win for Dustin."

As the clock ticked down, they started a rhythmic chant: “Dus-tin Bau-er, Dus-tin, Bau-er.’’

Short shots

Coppin State is making a return trip to Dayton. On Dec. 15, the Eagles lost at Dayton, 66-34. That was the fewest points they scored all season. It was also one of the losses during a stretch where Coppin State lost 17 of 18 games.

Coppin State is the fifth team to participate in the opening round game with a losing record. The previous four all won to advance and lose to a No. 1 seed.

Mount St. Mary’s is about 45 minutes from Baltimore, which is where Coppin State is located. The schools will travel nearly 500 miles to Dayton. “I'm tempted to call Fang and say, ‘Why don't we just meet at the Verizon Center (in Washington) and save on some travel?’^“ Brown said.

Biggest losers

Coppin State, which will face Mount St. Mary’s in Tuesday’s NCAA Tournament opening round game, has the most losses of any team that has qualified for the bracket. The big losers that have made the tournament:

2007-08: Coppin State, 16-20

1954-55: Bradley, 7-19

2004-05: Oakland, 12-18

2001-02: Siena, 16-18

1998-99: Florida A&M, 12-18

1996-97: Fairfield, 11-18

1995-96: Central Florida, 11-18

1994-95: Florida International, 11-18

1984-85: Lehigh, 12-18