Bradley grad Sweetness

So you like the taste of this Sweet 16 thing.

Yeah, I hear you, Husky fans. You still haven’t gotten over that loss to UConn eight years ago and you’re ready for some long overdue revenge.

And the Gonzaga faithful are understandably excited, too, seeing as how the David-turned-Goliath Bulldogs haven’t made it this far since the days of Santangelo, Frahm and low expectations.

But can we talk Sweet? Like a cream-filled, sugar-coated, chocolate-covered egg sweet?

My alma mater, Bradley University, hasn’t made it this far in 51 years. Yes, that’s a five and a one. I haven’t even been around that long. My dad – a Kansas alum and fan (his mistake, obviously) – was just 15 when the Braves last went to the Sweet 16.

And don’t bother looking for the highlights. Color television was still 10 years from making its debut.

So forgive me if I’ve been a little distracted lately. For once March Madness has me feeling something other than mad.

And it’s been a long, long, LONG time coming. Since I first set foot on Bradley’s Peoria, Ill., campus back in 1988, the Braves have been to college basketball what the Seahawks used to be to the NFL: postseason nothings.

Until last week, BU hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game since 1986. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

In fact, Bradley had only danced one time during my 18-year affiliation with the school, and that was when Stanford put a humbling, 66-58 butt-kicking on my boys back in 1996.

Despite my geographical separation, I’ve had to do plenty of suffering up close. Along with a group of college friends, I’ve been attending the Missouri Valley Conference tournament off and on – as a fan – for more than a decade. (Yes, that was a wire story you read in The Herald the day Shaun Alexander agreed to terms on a long-term deal because I was in St. Louis watching my beloved Braves get clobbered by Southern Illinois in the MVC finals 21/2 weeks ago.) And this year was the first time in five years that I’ve actually witnessed a victory.

There aren’t many of us out there. The private school typically caters to between 5,000 and 6,000 undergraduate students, many of whom recognize each other on campus because of the school’s small size.

It’s kind of like a Midwestern Gonzaga, only without the religion – or the basketball program.

That seems strange to say, considering the two schools’ histories. While Gonzaga’s most notable pre-1999 highlight was the four-year career of John Stockton, Bradley was actually one of the more storied programs in the country way back when.

In the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, Bradley had one of the strongest teams in the nation. BU spent most of the 1949-50 season ranked No. 1 in both national polls and made it all the way to the finals of the NCAAs before falling to City College of New York. (CCNY later had to disband its basketball program because of a point-shaving scandal that took place that championship season.)

The Braves went on to have some success behind players like Chet Walker and Roger Phegley over the next three decades. Basketball became the lone focus after the football program folded in 1969. BU even had some guy named Hersey Hawkins back in the late 1980s, which indirectly led me there. (Do you really think a Minnesota boy would have heard of Bradley University if not for the fact that the nation’s leading scorer played there?)

By the time I arrived in the fall of 1988, Bradley ranked in the top 10 in the nation in all-time winning percentage, right there with the Kansases and Kentuckys and UCLAs.

But since then, it’s been mostly downhill. The bandwagon has slowly emptied out. There just aren’t many of us left.

So if any of you have already purchased a voodoo doll with a UConn or UCLA jersey, I ask only that you try to find a similar one in Memphis blue.

Or, at the very least, help root on my little Cinderella story for one more weekend. Midnight will strike eventually, but I wouldn’t mind hearing the toll in Indianapolis next weekend.

Please, help us out here. I’m begging you. It’ll be 51 years before I ask this favor again.

Scott Johnson is the Herald’s pro football writer. He is a 1993 graduate of Bradley University.