Collector’s Corner for March 6, 2025

[Editor’s note: Welcome back to the return of “Collector’s Corner” to Uni Watch. Although no longer run by Brinke Guthrie, it has been ably resurrected by Chris Weir. Chris approached me about restarting CC, vowing to uphold the old look and style, but with one new twist: he will make each edition timely with what is going on currently in the sports world (i.e. rivalry games, big events, anniversary of events). Enjoy and please give Chris some feedback about the new (old) feature. — PH]

• • • • •Collector’s Corner
by Chris Weir

It’s March so we’ll have college basketball all month. This week we start off looking at the mid major’s conference tournaments.

• First let’s pour one out for the Great Midwest Conference which only lasted from 1990 to 1995 and the Metro Conference which also ceased operations in 1995. I love how the “o” in Metro and the top of the “8” in ’87 meld together.

• I’ve always loved watching late night West Coast Conference and it is a shame Gonzaga is leaving after next year. Hopefully they can still play Saint Mary’s twice a year or maybe even SMC can get an invite to the new PAC-12.

• The Patriot League has its tournament on campus and for the first time in six years its final probably won’t be at Colgate. That program looks like an NFL play call sheet.

• The Ivy League held its first ever conference tournament in 2017. Prior to that they were the last league to have their regular season champion get the conference’s NCAA Tournament bid aside from a handful of winner take all tiebreaker games.

• The designer of this 1993 Big West Conference Tournament Program took weeks trying to figure out where to put the state of Hawaii, and ended up putting it off the coast of California in between some blue squiggly lines.

• The Sun Belt Conference has held its tournament all over the south but it started being held in Charlotte.

• The Western Athletic Conference constantly gets schools poached and is quickly becoming the obscure Utah school conference.

• The winner of the 2002 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament Siena holds a special place in my heart because they were my Terps’ first opponent on their way to winning the 2002 National Championship.

• Staying in the MAAC because I’ve got to share this vibrant 1983 MAAC Tournament Poster. I had no idea Army was in the MAAC at one point.

• I’d probably spend way too much time playing with this 1991 Mid American Conference Tournament Cup.

• We’ve all heard of Participation Trophies but Conference USA was giving out Participation Pins in 2002.

• In 2020 the Missouri Valley Conference did something I’ve never seen before for their tournament. They created a Bobblehead for an object, specifically a trophy.

• When John Chaney met the artist for 1986 Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament Program his reaction was probably similar to this.

• What do you think the Snack Room was like at the 1951 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament?

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