The best story in college basketball right now cannot be found in Durham, N.C., or College Park, Md.
Instead it's on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in Kent, Ohio. There, in a city of 30,000, the people still embrace their extensive public park system, so much that the town's motto is "Original Tree City, U.S.A." When tourists come through - maybe on their way south to Akron or north to Cleveland - residents point them to the town's pride and joy, a fashion museum where tours last an hour and admission is free if you're under 7-years-old.
Then it's off to the Aurora Outlet Mall ("offering everyday discounts of 25 to 65 percent!").
There's not much else to do.
Not much, that is, unless you know some recent U.S. history. Then you'll ask to see Kent's only college. And you'll ask about the day that defined a decade.
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May 4, 1970. That was the day four students at Kent State University were killed by National Guardsmen who were under orders to enforce the peace. That fateful day put Kent, Ohio, on the map.
For a while, it was a day that Kent State University wanted to forget. In 1986, the university changed its official logo to emphasize only the word "Kent" in its name. When its men's basketball team first reached the NCAA tournament in 1999, the team asked the media to refer to it only as the Kent Golden Flashes. Not Kent State.
Not that place. The university wanted to be known for more than murder. Its students needed another reason to be proud of where they went to school.
Last Saturday, they got that reason. The tenth-seeded men's basketball team, once again wearing uniforms with "Kent State" on them - the university discovered people couldn't tell it apart from the University of Kent - won a second-round game in the NCAA Tournament for the first time.
So this is why they call it the Sweet Sixteen.
A Historic Run
Duke is used to getting there. So are Kansas and Maryland and UCLA. But not Kent State. When the Golden Flashes crushed second-seeded Alabama on Saturday, 71-58, they made school history.
This is the first time they've made the Sweet Sixteen.
This is the first time they've had a winning streak of 20 games.
This is the first time the campus has been so excited about its basketball team.
"The general feeling is that if there is a year Kent State can win, this is the one," says Rekha Sharma, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Kent Stater. "As the wins get more and more important, we have more people skipping class to watch games. On Thursday [during the team's first-round win over Oklahoma State], less than half of us showed up."
And the other half?
"All very supportive."
More than flashes in the pan
No Mid-American Conference team has ever made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. But that doesn't mean the Golden Flashes don't have a chance.
"This year the Sweet Sixteen bar is a little low for us," guard Demetric Shaw told the Daily Kent Stater. "We're not limiting ourselves."
They shouldn't. Winning in the NCAA tournament is all about having good guard play, and, right now, Kent State has some of the best. Point guard Trevor Huffman is a bona fide NBA prospect after scoring 38 points in the tournament's first two rounds. Shaw is a two-time MAC defensive player of the year and can practically will the team to victory with his fire and emotion.
By the weekend, if they upset third-seeded Pittsburgh as they expect to do, the Golden Flashes will be America's favorite Cinderella story.
Judging by how they've transformed their own campus, the slipper fits.
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