With no March Madness this year, I was looking forward to this book. It definitely had the chance to be awesome, but it came across as less than average. Mr. Feinstein alternated between basketball fan and snobby complainer. I could have guessed I would not love the book when he wrote negatively about "One Shining Moment" which I personally love. I always shed a tear or two afterward because I know that I (average fan) will have to wait months until college basketball returns. He chose to focus on a few schools when there are so many great Cinderellas out there. It is those Cinderellas that make college basketball great. The book needed to be edited for content to make it more cohesive. Overall this book left me as disappointed. I should have spent the time watching previous years' versions of "One Shining Moment" online rather than reading this book.

Jimi Hendrix playing guitar. Kara Walker with silhouettes. And John Feinstein with college basketball. Feinstein's passion for the sport is contagious, and he has always treated the biggest schools in the sport with an eye both critical and reverent. As he did with the Patriot League in The Last Amateurs, though, Feinstein chooses to focus mostly on the smaller schools and leagues in Division I. He introduces you to names and faces you might never otherwise hear of, and also focuses on those you might have heard of but forgotten about. I enjoyed how, in this work, Feinstein chose to inject some of his larger criticisms of college ball (and his alma mater, Duke, in particular). However, this bias might stick in the craw of some readers, to be sure. I don't know if this would be the first Feinstein I'd choose to read, as I feel like having some of his past basketball books under my belt helped me to better remember some of the things he discussed. However, there's certainly no reason it can't be, especially if you remember last season well.

Time to go on a little road trip with John Feinstein.

One of America's most prolific - and best - sportswriters when it comes to books (not to diminish his other talents) is back in the new releases section of the bookstore with "Back Roads to March."

And like everyone of the others, it's worthwhile.

The words "little road trip" might not be the most descriptive of the book. It's more of a year in the college basketball life of Feinstein. While he certainly paid to attention to the big colleges that qualify as national powers in some of his work, he went out of his way in 2018-19 to keep up with the less powerful of the teams - the mid-majors and below.

You might have one of those schools in your town, particularly if you live in the Eastern part of the country. Interest in those teams and conferences is quite low among the population at large, and to be honest sometimes it's not so high at the school itself. In fact, you could argue that if it weren't for the ticket to the NCAA tournament that the conference offers, some schools wouldn't bother playing at all.

But that doesn't mean there aren't good players at such universities A few pop up on NBA rosters. Plus there are good stories everywhere - players and coaches who overcame long odds just to get where they are, with hopes of doing even better.

Feinstein's joy about attending a college basketball game, particularly in a new place (for him), shines throughout the book. He's also a big enough name to be able to sit down with coaches, players and administrators to receive a nice overview of the season. So we get to spend a little time with people like Ryan Odom, who coached UMBC to its memorable upset of Virginia (1 vs. 16) in the NCAAs of 2018, and Tommy Amaker, who has helped Harvard - Harvard! - become a regular contender in the Ivy League. There are even a few side trips to old friends like Jim Calhoun, still coaching a Div. III school in his mid-70s, and Lefty Driesell, still a character in his 80s.

One nice surprise for me here in Western New York was the inclusion of the story of Nate Oats, who was coach at the University at Buffalo before leaving for Alabama in 2019. I covered a few games for the Bulls under Oats and followed the team relatively closely. I can't say I had heard that UCLA, one of the great names in college basketball in the sport, had called him to see if he wanted to come to Westwood. Then again, Oates comes across as extremely open and candid about his situation at that particular time.

I suppose there will be those who won't like the regional focus of most of the book. In addition, there are a lot of names and teams here, and sometimes it's easy to get a little confused for a moment.

There's a little sadness reading this book right now, when we aren't watching the NCAA Tournament. It's been cancelled because of the Coronavirus of course, robbing us of three weeks of hoop fun. No matter. "The Back Roads to March" works quite well for anyone who feels some anticipation when the horn blows in a gym to signal that the opening tip-off is a minute away - no matter who is playing.

As usual John Feinstein does an outstanding job. Well researched. In depth. Well written.

The them of this book is essentially life in the mid majors. I consider myself to be an average college basketball fan. This book for the most part is for die hards. Reading this before the pandemic, I found myself constantly saying "do I want to wast my precious free time reading about the mid majors" Nonetheless I plowed through. There certainly was enough in here to justify the time spent.

Sadly, we are not able to enjoy the NCAA playoffs this year, but anyone who is missing an annual basketball "fix" should pick up the newly published THE BACK ROADS TO MARCH by John Feinstein. His name should be a familiar one both for his middle school sports mysteries (Last Shot) and his many other non-fiction titles like The Legends Club or Where Nobody Knows Your Name. In this latest text, Feinstein (Duke University, class of 1977) chronicles events from the 2018-2019 college basketball season, focusing on "The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes." In three dozen chapters, he shares stories and insights about players and coaches at smaller schools like Iona, UMBC (first 16 seed to ever beat a number one seed), and Chicago's Loyola Ramblers. If there is any negative about this book, it's his inclusion of numerous stats and propensity for name-dropping. Throughout it all, however, Feinstein's love of the game and of venerable locations like the Palestra in Philadelphia are more than evident. He is a wonderful storyteller as shown in the clip below; you can listen to Feinstein here (uploaded by the Free Library of Philadelphia):
-- embedded video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAdLRIwZto&feature=youtu.be
THE BACK ROADS TO MARCH received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly.

While most college basketball fans know much about the high-profile programs such as Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina, there are plenty of good basketball players and teams at smaller schools and conferences. These are referred to as “mid-major” conferences and they are the subject of this excellent college basketball book by John Feinstein.

Feinstein wrote his first college basketball book over thirty years ago and he has become one of the most respected authors on the sport. This book adds to his legacy as he does a wonderful job of covering so many of the unheralded schools in the mid-major conferences, or as Feinstein calls them often throughout the book, the “one-bid” leagues. This reference is used because these conferences very rarely send more than one team, the winner of the conference tournament, to the NCAA tournament.

While most of the conferences highlighted are in the East, such as the Patriot League, Colonial Athletic Association and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference just to name a few, Feinstein covers a lot of territory and puts a lot of miles on his vehicle as he takes the reader on his journey to visit many of these players and coaches to share their stories and experiences. He writes about so many schools, players and coaches in this book that is it impossible to cover them all in a review without practically rewriting the book. It is safe to say, however, that no matter what type of story one wants to hear about college basketball, especially a story from a coach, then this is the book to read.

Even avid college hoops fans may learn something new from this book. For this reviewer, the best example of that was Feinstein’s many stories about an old arena in Philadelphia, the Palestra. Many games between the Big Five schools have been played there and from Feinstein’s descriptions of the place, he and many others consider it a shrine for college basketball. Despite its rich history, I had never heard of the place before reading this book. After reading this, I, along with probably many other readers, will now want to make a trip to Philadelphia to visit this arena and catch a game or two there.

This book is not only a terrific read, it is one that gives some much-needed exposure to the many talented teams, players and coaches in the mid-major – sorry, one-bid – leagues. For some, including myself, seeing these teams pull off upsets over schools in the power conferences are what make March Madness (trademarked by the NCAA, something Feinstein writes about with some disdain) special. It is highly recommended for all college basketball fans, no matter what level of fandom or who their favorite school may be.

I wish to thank Doubleday Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Reading about the East Coast schools, for the most part, was not a problem for me even though I live on the West Coast. The way Mr. Feinstein spoke of Palestra makes me want to make another trip back East during basketball season just to be in the stands to see a game there. He's talking about and with the different coaches that first he has been around for decades and the stories he told about them reminds me of those times years past when my grandfather and I would listen to “Big Red” football (cornhuskers) on Saturdays and hear his stories from when he went to college there in the early 1900s. reading about the different players working there way from player to coach was also very interesting.
Really for me, there was not a part of this book that I did not like, except for the fact that he took me back to when I remembered a simpler time and when the game was the game and not about money, T.V. deals and all of the rest of the new wave of college basketball.
Because of the money, you are also shown how some schools have suffered by leaving one conference joining another because of their football program and the hopes of maybe an FBS bowl game. Really though in most cases it won’t happen it is just alumni wishing and forcing new presidents to make the move not looking at the total package but just one program.
Really though the author takes you through the different games and maybe just maybe we can have another 16 seed upset a number 1 seed. He also goes into his not so fair selection by the committee which I also think is a fair assessment of the selection committee. A very good book and very much worth the read.

There are few times on the American sports calendar as eagerly anticipated as March Madness. The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the most celebrated sporting stretches of the year, with teams from all over the country harboring hopes of championship glory.

Now, the reality of the tournament is that, while there will be 64 teams that gain entry to the bracket (68, technically, when you take the play-in games into account), only a handful of those have realistic aspirations of winning it all. For the majority of these teams, the real victory is getting there in the first place.

A handful of those hopefuls serve as the primary subjects for legendary sportswriter John Feinstein’s newest book “The Back Roads to March: The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season.” It’s a look at the teams and people who live the college game off the beaten path. Sure, there’s some mention of the Dukes and Kentuckys and Virginias of the world, but this book isn’t about them – it’s about the teams grinding it out in conferences where if you don’t win the whole thing, you have no shot at The Dance.

It’s about the University of Maryland Baltimore County – UMBC, the perpetrator in the single greatest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament. Feinstein spends time with the coach and players of this team, just one year removed from their victory over the University of Virginia – the first-ever triumph of a 16-seed over a one.

It’s about a scrappy Army team that has to fight for every inch it gains, even as it carries with it an almost unmatched pedigree of past coaching brilliance – legends like Mike Kryzyzewski and Bobby Knight got their starts with the Black Knights nee Cadets.

It’s about Tommy Amaker, coaching the Harvard Crimson through the tangled tendrils of the Ivy League and hoping to find a way to take his team to the top, even when injuries and other issues threaten to push his team back to the pack.

It’s about the University of Buffalo and about Nate Oats, the guy Bobby Hurley plucked from the high school ranks to serve as his first assistant and who wound up replacing him when he moved on to Arizona State. It’s about

And it is DEFINITELY about Philadelphia’s Big 5. The five schools – Villanova, Temple, Penn, St. Joseph’s and La Salle – have a storied history of inter-city competition. Perhaps more than any other hoops hotbed, there’s a competitive tradition here – one that in some ways outstrips even the NCAA tournament itself. The Big 5 matters in a way that those who have never experienced it will never understand.

Feinstein combines the collective might of his passion for the game, his gift for evocative descriptive prose and his unparalleled access to paint a vivid and memorable portrait of a handful of the Davids that seek every year to topple the power conference Goliaths that litter the tournament bracket.

“The Back Roads to March” is a walk through the convoluted and cynical path navigated by the NCAA come Selection Sunday, a place where a middling school with a marketable name gets elevated to the Dance over a strong, hungry team that had the bad luck to lose in the semis of their conference tournament, leaving them to cross their fingers for the NIT or cough up the cash to hit one of the pay-to-play postseason tourneys.

That’s the truth inherent to Feinstein’s aptly-chosen title. For these schools to make it, to fulfill the lifelong dreams of all involved, the stars must truly align. Only via a perfect storm can these schools, these coaches, these players navigate their way to the NCAA. The basketball gods must smile and allow all the cosmic dominoes to tumble in the precise necessary order. Whereas teams from power conferences view berths as their birthright, these teams know that shots at the big time are precious few and far between.

If there’s a Mount Rushmore of sportswriters, John Feinstein has a pretty good argument to be on it. You can count on one hand the number of writers who can match what Feinstein brings to the table … and you can’t count the number who surpass him at all, because they simply don’t exist.

That gravitas makes him ideal for a project like this. His gifts as a chronicler of the sport are well-documents; seeing those gifts aimed not at the legends that sit atop the game, but rather those who sit a notch or three lower down the ladder, is a delight. Feinstein passes no judgment on these teams, nor does he view them as inferior in any way. He recognizes the quality of their play, both in terms of the young men on the court and the coaches guiding them along their way.

“The Back Roads to March” isn’t about championships. The players at UMBC or Harvard or Army or Buffalo will almost certainly never stand on stage as “One Shining Moment” rings through a confetti-littered football stadium, the only venue large enough to contain the financial megalith that March Madness has become. But here’s the thing – as clichéd as it sounds, these guys really are just happy to be here.

So when that first tourney weekend hits, take a moment to consider the truth of that 15-seed facing down a Kansas or an Ohio State or a UCLA; remember that their journey was a long one … and that for them, victory was assured before a single point was scored.

f you are a casual fan of College basketball you are probably know about schools or programs like Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky. But if you are an ardent fan you are familiar with what are called the mid-major's these are the schools and the conferences they are apart of this is what this book is about. You know the schools that I am talking about the giant slayers during "March Madness" they come from conferences that no matter how good a team is if they do not win their conference tournament championship they do not get to go to the big dance. A recent example is UMBC remember they were a 16th seed who defeated 1 seeded Virginia. This goes over many of the coaches who are hall of fame coaches who do not always get the limelight like coaches at the bigger schools.
John Feinstein talks how some of these schools in support of their football teams if they have one will jump into bigger conferences ends being a disservice to their basketball teams. Did you know that the author does color commentary for some of these games ? I also learned that their others tournaments besides the NIT and NCAA and I thought I knew college basketball. The tournament is great where even the smaller schools have a chance. I received an ARC from Netgalley for a fair an honest review.