It probably wasn't an intentional slap, but Notre Dame High's girls basketball team was able to ride its no-respect theme all the way to Saturday night's Class 2A state championship game.

The Lady Bulldogs battled powerful Urbana Skyline at the Hearnes Center in Columbia in a game that was still going on as the Southeast Missourian went to press.

Starting with the local district tournament a few weeks ago, Notre Dame's players felt like they had been snubbed by the results of an area media poll.

In that poll, the Lady Bulldogs received not a single vote while a host of teams they had already beaten were ranked.

Now, to explain this media poll -- which I am not in charge of, by the way -- just a little bit.

It's been going on for a quite a while to rank boys teams, but ranking girls teams is something that has been happening for only a couple of years.

While most media members in Southeast Missouri seem to have a firm grasp on what's going on with boys basketball, a lot of them aren't as up to speed on the girls scene.

Thus, a lot of people vote without ever really knowing records or who has beaten who.

Not to excuse myself from total blame -- although I do try to be a little bit informed before I cast my vote -- but I had been voting for Notre Dame. However, I happened to be out of the office for a few days during that week in question and did not get my vote in. Hence, the Lady Bulldogs did not even receive one vote.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I don't think the region's media folks ever thought Notre Dame wasn't very good. They just didn't really take the time to look into the Lady Bulldogs' credentials.

But the bottom line is, if the snub helped motivate the Lady Bulldogs, then more power to them.

In any event, here's some big-time congratulations to the Lady Bulldogs on a sensational season.

* Turning to college basketball, has this NCAA Tournament been totally crazy so far or what?

First, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Coppin State pull huge early upsets.

And now Kansas -- which I'm sure most people had penciled in as the national champion -- doesn't even make it to the Final Four.

Suffice to say that I just tossed my personal tournament bracket into the trash can. I won't be winning any cash with that thing this year.

* SEMO football team will begin its spring workouts next week.

This figures to be quite an interesting spring for the Indians, who are coming off a 3-8 season and have already brought in a host of junior-college transfers to try and turn things around.

* Jerry Tucker, a Perryville native, was recently named as the new head football coach at Perryville High.

Tucker, who has been the head coach at Gateway Tech in St. Louis, will take over the program from Doug Smith, who left to become an assistant coach in the collegiate ranks.

~Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian