Crimson Red Sports

Second-year Alabama coach Anthony Grant was surrounded by reporters when he entered the Broadway Lounge of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square on Monday afternoon, to meet with the media a day prior to the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden.

Except, no one really wanted to talk about the Crimson Tide (except Grant, that is). Instead, Grant fielded question after question about Virginia Commonwealth, his former school, which extended its Cinderella run all the way to the Final Four by beating Kansas on Sunday.

"It's a tremendous accomplishment," Grant said. "It's very rare to see teams from non-BCS conferences that have a chance to do what they've done. So I think it speaks volumes of the job that Shaka [Smart] and his staff have done, the team, the administration at VCU."