No. 9 Indiana State eliminated No. 8 Drake, the Missouri Valley Conference’s defending champion, in the opening round of the conference tournament. No. 7 Wichita State handled No. 10 Missouri State in a 59-46 defensive battle in the other opening round game.

An unlikely hero delivers a last-second tip-in to send Belmont past Mercer and into the semifinals of the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament. In the second quarterfinal match up, Lipscomb annihilated Campbell 82-52.

The Sun Belt Conference Tournament’s opening round featured five games in which each team won by less than 10 points. Despite the tight games, none of the underdogs pulled off a major upset.

American continued to dominate its Patriot League competition with its eighth double-digit victory against a conference foe. Colgate worked overtime against Navy to provide the lone upset of the quarterfinals.

East Tennessee State pulled away from Stetson to win in the first quarterfinal of the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament.

St. Peter’s has come on of late and finished strong in the MAAC. The last game of the regular season saw them pull one out at the buzzer.

The 6-7 game figured to be the best of the four first round games in the Horizon Tournament. It saw the 15-14 UIC Flames in the seventh spot (7-11 in conference), with early wins at Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, visiting the improved 11-18 Youngstown State Penguins in the sixth spot (also 7-11 in conference, but with two head-to-head wins over the Flames serving as the tiebreaker).

After and extensive and exhausting season, here are my humble conference awards. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and this is just one man’s (educated) opinion, but I have seen every team close to a half dozen times live this year, and been to over 70 America East games, so here it goes:

All four Ohio Valley Conference favorites won their quarterfinal match ups Tuesday night, with three of the four top seeds winning by double digits. No. 2 Austin Peay needed late free throws to squeak past Eastern Illinois.