We may not be in March just yet, but there’s no better notice that it’s just around the corner than the first college hoops conference tournament tipping off.
The Atlantic Sun Conference sat in the pole position for this season, the first of 32 tournaments to get underway Monday night already, nearly two weeks before Selection Sunday. The league’s perfectly symmetrical eight-team tourney continues to be held entirely at campus sites, a tournament where the regular season truly matters because the higher your seed, the more times you can play in front of the friendly faithful.
Monday night’s quarterfinals saw the top three seeds all win, as well as one upset. Make that no upsets, for as much as the numbers by their names might say No. 5 North Florida winning at fourth-seeded New Jersey Tech 80-76 was a slight surprise, the Atlantic Sun tourney’s recent history will tell you it’s most definitely not.
For the fourth consecutive year, three of the four tourney semifinalists are the exact same, as UNF, Florida Gulf Coast and Lipscomb all have been among the last four standing in the league every year since 2015. Indeed, top seed FGCU (96-76 over No. 8 South Carolina Upstate) and No. 2 Lipscomb (an 89-73 winner over 7 seed Stetson) also moved to the semis, and they are joined by third-seeded Jacksonville, which eliminated No. 6 Kennesaw State 87-68 for its first Atlantic Sun tourney win since 2010, thanks to a huge 39-point outburst by Jace Hogan.
The Atlantic Sun was expected to be a two-team race between Florida Gulf Coast and Lipscomb before the season, but the Eagles ran away with the regular season title, winning their first 11 A-Sun games to clinch the top seed in the tourney with three games left. FGCU is considered easily the most talented, athletic roster in the league and was mostly dominant in those 11 wins, but not always, with three wins by six points or less.
Whether those were early signs of weakness, or perhaps the Eagles just let off the throttle some after clinching, they did lose twice late in the season-both at home, to Kennesaw State and Lipscomb. Florida Gulf Coast also was pushed for more than a half Monday night, leading Upstate by just four before a wild sequence including several technical fouls led to the Eagles finally pulling away behind a combined 62 points from Zach Johnson, Antravious Simmons and Christian Terrell, and just nine points from star Brandon Goodwin.
FGCU will continue to be the favorite in this tourney until proven otherwise, but this is not a done deal. After an uncharacteristically tough start to the season offensively (against a tough schedule, it should be noted), Lipscomb is playing its best ball of the year and has won six straight and 10 of 11, and scoring machine Garrison Mathews is capable of taking over a game. Jacksonville also handled solidly the Kennesaw State team that just won at FGCU, and no one will count out a North Florida that is a regular at this stage of the A-Sun tourney and once again among the NCAA Division I leaders in three-pointers made.
Side Dishes:
- Virginia Tech slipped by Duke 64-63 in Blacksburg, with Chris Clarke’s tip-in the difference in the final seconds. The Blue Devils led most of this one again in their 2-3 zone, which for those of us who have followed Mike Krzyzewski teams for a long time still have a hard time comprehending from a coach who was once so staunchly a man-to-man guy. Duke slowed down the Hokies, but also committed 18 turnovers of its own, allowing Tech to stay in it. We know the discussion is that VT is on the fence for the NCAAs, but for us it’s hard to imagine the tourney without the Hokies in it.
- Kansas handled Texas 80-70, a result of basically no surprise for the Longhorns played without their star freshman Mohamed Bamba, who missed the game with a left toe injury. (Incidentally, the Horns did get balanced scoring with five players in double figures.) Though falling at Allen Fieldhouse on Senior Night is hardly a bad loss, it does put more pressure on Texas now to perform well in its regular season finale at home against West Virginia on Saturday. The Mountaineers, by the way, dismissed Texas Tech 84-74, darting out to a 16-0 lead at the start and holding control throughout to take over second in the Big 12 from the Red Raiders, who were once again without Keenan Evans.
- The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference continues to be one of the hairiest regular season races of any conference out there. Five teams-yes, five-are now tied for first place with one league game remaining. Bethune-Cookman briefly held the top spot, but the Wildcats fell to North Carolina A&T 86-80 at home last night, allowing the Aggies and three others (Norfolk State, Savannah State and idle Hampton) to climb into a tie.
- Fresno State ground out a 54-48 win at Air Force, but the Bulldogs got bad news that Jaron Hopkins will miss the rest of the season with a foot injury he suffered Saturday in a loss to Wyoming. Hopkins was the team’s 6-foot-6 point guard and also third-leading scorer on the season at over 11 ppg, and had played particularly well of late in a recent five-game Bulldogs’ winning streak.
- Also in the Mountain West, the Colorado State Larry Eustachy saga is apparently finally going to end. Reports Monday were Eustachy has agreed to resign, remaining on paid leave until June 30 when he’ll formally resign.
- Eastern Kentucky fired head coach Dan McHale after just three seasons. Once again, we have another example of how far more coaches are fired or resign under pressure than are jumping to better jobs. That EKU has obviously not had the success Jeff Neubauer had before McHale should not have meant McHale was given just three years, unless there is something behind the scenes that is unknown.
- San Diego coach Lamont Smith has been placed on administrative leave for the rest of the season following his arrest Sunday night on domestic abuse charges. Assistant coach Sam Scholl will lead the Toreros, who have actually had a nice season and enter the WCC Tournament 18-12 overall.
Tonight’s Menu:
- Next up among the conference tournaments: the Big South and the Patriot League, which both have a pair of first-round games at campus sites. In the Big South, No. 7 High Point hosts 10 seed Longwood, while dangerous eighth seed Charleston Southern welcomes No. 9 Presbyterian. The Patriot first round has Army at Loyola (Md.) in the 8/9 game, while seventh-seeded Lafayette hosts No. 10 American.
- The bulk of the night’s action begins at 7 p.m. Eastern time. On TV that includes Florida at Alabama (ESPN), Saint Joseph’s at Rhode Island (CBSSN) and a really big one in the SEC as Tennessee goes to Mississippi State (SEC Network).
- Toledo continues to lead the MAC West by two games over Ball State, but the Rockets have a tricky one at Northern Illinois, which is tied for the basement in the league but has been stubborn at home.
- The final night of America East play includes Maryland-Baltimore County at Hartford, with the second seed in next week’s league playoffs (that’s what they call them-love it) on the line.
- The 9 p.m. Eastern window is packed full with intriguing games. A pair in the Big 12 are Oklahoma at Baylor (ESPN2) and Kansas State at TCU (ESPNU), while Miami (Fla.) is at North Carolina (ESPN) and Auburn is at an Arkansas team that is already tough at home, and now has the confidence of a road win at Alabama last time out.
- DePaul and Creighton meet with both coming off big wins in the Big East, the Blue Demons at home against Marquette and the Jays over Villanova. (9 p.m., FS1)
- Red-hot St. Bonaventure has won 10 straight and can avenge one of its early Atlantic 10 losses when it hosts Davidson (9 p.m., CBSSN).
Boise State has what is almost a must-win game when it goes to San Diego State (11 p.m., CBSSN). The Broncos just need to keep winning if they harbor NCAA at-large hopes.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
