The best month of the year is now upon us. And yet, it feels weird, because the Big Ten Tournament is going on and Selection Sunday is more than a week away.
Conference tournament play continued on Wednesday, and with more of what we can expect given how wild this college basketball season has been. The Northeast Conference Tournament got going on Wednesday, and it has been home to some great games in recent years. This time, it was home to a couple of surprises.
Actually, only one quarterfinal game wasn’t a surprise in the least. Regular season champion Wagner took care of Central Connecticut 73-61, so they will move on. One of the other three was a surprise only in the score, as the 4-5 matchup was one of local rivals as St. Francis Brooklyn made the trip across town to LIU – and got slaughtered 73-50. You expect a matchup from the two middle seeds to be a dogfight, but this wasn’t one.
The shockers came in the other two. Fairleigh Dickinson, a very capable team that finished tied for sixth, went to Loretto and beat No. 3 Saint Francis University 84-75. And Robert Morris, previously an annual contender, has been down for a couple of years and was also tied for the sixth seed. The Colonials took out No. 2 Mount St. Mary’s 60-56.
Since the NEC re-seeds after the quarterfinals, Wagner will host Robert Morris and LIU will host Fairleigh Dickinson in the semifinals on Saturday.
It all feels, weird, because the Big Ten Tournament is now going on and Selection Sunday is more than a week away.
The Ohio Valley Conference Tournament had first round action on tap as well. In Evansville, No. 5 Tennessee Tech beat No. 8 SIU-Edwardsville 60-51, then No. 7 Eastern Illinois held off No. 6 Tennessee State 73-71 in the nightcap. Both will continue in the OVC Tournament on Thursday.
We have had quite a year of college basketball. No teams were undefeated when the calendar turned over to 2018, and no team made it through their conference slate without a conference loss. We’ve seen many unranked teams knock off a top 10 team in one or both of the polls. No team has escaped unscathed at one time or another this season. All of that is reason to believe that what happened in the Northeast Conference Tournament on Wednesday shouldn’t be an isolated story.
We have a lot to look forward to this month. That is always the case, but this year there is reason to believe it will be a little different.
Oh, and did I mention it feels weird, because the Big Ten Tournament is going on and Selection Sunday is more than a week away? Yeah, there’s that, too.
Side Dishes
Xavier clinched at least a share of the Big East regular season title for the first time with their 84-74 win over Providence behind 23 points from Trevon Bluiett. Villanova edged Seton Hall 69-68 in overtime to keep pace, but the Musketeers can grab an outright regular season title with a win at DePaul on Saturday. There was a surprise on the evening, as St. John’s beat Butler 75-68 in double overtime.
Clemson beat Florida State 76-63 for their second straight win after losing three straight. Marcquise Reed continues to be a rock for this team, scoring 22 in the win. Also in the ACC, Notre Dame got Bonzie Colson back after he missed about two months of action, and he looked like the Bonzie Colson of old to some degree with 12 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots in helping them win 73-56. As Ted Sarandis and I note in our forthcoming podcast (check back later today), if the Fighting Irish go on a run in the ACC Tournament, they become a very interesting team for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to evaluate. In the other game on tap, Boston College beat Syracuse 85-70, dealing the Orange’s NCAA at-large hopes what might be a fatal blow as they will now finish below .500 in ACC play.
Kentucky may have finally turned a corner, as the Wildcats took care of Ole Miss 96-78 for their fourth straight win. Granted, Ole Miss has gone in the tank of late, but give the Wildcats credit for being them convincingly all the same. Also in the SEC, Texas A&M held on to win 61-60 at Georgia for a key win and a tough loss for the Bulldogs, while South Carolina took control in overtime to beat LSU 83-74.
Oh, and about that Big Ten Tournament: in opening round action, No. 12 Iowa beat No. 13 Illinois 96-87, and No. 14 Rutgers beat No. 11 Minnesota 65-54 behind 23 points from Corey Sanders, ending a season that began with so much hope for the Golden Gophers but took a steep downhill turn.
The Arizona Board of Regents will meet on Thursday to receive legal counsel regarding the situation of head coach Sean Miller. The meeting was announced on Wednesday afternoon and is not open to the public as is often the case, and a spokesperson said that no action will be taken on the day regarding Miller, who is alleged to be connected in a serious way to the FBI investigation into corruption that has rocked the sport. Miller has not coached his team since the report came out.
As we also note in the forthcoming podcast, the Mountain West is reportedly in talks about Gonzaga joining the conference. The Bulldogs have dominated the West Coast Conference for the past two decades, while the Mountain West has fallen off the past few years, so it would look interesting for both sides. There is the interesting aspect of football, which Gonzaga has not had for decades, but that would appear to be a minor matter.
Tonight’s Menu
The regular season continues to wind down, and early conference tournament action continues.
- The Big Ten Tournament has a full day of action in the second round. It starts with No. 9 Wisconsin taking on No. 8 Maryland (noon), then No. 12 Iowa takes on No. 5 Michigan to close out the afternoon session (approx. 2:30 p.m.) The evening session starts with No. 10 Northwestern battling No. 7 Penn State (6:30 p.m.), then closes with No. 14 Rutgers playing No. 6 Indiana (approx. 9 p.m.)
- Quarterfinal action is on tap in the Big South Tournament in Asheville, NC. It starts with No. 10 Longwood taking on No. 2 Radford (1 p.m.), then No. 6 Gardner Webb plays No. 3 Winthrop (3 p.m.) to close the afternoon session. In the evening, No. 8 Charleston Southern takes on regular season champion UNC Asheville (7 p.m.), then No. 5 Liberty takes on No. 4 Campbell (9 p.m.)
- The MAAC gets going with first round action in Albany. No. 9 St. Peter’s takes on No. 8 Monmouth (5 p.m.), then No. 10 Siena plays No. 7 Quinnipiac (7 p.m.) and No. 11 Marist takes on No. 6 Fairfield (9 p.m.)
- First round action is on tap in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in St. Louis, with No. 9 Northern Iowa taking on No. 8 Evansville (7 p.m.), then No. 10 Valparaiso takes on No. 7 Missouri State (9:30 p.m.)
- In the Atlantic Sun Tournament, the semifinal round takes place with North Florida traveling to Florida Gulf Coast (7 p.m.) and Jacksonville traveling to Lipscomb (8 p.m.)
- Quarterfinal action is on tap in the Patriot League Tournament, with No. 6 Holy Cross visiting No. 3 Navy, No. 5 Boston University going to No. 4 Lehigh, No. 7 Lafayette traveling to No. 2 Colgate, and No. 8 Loyola (Md.) visiting regular season champion Bucknell, all tipping at 7 p.m.
- Quarterfinal action is also set for the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament in Evansville. No. 5 Tennessee Tech takes on No. 4 Jacksonville State (7:30 p.m.), then No. 7 Eastern Illinois takes on No. 3 Austin Peay (9:30 p.m.)
- In regular season action of note, Louisville has a big game at home against Virginia (8 p.m.), then the Big Sky has a key game with Weber State visiting Montana (9 p.m.) and the Pac-12 has a busy slate that features Cal at Arizona State (9 p.m.), Stanford at Arizona (10 p.m.) at Oregon State at Washington (11 p.m.)
