As conference tournaments take over the entirety of the landscape until Selection Sunday, we’ve just gone through quite a weekend. Four NCAA Tournament bids went out on Sunday, and we had a little bit of everything among them. And other tournaments continue on, a few with championship matchups all set.
In the championship games on Sunday, we had a dramatic finish, a near-historic comeback, an aberration and an anticlimactic game.
The dramatic finish comes first, and it came first chronologically as well. The Big South title game was a tight one between Radford and Liberty, one where neither team ever held a double-digit lead. It was a defensive struggle between two teams that are pretty good at that end of the floor, and it was tied at 52 in the final seconds after two Liberty free throws about a minute earlier. Carlik Jones took an inbounds pass out of a timeout, dribbled on the right wing, then over to the left, stopped and put up a deep three-pointer before the buzzer that caught nothing but net to give Radford a 55-52 win and their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2009.
Next, we head south for a game that nearly had a historic comeback – and one that seemed unthinkable as well. Florida Gulf Coast was clearly the best team in the Atlantic Sun during the regular season, winning by two games although it felt like they were even more ahead. But the host Eagles looked nothing like that team for quite a bit of the game, especially the first half as Lipscomb had a 60-31 lead at intermission. The Bisons went up by 32 early in the second half, then the Eagles came to life and eventually got the lead down to five. The all-time record for the biggest second-half deficit overcome in a game is 31 points (when Drexel came from 34 down against Delaware a couple of weeks ago, they were down by 34 in the first half).
Florida Gulf Coast eventually ran out of gas, though, and Lipscomb pulled away late for a 108-96 win in a game where they shot over 65 percent from the field, including 12-26 from long range. It’s Lipscomb’s first trip to the Big Dance, while Florida Gulf Coast will be in the NIT by virtue of their regular season title. Zach Johnson had 37 points and Brandon Goodwin had 34 for the Eagles, but they didn’t get enough support. Lipscomb had five players score in double figures, led by Garrison Mathews with 33 including 7-14 shooting from long range.
The Missouri Valley Conference championship game came after the ten prior contests in St. Louis were all decided by ten points or less. As such, it was a mild surprise that Loyola-Chicago pulled away from Illinois State for a 65-49 win to complete a terrific run for the Ramblers, who won the regular season title. Defense again carried the day for the Ramblers, as they held Illinois State under 32 percent from the field. It remains the case that the 1999 tournament is the only one in conference history where all of the games were decided by ten points or less.
Finally, there was one championship game that was a bit anticlimactic. Taking nothing away from the value the players and coaches get from competing, Michigan and Purdue will be in the NCAA Tournament with only a question of seeding. The Wolverines were not nearly the story they were a year ago, when they had a near-death experience trying to travel to the Big Ten Tournament, but they are one of the hottest teams in the country and remain so after a 75-66 win over Purdue gives them their second straight Big Ten title.
There is much more to come this week, but thus far we have had a lot to like. Given the way this season has gone, we have much to expect for the next week.
Side Dishes
Championship games are set in several conferences. In the Patriot League, the top two teams in the regular season will meet for the title as Colgate beat Holy Cross 62-55 and Bucknell throttled Boston University 90-59, meaning the Bison will host the Raiders. That will also be the case in the Southern Conference after No. 2 East Tennessee State took care of No. 3 Furman 63-52 and No. 1 UNC Greensboro edged No. 5 Wofford 56-55. And in the MAAC, where the top two seeds went down early, Iona edged St. Peter’s 65-62 and Fairfield beat Quinnipiac 74-64 to advance to Monday night’s championship game in Albany.
The Summit League was among those that had quarterfinal action on tap, and both games were dandies. Fort Wayne rallied from being down by 18 at the half to beat North Dakota State 86-82, then Denver beat Oral Roberts 90-88 in double overtime to close out the entire day. In the Horizon League, Milwaukee knocked off UIC 80-75 and Oakland beat IUPUI 62-55, with the note that both of those games were tied at the half. And in the CAA, it was all chalk until the last game of the day, when No. 6 UNCW beat No. 3 Hofstra 93-88 behind a tournament record-tying 37 points from Jordon Talley.
A few final regular season games were on tap in the American Athletic Conference. The most notable was Cincinnati edging Wichita State 62-61 to take the regular season title. The road team won both games between the two teams, and the Bearcats had to hang on despite not scoring in the final 3:27 of the game. Wichita State is the No. 2 seed, winning a tiebreaker over Houston, and Tulsa is the other team that will get a double bye in the 12-team conference tournament.
Tonight’s Menu
It’s all conference tournament action from this point on until next week. Two more automatic bids go out tonight.
- The MAAC championship will pit Fairfield against Iona (7 p.m.)
- The Southern Conference championship will be a matchup of the two best teams all season long, No. 2 East Tennessee State vs. No. 1 UNC Greensboro (9 p.m.)
- CAA semifinal action in North Charleston, SC starts with No. 4 William & Mary taking on No. 1 College of Charleston (6 p.m.), then No. 6 UNCW takes on No. 2 Northeastern (8:30 p.m.)
- In Detroit, the Horizon League has its semifinals as well, with Cleveland State taking on Oakland (7 p.m.) followed by Milwaukee taking on Wright State (9:30 p.m.)
- The MAC has first round action at campus sites: Northern Illinois at Kent State, Bowling Green at Central Michigan and Ohio at Miami (Ohio) all tip at 7 p.m., while Akron visits Western Michigan a little later (7:45 p.m.)
- The MEAC also has first round action on tap in Norfolk, VA, with Delaware State taking on North Carolina A&T (6:30 p.m.) followed by Maryland-Eastern Shore taking on Norfolk State (9 p.m.)
- In the Summit League Tournament, the semifinals in Sioux Falls start with No. 5 North Dakota State taking on No. 1 South Dakota State (7 p.m.) and finish with No. 3 Denver taking on No. 2 South Dakota (9:30 p.m.)
- In the West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas, semifinal action has San Francisco taking on Gonzaga (9 p.m.) and BYU battling Saint Mary’s (11:30 p.m.)
