Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The conference tournaments are in full swing, with another automatic bid having gone out on Wednesday night as well.
We begin with a look at games Ted had a chance to check out in the Big East and, earlier in the day, Atlantic 10 Tournaments. Providence and St. John’s both won in the evening to move on and play the top two teams in the Big East on Thursday, with the Friars potentially facing a postseason decision if they don’t make a run to a Big East Tournament title over the next few days.
From there, we look at the few bubble teams that were in action, and it looked like a mixed bag. NC State and TCU won, with TCU still having a good deal of work to do, while Clemson and Oklahoma both lost. Clemson may well be out, while Oklahoma will sweat it out but might get in. That also leads into a few minutes spent on the overall postseason tournament picture.
Next, we talk about the Patriot League championship game won by Colgate in convincing fashion. It’s the culmination to this point of a nice rebuilding job by Matt Langel, who has won the league’s Coach of the Year honor two years in a row and now has his team in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 23 years.
Finally, we talk about the shocking news of William & Mary firing Tony Shaver. There is a rationale, but Shaver is all class and had success otherwise unseen at that school in what has long been the toughest job in the CAA, although it’s a little different in a CAA without George Mason, Old Dominion and VCU. Shaver had good years even with those three teams in the conference, though, so it’s not as if he struggled, then did better without them.
Ted also closes with a nice note coming out of the Big East Tournament for those in the media as well.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to join in soon for more coverage of conference tournaments leading up to the NCAA Tournament, and then on Sunday night, College Basketball Tonight comes back.
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