Let the madness of March begin. The tournament field is now starting to take shape. The first team to clinch a spot in the tourney is the Cornell Big Red of the Ivy League. Every year the Ivy League gets a team into the NCAA tournament before any other conference because the league does not have a post season tournament. The league’s automatic bid goes to the regular season champion. This year it is Cornell, who ran the table in the regular season league play.
The Big Red finished 14-0 after defeating Princeton in the last game of the regular season71-64. Cornell finishes off the regular season 22-5. The only 5 losses for Cornell came to Duke, Syracuse, Bucknell, Colgate, and Ohio. With the exception of Colgate those are decent losses. The only home loss for the Big Red this season was to Colgate 76-73. Oddly enough the only home loss for Cornell was to the Colgate Raiders. Cornell has not lost a game since January 6th at Cameron Indoor Stadium. On the flip side Cornell has not beaten any quality opponent. The four best teams Cornell played were Duke, Syracuse, Bucknell, and Ohio; they lost to all four of them for four of their five losses.
There will be three more teams to join Cornell today, so the Big Red will have their days of being the only team locked into this year’s tournament come to an end. Cornell has been locked into that spot since leap day, February 29th. It was on that day that the Big Red took down the Dartmouth Big Green in a 75-59 rout. The championship games that are today are the Big South, Ohio Valley, and Atlantic Sun conference championship games.
The first championship game of the day is the rematch between the Winthrop Eagles and the North Carolina-Asheville Bulldogs. During the regular season UNC-Asheville took both match ups by a score of 71-56 at home in Asheville, North Carolina. Then the Bulldogs traveled to the Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill, South Carolina for the second game in this series and again came away with a lopsided victory with a 63-50 win. That loss was only the third home loss of the season for Winthrop. Both teams finished the regular season with a conference record of 10-4, but because of the season sweep by the Bulldogs they received the 1 seed in the conference tournament. The third game of the season between the two teams did not end the same way as the first two did. The Eagles avenged their two losses by going into Asheville and coming away with a 66-48 smack down of the Bulldogs. Winthrop gets the automatic bid to the tournament and has now made 4 consecutive NCAA tournaments.
The second ticket that is punched today came from the Ohio Valley conference. The game was between the #1 seed Austin Peay Governors and the #6 seed Tennessee State Tigers. The two teams split the season series but the Tigers outscored the Governors in the two games they played. Each team won at home but Austin Peay only managed a 79-78 nail biter on their home court. Austin Peay got the perks of being the number one seed by hosting their games in the Ohio Valley tournament. This time the Governors managed a much more comfortable game this time routing the Tigers by a score of 82-64. The Governors put their 14-4 regular season conference record on the line in the conference championship game in Nashville, Tennessee. This entire season was spent preparing for this game because last year Austin Peay lost in the OVC finals to Eastern Kentucky on a last second shot. The seniors that are on this year’s team were the juniors on that team that watched a lead in the last minute of the game slip away when they lost 63-61 in a thriller. This time the Governors put their opponent away to secure their 6th tournament appearance and their first since 2003. Tennessee State was excited just to get to the finals. The Tigers beat the #2 and #3 seeds to get to this point. The last time the Tigers were in the OVC finals was 1998 and haven’t won the conference tournament since 1994.
The last team of the day to get sent to the big dance is the winner of the Atlantic Sun conference championship game. This was a match up of the Belmont Bruins and the Jacksonville Dolphins. The two best teams in the regular season will be deciding who goes to the NCAA tournament, go figure. The only meeting this season was a win by Belmont. Up 45-23 at the half the Bruins held on to earn another win, this one by a score of 79-61. The Bruins scorched the nets in their win. Belmont finished shooting 45 percent from 3 point range. Early on the Bruins were blazing the nets from everywhere on the floor but as the game came to a close the percentage took a nose dive from nearly 60 percent on field goals and 48 percent from three point range. Even so the Bruins will be in the NCAA tournament along with probably four other Tennessee teams. Austin Peay and Belmont are already in the big dance and another Nashville team (Vanderbilt) will likely join these two in the tournament. Just think, the state of Tennessee has three teams ranked in the top 25 in the nation and will more than likely have five teams in the NCAA tournament. Those teams should be Memphis, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Austin Peay and Belmont.
So far four tickets have been punched with 27 more automatic bids to follow in the coming week. Then on March 16th the rest of the field of 65 will be finalized. It is just getting started.
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