Just five days remain until Selection Sunday, and conference tournament action is well underway.
Although the tournaments of the major conferences don't begin for the most part until Wednesday, several of the unheralded conferences have begun tournament play. Already, the University of Pennsylvania, Murray State, Winthrop and Belmont have earned automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament by winning their respective conferences.
However, there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity at stake in the other conferences as Mar. 11 rapidly approaches. Twenty-seven automatic bids to the Big Dance remain up for grabs.
The significance of the automatic bids is twofold. It is crucial to low-and-mid-major teams in conferences that usually garner only a single bid for the conference champ, regardless of regular season results. It is also vital for bubble teams, especially in the big conferences, to perform as well as possible in the conference tournament in their last chance to impress the selection committee.
The results of championship week often allow struggling teams to redeem themselves and play their way out of the NIT and into the NCAA Tournament at the last moment. A perfect example of this is the performance of West Virginia last season. The Mountaineers, the eight-seed in the Big East Tournament, made it all the way to the finals and earned an at-large bid in the process. Then, as a seven-seed in the dance, they shocked Wake Forest and made a run to the Elite Eight before finally bowing out to Louisville. The conference tournaments deliver incredible action each year precisely because of the high stakes that accompany so many of the games.
The first few conference championships have already lived up to these expectations. Penn was the first team to secure an automatic bid with a thrilling 57-55 win over Yale on Friday. The Ivy League, unlike the other 30 conferences, does not hold a conference championship and instead gives its bid to the regular-season champion.
Up as much as 16 points in the second half, Penn allowed the Bulldogs to creep back into the game and cut the lead to two. They would get no closer, as Yale's Eric Flato missed a desperate heave that would have sent the game to overtime. The Quakers, with an 11-1 conference mark, are far and away the head of the class and can now rest up for a week before they find out who they'll be facing next.
The Atlantic Sun Conference's championship between Belmont and Lipscomb required extra time, during which second-seeded Belmont prevailed, 74-69. The teams had identical records in conference play and had split their two regular season meetings, but Lipscomb earned the top seed due to a tiebreaker. The Bruins were led by Justin Hare, whose career-high 32 points could not have come at a better time. The Bruins entered Div. I in 1997 and will be playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time. Under new NCAA rules, Lipscomb will be awarded an automatic bid to the NIT for winning its regular season conference title.
The Big South will send top-seeded Winthrop to the dance for the second year in a row and for the third time in the last five years, as the Eagles squeaked by Coastal Carolina 51-50. Coastal had swept Winthrop in the regular season and looked primed for a third victory as Colin Stevens gave his team a one-point lead, hitting a deep three with 35.1 seconds left. The Eagles responded by working the clock and getting the ball inside to big man Craig Bradshaw, who sank a baby hook shot with 9.1 seconds remaining. A Coastal turnover foiled the possibility of a buzzer-beater.
The least exciting game of the group was between Murray State and Samford of the Ohio Valley Conference. The Racers defeated Samford 74-57 in a game that was somewhat closer than the score indicates. Murray State was only up 52-48 with nine minutes remaining, but a 10-0 run over the next four minutes put the game away. Trey Pearson led the Racers with 15 points, helping them to capture their second bid to the tournament in the last three years. Murray State is a very balanced squad that had several close calls against high-major teams and could make some noise come tournament time.
