First, to give credit where it is due. I mistakenly said that SE Missouri St was the first team to earn an automatic bid from their thrilling overtime victory in the Ohio Valley championship.
In the Northeast conference, regular season champion Merrimack is still in their 4 year transitional period to Division I and thus are ineligible for the tournament. The NEC didn’t want to not let Merrimack participate in the tournament for doing nothing wrong other than being too new to Division I – so they made a decision that the runner-up in the tournament would advance if Merrimack wins the conference tournament.
That scenario has somewhat played out. Merrimack has advance to Tuesday’s final – so the other semi-finalist will automatically win the bid. That honor went to Fairleigh Dickinson. The 2nd seed in the NEC beat St. Peter’s by 20 to win the NEC automatic bid.
FDU is a pretty nice turnaround story. Last season they were 4-22 and fired their coach. So, first year coach Tobin Anderson took over the program and has led them to a 19-14 record and now, to the NCAA Tournament.
So, we have two teams dancing – not one. Congrats to both FDU and SE Missouri St.
Three more teams will punch their tickets today to the dance. In the Big South, regular season champ UNC-Asheville (26-7) will try to hold off 7th seed Campbell’s (16-17) upset run for the tournament.
In the Missouri Valley, the top 2 teams will play for the championship as regular season champion Bradley (25-8) will play runner-up Drake (26-7). While both teams are pretty good, neither probably has the resume for an at large bid, so this should be an exciting game from a conference known for producing Cinderella teams in the past.
Finally, in the Atlantic Sun sees its co-regular season champs play as Kennesaw State (25-8) play Liberty (26-7). Both teams finished 15-3 in conference, with Kennesaw State getting the top seed thanks to their 88-81 victory at home against Liberty. Liberty is one of the classic small conference teams – their NET ranking of 40 means that they will at least get a look from the committee if they lose today, but their 0-3 record in Quad 1 games probably will make that a very quick look before the committee removes them from the consideration list. So – once again, two teams that know their NCAA hopes rest on one final game.
The final regular season games for the American and Big Ten conferences are also today – so after today, every remaining game should be a conference tournament game. In the American, potential bubble team Memphis gets a chance for a big game as they host #1 Houston.
The Big 10 has plenty of fun. Purdue continues to try to get one of the top seeds as they host Illinois, a team that is close enough to the bubble that they could use another win. Michigan, who is much more on the bubble, travels to Bloomington to play the 15th ranked Hoosiers. We have a couple of trap games as Iowa hosts Nebraska and Wisconsin, who desperately needs a win, travels to Minnesota.
But the best two games from the Big 10 might be as 21st Maryland goes on the road to Penn State, and Northwestern heading on the road to Rutgers. Both Penn State and Rutgers desperately need a win to boost their chances, while Maryland and Northwestern are part of the 7 way tie for 2nd place who are fighting for the last 3 double byes in the conference tournament.
Lots of fun basketball. One more rugby game – go Strikers!