In the Northeast Conference Championship, regular season champion Central Connecticut on their home court found themselves down two points with under 30 seconds. With the game on the line, Joe Ostrowsky drove to the basket beating his man off the dribble and tied the game with a nice layup.

Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, St. Francis PA inbounded the ball to Daemar Kelly who took the ball all the way down the court, made a nice stop near the free throw line to get some space on his defender, and hit the jumper with 9 seconds left. After stealing the ball on the next play and hitting a free-throw, the Red Flash survived the defensive battle with a 46-43 victory. It wasn’t pretty, but it doesn’t matter – St. Francis PA is dancing despite the fact that they have a 16-17 record.

Meanwhile, Robert Morris was able to defend their Horizon conference regular season title by building a double digit lead with 5 minutes to play and never looked back. The Colonials beat Youngstown State for their 26th victory, and an invitation to the NCAA Tournament.

To finish off the early championships, Delaware’s John Camden hit a huge three pointer from the corner to cut UNC-Wilmington’s lead to 2. But UNC-Wilmington would not back down. With the shot clock running down, Donovan Newby hit a deep and well contested jumper to push the Seahawks lead back to 4. After some free throws, Delaware’s Izaiah Pasha continued to make it interesting by hitting a three-pointer to cut the lead to 2 with just 8 seconds left. After the foul to stop the clock, Newby with ice in his veins calmly hit nothing but net on both his free throws, and UNC-Wilmington would hand on for a 4 point victory and the Coastal Conference automatic bid.

I flip over to ESPN to watch the premier game of the night, and see that Gonzaga has jumped out to a 20-7 lead over ranked St. Mary’s. Will I make any more progress on getting the box scores cleaned up tonight, or will I fall into the trap of watching the West Coast Championship. Only time will tell.

Congratulations to St. Francis (PA), Robert Morris and UNC-Wilmington.