One Day until Selection Sunday.
Fifteen automatic bids will be handed out Saturday while the remaining five will be awarded Sunday and then the field of 68 is announced at 6 p.m. EDT. The last conference tournament begins with the Ivy League (and its four-team field I mentioned way back when on March 1) playing its Semifinals Saturday and Championship Sunday. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of dust settling from one wild start to the weekend.
Friday offered one bumpy ride for regular season champs. Big Ten top seed Illinois kicked off the fun by losing to Indiana 65-63 when they couldn’t hit a basket for the final five minutes of regulation, although to be fair the Illini shared the title with Wisconsin and the Badgers lost to Michigan State 69-63. SEC regular season winner Auburn trailed by 16 at the half before coming up short against Texas A&M 67-62. Big East top seed Providence was down 15 at the half to Creighton, and unlike the Auburn game it stayed that way in an 85-58 loss to the Bluejays. But at least they’ll live to play another day in the NCAA Tournament as at-large selections, unlike Nicholls. The Southland Conference champions were upset by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and will have to settle for the NIT.
The Quarterfinal round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament did not disappoint in the drama department, with Saint Louis nipping St. Bonaventure 57-56 on a Gibson Jimerson jumper with 17 seconds remaining (the redshirt sophomore finished with 20 points). Dayton trailed by as many as 10 before rallying against No. 10 seed UMass 75-72 (a 10-4 finishing kick did the trick). And then Richmond beat VCU 75-64 to post its first win in four tries in the A-10 Tournament against their crosstown rivals. The victory also avenges a pair of regular season losses to the Rams, including Jacob Gilyard a 20-point defeat at the Siegel Center Feb. 18.
“We just wanted to make sure we gave a great account of ourselves today,” Spiders’s coach, Chris Mooney, said. “These guys have helped to be a part of a really, really good program and I think they wanted to make sure that with this opportunity that we could execute how we wanted to play.”
Gilyard scored 22 of his 32 points in the first half as the Spiders entered intermission on a 16-5 run that would give them the lead for good.
“Sometimes when you’re playing VCU they’re so good on defense and so fast and athletic you feel like you’re trying to pass the ball around outside the three-point line,” Mooney said. “And you have to be tough enough and mentally tough enough to either drive in there or throw the ball into the low post. We really tried to throw it into the post as much as we could.”
While the win sends the Spiders to their first Atlantic Ten Tournament Semifinal since 2017, the Rams fall into the underbelly of the NCAA Tournament bubble. According the ESPN’s Joe Lunardi they’re one of the “Next Four Out” schools on the outside. They’ll be watching and waiting this weekend while knowing they contributed to their current condition with consecutive losses (Rams lost their regular season finale to Saint Louis).
Bids Awarded Today- well, quite a few. UMBC visits America East regular season champ Vermont at 11 a.m. to open the floodgates, with 15 conferences crowning tournament champs up to and including the Big West Final that features Cal State-Fullerton and Long Beach State tipping off at 11:30 p.m. Coordinate your wings and nacho consumption as well as any bathroom breaks accordingly.
Today’s Games-
Atlantic 10 Semifinals- Richmond (21-12) meets Dayton (23-9) at 3:30 p.m. After regular season champ Davidson takes on Saint Louis (Wildcats won the lone regular season meeting by 21) the Spiders face another team that’s fighting for at-large consideration: the Flyers are currently one of the “First Four Out” in Lunardi’s model. They also beat Richmond 55-53 on an R.J. Blakeney dunk with 1.2 seconds left on March 1. Dayton leads the Atlantic 10 in scoring (from three and in general). It’ll be interesting to see how the team will deal with the tight turnaround of wrapping up their game just before 11 p.m. and then having to play 17 hours later.
ACC Championship- Virginia Tech (22-12) plays Duke (28-5) at 8:30 p.m. While Coach K participates in one more title game as he wraps up his Hall of Fame career, the Hokies reach the final game for the first time since they joined the conference in 2004. And they also actually led the Blue Devils at the half Dec. 22 in Cameron Indoor before Duke righted its ship in a 76-65 win. Keva Aluma scored 25 points that night and had 18 Friday in the 72-59 win over North Carolina. The Blue Devils are still smarting from their home loss to the Tar Heels last weekend and are no doubt disappointed they won’t get another crack at UNC. But they’re also smart enough to know not to take a Hokies team that has won 12 of 14.
