The big news from yesterday is that 1-28 Binghamton knocked off UMBC in overtime in the opening round of the America East tournament. The odds are still definitely against the Bearcats, but the first step towards being the worst team to ever qualify for the NCAA Tournament has been taken.
In other upset news, Florida Gulf Coast bumped off South Carolina Upstate in the Atlantic Sun tournament, VMI popped Winthrop for a spot in the Big South title game, and Quinnipiac was the only lower seed to win in the NEC quarterfinals, knocking off St. Francis.
Things are really moving now, as we have 8 conference tournaments with games today. The CAA, MAAC and Southern Conference tournaments all get their start today. But we're going to take some space before the jump to discuss the Ivy League. As always, the Ivy League does not have a conference tournament and gives their automatic bid to the NCAA tournament to the team that wins the regular season title. Currently the team leading the league is Harvard at 10-2. But there are three teams within two games of the Crimson in the standings and two of them - Penn and Princeton - still have three games to play. The league games played tonight and tomorrow (yes, that's how the Ivy rolls) will go a long way to deciding the champion before Penn and Princeton face off in the league finale next week as Harvard's magic number currently sits at 3. Here's the schedule for tonight involving those 4 teams, with all 3 games starting at 6pm Central:
Yale (9-3) at Princeton (7-4)
Harvard (10-2) at Columbia (3-9)
Brown (2-10) at Penn (9-2)
On to the jump with the rest of the day's action!
Atlantic Sun semifinals (all games on ESPN Full Court/ESPN3):
#1 Belmont (25-7) vs #4 East Tennessee St. (17-13), 5pm Central
#2 Mercer (22-10) vs #6 Florida Gulf Coast (14-16), 7:30pm
CAA Opening Round (top 4 seeds get byes to quarterfinals):
#8 James Madison (12-19) vs #9 UNC-Wilmington (9-20), 11am
#5 Delaware (17-12) vs #12 Towson (1-30), 1:30pm
#6 Georgia State (20-10) vs #11 Hofstra (10-21), 7:30pm
#7 Northeastern (13-16) vs #10 William & Mary (6-25), 5pm
Horizon League Quarterfinals:
#4 UW-Milwaukee (20-12) vs #5 Butler (19-13), 7:30pm
#3 Detroit (19-13) vs #6 Youngstown State (16-14), 5pm
MAAC First Round:
#8 Marist (13-17) vs #9 St. Peter's (5-25), 6:30pm
#7 Niagara (13-18) vs #10 Canisius (5-24), 8:30pm
Missouri Valley Quarterfinals:
#1 Wichita State (26-4) vs #8 Indiana State (18-13), 12:05pm, ESPN3
#4 Illinois State (18-12) vs #5 Northern Iowa (19-12), 2:35pm
#3 Evansville (15-14) vs #6 Missouri State (16-15), 8:35pm
#2 Creighton (23-5) vs #7 Drake (17-14), 6:05pm, ESPN3
Ohio Valley Semifinals:
#1 Murray State (28-1) vs #4 Tennessee Tech (19-12), 6pm, ESPNU
#2 Tennessee State (19-11) vs #3 Morehead State (18-14), 8pm, ESPN3
Southern First Round (top 2 seeds from both divisions get byes to quarterfinals):
#4S College of Charleston (19-11) vs #5N Appalachian State (12-17), 10:30am
#3N Western Carolina (14-17) vs #6S Citadel (6-23), 1pm
#4N Samford (11-18) vs #5S Furman (14-15), 5pm
#3S Georgia South (14-14) vs #6N Chattanooga (11-20), 7:30pm
West Coast Quarterfinals (on ESPNU):
#4 Loyola Marymount (19-11) vs #5 San Francisco (19-12), 8pm
#3 BYU (24-7) vs #6 San Diego (13-17) 10pm