Well, things officially went nuts last night. The Atlantic Sun is an unmitigated dumpster fire right now, as the title game will be contested between #7 Stetson and #4 Florida Gulf Coast. FGCU obliterated #1 seed North Florida by 33, 89-56, but the Ospreys aren't officially in the NIT on an automatic bid yet. You see, Stetson's not eligible for the NCAAs because of an APR issue. If the Hatters win the A-Sun tournament, then North Florida gets the league's automatic bid. That makes us Marquette fans huge supporters of Stetson on Sunday night, as we want as many league champs to win their automatic bids as possible.
Meanwhile, over the in Patriot League quarterfinals, regular season champ Bucknell lost to #9 seed Holy Cross in double overtime, 77-72. That sends the Bison to the NIT, leaving 31 available spots.
In somehow less ridiculous news, we also got our first buzzer beater of Championship "Week" in the Big South Opening Round. DeSean Murray, last seen scoring a game high 20 points against Marquette, gave Presbyterian their first ever Big South tournament win on this play:
It counted! Presbyterian beats Radford on last-second tip-in and PC gets 1st @BigSouthMBB tourney win. WU-PC Friday pic.twitter.com/uPl2HvJC93
— Bret McCormick (@Bretjust1T) March 3, 2016
Plus Canisius & Niagara went to triple overtime in the MAAC first round, but hey, that wasn't THAT interesting, relatively speaking.
That gets us to today. On top of all of the tournament action shaking down, we've also got the debut of the Ivy League in these updates. As is tradition, the Ivies don't play a league tournament, and instead give their automatic bid to whoever wins the regular season title. Right now, Yale is in first place at 11-1, but Princeton is right behind them at 10-1. The Ivy League always ends the season with Princeton vs Penn, so that's why the Tigers have one more game to play than the Bulldogs. Columbia is still in this thing too, at 9-3. While Yale and Princeton need to win to stay even with each other, the Lions need Yale to lose to keep their NCAA hopes alive on top of taking care of their own game.
All times Central.
BIG SOUTH QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)
11am: #1 High Point (20-9) vs #8 Longwood (10-22)
1:30pm: #4 UNC Asheville (19-11) vs #5 Liberty (13-18)
5pm: #2 Winthrop (21-8) vs #10 Presbyterian (11-19)
7:30pm: #3 Coastal Carolina (18-10) vs #6 Gardner-Webb (16-15)
CAA OPENING ROUND (CAA.tv)
5pm: #8 Elon (16-15) vs #9 Drexel (5-24)
7:30pm: #7 College of Charleston (16-13) vs #10 Delaware (7-22)
IVY LEAGUE
5pm: Yale (20-6) at Cornell (9-17)
6pm: Princeton (20-5) at Harvard (12-16)
6pm: Brown (8-18) at Columbia (20-9)
MAAC QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)
6pm: #1 Monmouth (25-6) vs #8 Rider (13-19)
8:30pm: #2 Iona (19-10) vs #7 Canisius (14-18)
MISSOURI VALLEY QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)
12pm: #1 Wichita State (23-7) vs #8 Loyola-Chicago (15-16)
2:30pm: #4 Northern Iowa (19-12) vs #5 Southern Illinois (22-9)
6pm: #2 Evansville (23-8) vs #7 Missouri State (13-18)
8:30pm: #3 Illinois State (18-13) vs #6 Indiana State (14-16)
OHIO VALLEY SEMIFINALS (ESPNU)
6:30pm: #1 Belmont (20-10) vs #8 Austin Peay (16-17)
9pm: #2 Tennessee-Martin (18-13) vs #3 Morehead State (19-11)
SOCON OPENING ROUND (WatchESPN)
4pm: #8 Samford (13-18) vs #9 VMI (9-20)
6:30pm: #7 Mercer (18-13) vs #10 The Citadel (10-21)
WEST COAST CONFERENCE OPENING ROUND (TheW.tv)
8pm: #8 Loyola Marymount (13-16) vs #9 San Diego (9-20)