First off, congrats to Austin Peay on winning the Ohio Valley tournament, and congrats to Yale on locking up the Ivy League's regular season title and automatic bid. We have three more bids getting handed out today.
The Big South lost their #1 seed yesterday, as High Point was unable to defeat UNC-Asheville without the services of their two best players. John Brown was injured coming in to the tournament, and they lost Adam Weary to a knee injury in their first round game.
Chattanooga got a scare in the SoCon tournament, as they went nearly the first six minutes of the second half without scoring. Samford didn't score for the first five minutes, either, but they were already leading at the break and ended up holding on to a 38-31 lead for a while. The Mocs came back, and even though it was tied with two minutes left, the SoCon's regular season champ came away with a 59-54 win.
The biggest question mark of Championship "Week' came up when Northern Iowa defeated Wichita State in the Missouri Valley semifinals. As of Friday morning, SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean had the Shockers at #33 on his seed list. Even though that had them in as the MVC's autobid placeholder, that spot was nine spots away from the first at large team going to Dayton for the First Four. They're not close enough to guarantee that they're in the tournament, but they're not clearly in the NIT as an autobid either.
A reminder for you, a Marquette fan, on the Atlantic Sun title game today: Our old friends at Stetson are not eligible to play in the NCAA tournament due to APR issues. If Florida Gulf Coast wins, FGCU gets the automatic bid. If Stetson wins, North Florida gets the automatic bid as the A-Sun's regular season champion. As fans of a team that's aiming towards an NIT at-large bid, it would be quite beneficial if North Florida didn't take up an NIT spot with their automatic bid as the A-Sun champ.
NCAA Automatic Bids: Austin Peay (OVC), Yale (Ivy)
NIT Automatic Bids: Belmont (OVC), Bucknell (Patriot League), High Point (Big South)
All times Central
ATLANTIC SUN CHAMPIONSHIP (ESPN2)
6pm: #7 Stetson (12-21) at #4 Florida Gulf Coast (19-13)
BIG SOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP (ESPN2)
1:30pm: #2 Winthrop (23-8) vs #4 UNC Asheville (21-11)
CAA SEMIFINALS (NBC Sports Network)
12pm: #1 Hofstra (23-8) vs #5 William & Mary (20-10)
2:30pm: #2 UNC Wilmington (23-7) vs #6 Northeastern (18-14)
HORIZON LEAGUE QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)
12pm: #4 Green Bay (20-12) vs #5 Milwaukee (20-12)
2:30pm: #3 Wright State (20-12) vs #6 Detroit (16-14)
MAAC SEMIFINALS (WatchESPN)
3:30pm: #1 Monmouth (26-6) vs #5 Fairfield (19-12)
6pm: #2 Iona (20-10) vs #3 Siena (21-11)
MISSOURI VALLEY CHAMPIONSHIP (CBS)
1pm: #2 Evansville (25-8) vs #4 Northern Iowa (21-12)
PATRIOT LEAGUE SEMIFINALS (CBS Sports Network)
11am: #9 Holy Cross (12-19) at #4 Army (19-12)
1pm: #6 American (12-18) at #2 Lehigh (16-14)
SOCON SEMIFINALS (WatchESPN)
4pm: #1 Chattanooga (27-5) vs #5 Western Carolina (16-16)
6:30pm: #2 East Tennessee State (22-10) vs #3 Furman (18-14)
SUMMIT LEAGUE QUARTERFINALS (WatchESPN)
6pm: #4 IUPUI (13-18) vs #5 North Dakota State (18-12)
8:30pm: #3 Nebraska-Omaha (18-12) vs #6 Denver (15-14)