Colonial championship:
No. 3 George Mason 68, No. 5 William & Mary 59. The Patriots are back in the dance and I’m damn happy about it. Everyone will say, “Not the same team you remember,” which is true, but why can’t we root for some more magic from Jim Larranaga’s guys?
Metro Atlantic Athletic championship:
No. 1 Siena 74, No. 2 Rider 53. The Saint Bernards beat Stanford way back on Nov. 17, but I don’t think they’ll be winning anything in March.
Southern championship:
No. 1 Davidson 65, No. 7 Elon 49. At least this bubble team spares us from even more confusion.
Summit semifinals:
No. 1 Oral Roberts 58, No. 5Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne 42. Rooting against them because the school name jokes from That Guy You Know is just not worth it.
No. 2 IUPUI 80, No. 3 Oakland 65. A refresher: IUPUI has the coach that went barefoot for a cool cause a couple of months ago.
Sun Belt semifinals:
No. 4 Middle Tennessee State 82, No. 1 South Alabama 73. I say USA is still in right now, but it could get darker around them if big-time bubble team schools win later this week. Oh, how the roles have reversed.
No. 3 Western Kentucky 70, No. 2 Arkansas-Little Rock 55. The Hilltoppers may end up making The Dance after all.
West Coast championship:
No. 3 San Diego 69, No. 1 Gonzaga 62. Two nights ago I went to bed with San Diego trailing by about 15 and only 10 minutes to go in their game against Saint Mary’s. Now they’re in The Tournament. Ridiculous.
Yeah, actually seeing William & Mary win would have been pretty fun. I’m always a fan of new blood in the tourney with the smaller schools. Especially if George Mason has that one person in their fan base who whistles incessantly at their tourney games again. I can’t take that.
Have to think that VCU didn’t like seeing USA go down last night. You’re going to have Saint Mary’s, VCU, USA and Illinois State all lobbying for bids. Don’t think there’s going to be enough to go around for all of those.
Wow, smails, GREAT call on the whistler from a few years back. I completely forgot about that. *Shudder*
And I have to put Ill. State as the lowest of the four above, yet Seth Davis refuses to acknowledge their lack of beef on the schedule.
Ill. St. getting blown out on national tv probably did them in, right? I gotta think the WCC gets their three in and the Sun Belt gets two, but last night likely hurt teams like the ‘cuse and ‘zona more.
And you guys are right about that whistler clown. The tourney shouldn’t be treated like a soccer match.
Mad – I can’t see ‘Zona missing out unless they lost (which they won’t) to Oregon State.
Ill. State is burnt toast.