The Real March Madness: Day 6

Everyone loves the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Four straight days jam-packed with 12 hours of do-or-die college hoops is more than most people can handle.

But for junkies like us, the next 13 days are just as good, for it is when the true Madness takes place. Over the course of these two weeks, we whittle some 347 teams down to 30 conference champions (the Ivy doesn't have a tournament). Auto-bids will be won. Bubbles will be burst. Buzzers will be beaten. And most importantly, a 68 team bracket will be made.

For a comprehensive listing off all the conference tournaments, follow this link or click the "Complete Conference Tournament Schedules" page at the top of the screen.

Here is what happened on Sunday: Another automatic bid was handed out, the longest winning streak in the country came to an end, and two overtimes were needed to settle the score in a Patriot League semifinal game.


Game of the Day: Lafayette 73, American 71 2OT

Jim Mower hit a 3-pointer with less than a second remaining to lead Lafayette over American 73-71 in double-OT in the Patriot League semifinals. Trailing by two with seven seconds remaining, Tony Johnson drove the length of the floor before kicking it to Mower for the game-winning basket. Ryan Willen hit a 3-pointer with ten seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game, and Mower hit 1 of 2 free throws under ten seconds left in the first OT to force a second over time. Vlad Moldoveanu led all scorers with 26 points, but it was not enough, as Lafayette upset the No. 2-seed Eagles on their home floor. The No. 6-seed Leopards will face top-seeded Bucknell in the Patriot League finals.



They were good too

- Robert Morris 64, Quinnipiac 62: Velton Jones did not score 29 points like he did in the NEC quarterfinals against Wagner, but he did hit a floater over two defenders with 6 seconds left to play, lifting No. 3 Robert Morris over No. 2 Quinnipiac 64-62 in the NEC tournament semifinals. The game was tightly contested throughout, with 22 lead changes and 12 ties. This was the third year in a row that Robert Morris has ended Quinnipiac's season, as Bobby Mo advances to face Long Island in NEC final.


Team of the Day: Stony Brook Seawolves

The No. 5 Seawolves didn't just beat No. 1 Vermont in the America East quarterfinals. They demolished them. Stony Brook led by ten for a good portion of the first half and most of the second. Vermont tried to make a late push, cutting a double digit lead down to 40-34 with less than nine minutes left. But Stony Brook held Vermont without a field goal for the final 5:26, going on a 29-13 run. They'll move on to play No. 2 Boston U. in the finals.


They were good too

- St. Peter's Peacocks: At the half of this MAAC semifinal game, the No. 4 Peacocks led the No. 1 Stags 40-15. In fact, in took St. Peter's 12 minutes in the second half to score two field goals, and they still led by six despite Fairfield's 21-2 run. Once they found their touch again, the ran away with it. Four Peacocks scored in double-figures, led by Jeron Belin, who scored 15 points and grabbed 7 rebounds.


- Virginia Commonwealth Rams: The No. 4 seed Rams put a halt to the longest active winning streak in the country, as they plastered No. 1 George Mason 79-63 in the semifinals of the CAA tournament.For the second day in-a-row, Jamie Skeen led the Rams in scoring, as he scored 21 points. Bradford Burgess added 16 points and Joey Rodriguez 13 for the Rams, who made 11 3-pointers, one shy of the tourney record. The Rams hit a three pointer with nine minutes left in the first half to make it 24-21, and they never looked back. They will face-off against No. 2 Old Dominion in the CAA tournament finals.


Player of the Day: Tristan Thompson, North Texas

The senior guard scored a career-high 36 points in No. 4 North Texas's quarterfinal upset of No. 1 Florida Atlantic, 78-64. But even more impressive than his 36 points is where they came from. Thompson, a Sun Belt Conference first-teamer, was a perfect 20-20 from the charity stripe and a perfect 2-2 from behind the arc.

They were good too

- Nate Wolters, South Dakota State: Wolters scored 30 points en route to the No. 5 Jack Rabbits 85-75 win over the No. 4 Mastadons of Indiana Forth Wayne in the Summit League quarterfinals. The guard was 7-18 from the field and 14-19 from the foul line. He also grabbed seven rebounds and provided five assists. South Dakota State now has the difficult task of taking on No. 1 Oakland in the semifinals.

- Leroy Nobles, IUPUI: Nobles scored more points yesterday than anybody in the country. He scored 37 points on 11-17 shooting including 6-9 from behind the arc. He was 9-10 from the charity stripe and also filled up the stat sheet with seven rebounds and two steals. The No. 3 Jaguars move on the the Summit League semifinals with the 79-55 win over the No. 6 Kangaroos of Missouri-Kansas City.



Sunday Results

Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Finals

#3 Indiana State 60, #1 Missouri State 56


America East Conference Tournament Semifinals

#5 Stony Brook 69, #1 Vermont 47
#2 Boston 55, #6 Hartford 49


Colonial Athletic Association Tournament Semifinals

#4 VCU 79, #1 George Mason 63
#2 Old Dominion 77, #3 Hofstra 69


Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament Semifinals

#4 St. Peter's 62, #1 Fairfield 48
#2 Iona 83, #3 Rider 59


Northeast Conference Tournament Semifinals

#1 Long Island 69, #4 Central Connecticut State 67
#3 Robert Morris 64, #2 Quinnipiac 62


Patriot League Tournament Semifinals

#6 Lafayette 73 #2 American 71 2OT
#1 Bucknell 66, #4 Lehigh 64


Southern Conference Tournament Quarterfinals

#2S Wofford 86, #1N Western Carolina 72
#1S Charleston 63, #3S Furman 58


Summit League Tournament Quarterfinals

#5 South Dakota State 85, #4 IPFW 75
#3 IUPUI 71, #6 UMKC 55


Sun Belt Conference Tournament Quarterfinals

#4W North Texas 78, #1E Florida Atlantic 64
#3E Western Kentucky 81, #2W Louisiana-Lafayette 76
#5W Arkansas-Little Rock 59, #1W Arkansas State 52
#2E Middle Tennessee 73, #6E Florida International 38


West Coast Conference Tournament Semifinals

#1 St. Mary's 73, #4 Santa Clara 64
#2 Gonzaga 71, #3 San Francisco 67


Monday Slate of Games


Colonial Athletic Association Tournament
Finals (Richmond, VA)

7:00PM - ESPN2 - #2 Old Dominion vs. #4 VCU


Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament
Finals (Bridgeport, CT)

7:00PM - ESPNU - #2 Iona vs. #4 St. Peter's


Southern Conference Tournament
Finals (Chattanooga, TN)

9:00PM - ESPN2 - #1S Charleston vs. #2S Wofford


West Coast Conference Tournament
Finals (Las Vegas, NV)

9:00PM - ESPN - #1 St. Mary's vs. #2 Gonzaga


Summit League Tournament
Semifinals (Sioux Falls, SD)

7:00PM - #1 Oakland vs. #5 South Dakota State
9:30PM - #2 Oral Roberts vs. #3 IUPUI


Sun Belt Conference Tournament
Semifinals (Hot Springs, AR)

7:00PM - #3E Western Kentucky vs. #4W North Texas
9:30PM - #2E Middle Tennessee vs. #5W Arkansas-Little Rock

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Regular season titles are impressive, but they should not earn the autobid

Stony Brook had a story book season.

Just two years removed from a seven win season in which they went 3-13 in the American East, the Seawolves used a ten game winning streak during the middle of the conference season to win an outright league title.

An impressive feat, no doubt, and one that deserves praise.

But the Seawolves lost in the semifinals of the America East tournament last night, meaning that the fruits of their labor will result in a trip to the NIT, not the NCAA Tournament.

Muhammad El-Amin led Stony Brook to an America East regular season title.
(photo credit: SBRadioSports)

There has been some debate recently about whether or not this is the correct way to handle each conference's automatic bid. Is getting hot for three or four days and winning a conference tournament really the best way to determine a champion for the league? Isn't the best way to determine the best team in a conference to look at their body of work, so to speak? To see who can be the most successful over the course of a season? How easy is it for a star on a team like Siena, who has been absolutely dominant in the MAAC this year, to roll an ankle and cost the Saints a trip to the tournament?

Well, yes it is.

But that doesn't mean that the team should be the conference champion or earn the automatic bid.

Where in sports to we award a title to the team that wins the regular season. In baseball, no longer does the best team in each league win the pennant. You have to play a divisional and championship series before you move onto the World Series. In the NBA, the winner of each conference gets the top seed in the playoffs. In football, the top two teams receive a first round bye, but still have to play their way into the Super Bowl.

How is college basketball any different?

That is beside the point. What makes college basketball so popular this time of year is the tournament aspect. All it takes is one hot shooting night and a couple of breaks, and anyone can advance. It is the heart of the argument against the BCS. And for many, including myself, these two weeks are just as entertaining as the three weeks of NCAA Tournament play. Take away the auto-bid from a conference tournament champion, and you take a huge part of what makes March Madness March Madness.

The one thing that does need to be changed is the advantage that conference champions get. It is irrelevant for the major conferences. If you are a regular season champion in any of the Big Six conferences, or in leagues like the Mountain West, Missouri Valley, Atlantic 10, or Conference USA, you are more than likely going to have a good enough resume to garner an at-large berth.

For the majority of the smaller leagues, that is not going to be the case. But no matter what league you play in, winning a conference title is a difficult thing to do and should be rewarded.

All of the low- and mid-major leagues should take a look at how the Horizon and the WCC run their conference tournaments. The top two seeds in both leagues get byes into the semifinals of the tournament, meaning they need to win just two games -- against teams that have already played at least one game -- to earn the automatic bid. That's a huge advantage.

They should also take it a step further. The league's regular season champion should also be afforded home court advantage in the tournaments. Winning two games on your home floor for the right to represent a your conference in the NCAA Tournament is a huge, and fair, advantage for the league champion.

But any talk of doing away with the conference tournaments as a whole or giving the automatic bid to the regular season champ is ludicrous.

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