Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Championship Week Tuesday: Two more bids thanks to Coronavirus

One more bid was handed out Monday to the NCAA Tournament as bubble teams everywhere breathed a sigh of relief for the time being.

East Tennessee State pulled away in the second half to defeat Wofford in the Southern Conference final and kept an at-large open for other bubble teams, as the Bucs might have had a case to be selected even with a loss.

Elsewhere Monday, San Francisco gave Gonzaga all they could handle in the West Coast semifinals, but the Bulldogs held off the Dons, 81-77, to advance to tonight's championship against Saint Mary's, who needed a late shot by Jordan Ford with 1.4 seconds left to defeat BYU, 51-50. The Gaels are in a much better position this year than they were last season, when they needed the automatic bid to dance. A win tonight likely ensures, however, they'll wear their home whites in round one.

Early Tuesday, we saw a surprise entrant into the NCAA Tournament. Due to concerns from the Coronavirus, the Ivy League decided to cancel the men's and women's conference tournaments this weekend. As a result, Yale, as regular-season champion, gets the automatic bid, just like the old days of the Ivy League, awarding the bid to the regular-season champion. Princeton will represent the league for the women.

Five more bids are up for grabs tonight, starting with three games at 7:00. Those will be in the Horizon League (UIC vs Northern Kentucky, ESPN), Northeast (St. Francis (PA) at Robert Morris, ESPN2) and Colonial (Hofstra vs Northeastern, CBSSN).

At 9:00, Gonzaga meets Saint's Mary's on ESPN for the West Coast title and ESPN2 has the Summit League final between North Dakota and North Dakota State.

Not much change in the bracket other than to show the automatic bids for East Tennessee State and Yale. Likely not much for tomorrow either, but Thursday's bracket might start looking a little different so stay tuned.




Last Four Byes: Oklahoma, USC, Texas Tech, Richmond
Last Four In: Xavier, Arizona State, Texas, Stanford
First Four Out: UCLA, North Carolina State, Wichita State, Northern Iowa
Next Four Out: Arkansas, Memphis, Mississippi State, Rhode Island

Conference Breakdown

Big Ten - 10

Pac-12 - 7

Big East - 6

Big 12 - 6

ACC - 4

SEC - 4

West Coast - 3

AAC - 2

Atlantic 10 - 2

Mountain West - 2

One-bid leagues - 22

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