Five (?) teams play on
LUT WILLIAMS
BCSP Editor
Men's and women's tournament champions from the MEAC and SWAC received their automatic bids and customary low seeds to this week's NCAA national tournaments. The men's pairings were announced Sunday evening with the women's brackets named Monday.
The new spice is the addition of regular season men's MEAC champ Delaware State, who despite losing to Hampton in the MEAC Tournament finals, gets a berth in the post-season National Invitational Tournament, now also owned by the NCAA. Under the NIT's new format, all regular season champs not in the NCAA's 65-team field were guaranteed NIT bids.
But the main focus is on the NCAA "Big Dance," where the tournament champions again get to take on national powers.
MEAC
The Hampton men were the lowest seeded team to emerge with a tournament championship last weekend as the sixth-seeded Pirates knocked off top-seed Delaware State 60-56 in the championship game Saturday to earn its first trip to the "Big Dance" since back-to-back trips in 2001 and 2002. (See TOURNEY FINALS RECAPS).
The Pirates (16-15), labelled as underachievers all season long because they were thought to have the best talent in the conference, finally put it all together to win four games in four days to take the tournament crown. It is the first title for embattled fourth-year head coach Bobby Collins, who was an assistant to Steve Merfeld during the Pirates two earlier titles. He took over when Merfeld departed for Evansville and has struggled with the burden of following up on that success. The tournament title should end speculation about his dismissal.
The Pirates played in Tuesday's play-in game in Dayton, Ohio vs. Monmouth (18-14) , the winner of the Northeast Conference Tournament title. The winner will meet Minneapolis Regional top seed Villanova Friday in Philadelphia.
This marks the fifth consecutive year that either the MEAC or SWAC Tournament champion has been in the play-in game. Ironically, 2004 MEAC champ Florida A&M, the only team before Hampton to win the MEAC Tourney after playing four straight days, is also the only black college team to get a win in the play-in game.
Derek Brown's Coppin State women's team (22-8) completed an unblemished (21-0) 2005-06 MEAC campaign with a 56-46 win over the ladies of Delaware State in the tournament finals in Raleigh. The Lady Eagles earned a repeat trip to the Big Dance where they'll try to improve on last year's 96-61 loss at North Carolina. Their impressive run in conference play enabled the ladies to grab a 15-seed in the Bridgeport, Ct., Regional. They'll face the No. 2-seeded Lady Huskies of Connecticut (29-4) Sunday at 9:30 p.m. on the campus of Penn State in University Park, Pa.
Head coach Greg Jackson's Delaware State squad (20-13) travelled to Flagstaff, Arizona Tuesday to take on Northern Arizona, regular season champion of the Big Sky Conference, in a first round game in the 40-team NIT. The winner of that game will play at Louisville on Friday, March 17. Louisville is one of four top seeds in the NIT along with Maryland, Cincinnati and Michigan. Seven other NIT first round games Tuesday were held on campus sites.
SWAC
Men's regular season champ Southern (19-12) added its first tournament championship in 13 years and the first for new coach Rob Spivery by knocking off upstart seventh-seed Arkansas-Pine Bluff in the final Saturday in Birmingham. Southern all but dominated the tournament never trailing in the second half of any game.
Spivery, who led Alabama State to tournament titles and NCAA appearances in 2001 and 2004, now takes his 16th-seeded Jaguars into Greensboro, N.C., Thursday to face the tournament's top seed, ACC champion Duke (30-3) in a first round game of the Atlanta Regional. Spivery lost to Duke in the opening round of the 2004 tournament while at Alabama State. Southern avoided the play-in game primarily because of upset wins by Hampton and Monmouth in their respective conference tournaments. Southern has an RPI of 132 out of 334 Div. I programs. Monmouth is 144 while Hampton is 284. DelState is at 123.
In its last appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 1993, Southern, then a 13th seed under legendary coach Ben Jobe, pulled off a stunning upset, knocking off fourth-seeded Georgia Tech of the ACC in a first-round game.
Head coach Sandy Pugh gets to take her Lady Jags (20-10) back to the Big Dance for the third time and will face Bridgeport, Ct., Regional No. 1-seed Duke (26-3) Sunday in Norfolk, Va. Southern, seeded 16th this year, was a 14th seed in 2002 and a 16th-seed in 2004. They entered the SWAC Tourney as a second-seed.
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