A couple very interesting semifinals in the A-Sun, sets up Saturday’s championship.
#1 Belmont 69 – #4 E. Tennessee St. 61
ETSU led most of the way, but Belmont rallied and won by a margin larger than the game would seem to dictate. Dave and J missed solid upset picks. Bry and KA already had it wrong. The other 16 picked up 12 points.
#6 Florida Gulf Coast 62 – #2 Mercer 58
FGC has still never lost a postseason game in D-I…just sayin’. Mercer was down 1 with :21 seconds left when an 83% FT shooter was fouled. He missed the front-end of the one-and-one. After FGC made one of two FTs, the Bears had the ball back, down 2. With 2.3 seconds left, the second-best FT shooter in the A-Sun (91%) was fouled and went to the line and missed the first shot, and then committed a lane violation on the intentional miss that followed (which was, of course, rebounded by a teammate). It was brutally ugly, and FGC is 40 minutes away from going to the Big Dance. Bry, Dave, Doogan, and RDoc all lose their champ here. No one hit this upset, but there were a handful of people who picked USC-Upstate here that are happy Mercer lost so that these points would go to no one.
A-SUN LEADER (42) – RDoc
A-SUN CELLAR (18) – Bry (’10), J (’11/’09/’08), Lynch
