{"id":266,"date":"2009-03-09T17:07:31","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T22:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=266"},"modified":"2009-03-10T08:32:09","modified_gmt":"2009-03-10T13:32:09","slug":"day-7-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"CTC Day 7 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The calm after AND before the storm, as there are only a couple of games tonight.\u00a0 So, take a breath, think about the first week and get ready for\u00a0a big second week, starting tomorrow with the unprecedented Tuesday quadruple-header in the Big East, among others.\u00a0 But, there are a couple important games tonight.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>COLONIAL CHAMPIONSHIP:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nA great tournament with upsets and surprises, but it ends with the top two seeds in the title game.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#1 VCU vs. #2 George Mason<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 A game to which I am very much looking forward, pitting two of the better mid-major teams with all on the line.\u00a0 This is basically a well-warranted round of 128 NCAA tournament game.\u00a0 Bry and Ina have VCU.\u00a0 Waters, Alexi, and J have George Mason.\u00a0 Doogan, Stri, and Lynch have either ODU or UDel, who didn&#8217;t make it.\u00a0 If Mason wins tonight, Alexi defends his Colonial title.\u00a0 If VCU wins, Ina will take the crown away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>WEST COAST CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nIn the much-anticipated championship of the WCC tonight, we got what we all wanted (and predicted), as #1 Gonzaga takes on #2 St. Mary&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#1 Gonzaga vs. #2 St. Mary&#8217;s<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 All 8 of us picked Gonzaga to face St. Mary&#8217;s, while 7 of us picked the &#8216;Zags to win it.\u00a0 The only dissenting opinion comes from Bry, who believes in Patty Mills and the Gaels need for the auto bid, in taking SMC to win.\u00a0 If Gonzaga wins tonight, Ina takes the WCC title.\u00a0 If St. Mary&#8217;s wins, obviously, Bry would win, as the only one to have taken them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u><!--more-->MAAC CHAMPIONSHIP:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nAnother interesting tournament that ended with the top two seeds.\u00a0 But, this one is less surprising, as we, as a group, got 15 of our 16 semifinal picks correct.\u00a0 If you like mid-major basketball, you&#8217;ve got to be drooling over this one.\u00a0 Ina is going for a perfect MAAC bracket.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#1 Siena vs. #2 Niagara<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 The best two teams all year in the MAAC are meeting for &#8220;all the marbles.&#8221;\u00a0 And, there are pretty major CTC implications tonight, as all 8 of us have a horse in this race&#8211;4 of us with Siena (Bry, Waters, Alexi, and J) and 4 of us with Niagara (Ina, Doogan, Lynch, and Stri).\u00a0 If Siena wins, Bry takes the 2009 CTC MAAC title.\u00a0 If Niagara wins, Ina completes a perfect MAAC bracket and, obviously, wins the title.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>SoCON CHAMPIONSHIP:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nSomehow, Team Davidson did not make the finals in the Davidson Conference.\u00a0 I guess maybe we should start calling it the SoCon again, as we have a couple surprises here in the finals.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#3S College of Charleston at #1N Chattanooga<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 Bobby Cremins might be returning to the tournament with College of Charleston.\u00a0 That is great news if you were a fan of the Ramblin&#8217; Wreck in the mid-90s.\u00a0 That is bad news if you are Lynch and have a shot at picking up 16 points on the entire field with a Chattanooga win tonight.\u00a0 No one had C of Charleston winning the tournament, but Lynch had Chattanooga.\u00a0 Lynch will also pick up his first CTC conference title if Chattanooga wins tonight.\u00a0 If not, Waters and Stri will share the 2009 SoCon crown.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>SUN BELT SEMIFINALS:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nAn interesting Final Four in the Sun Belt (all correctly predicted by J) gets going tonight with a semifinal double-header.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#1 Western Kentucky vs. #4 North Texas<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 The top-seeded Hilltoppers continue tonight against N. Texas.\u00a0 7 of us have WKU winning tonight and making the finals.\u00a0 Stri has N. Texas in what would be a real quality upset pick.\u00a0 Ina, Doogan, and Lynch have WKU winning this whole tournament.<\/li>\n<li><em><u>#2 Arkansas-Little Rock vs. #6 South Alabama<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 The biggest surprise participant of the Final Four, USA, takes on #2 AR-Little Rock tonight.\u00a0 No one has USA winning this game.\u00a0 Bry and J are the only two with UALR tonight.\u00a0 Both of them actually have them winning this tournament.\u00a0 The other 6 of us all had Troy winning this game, so they will be rooting for USA, so that no one gains any points on them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>SUMMIT LEAGUE SEMIFINALS:<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nAfter a two-day quarterfinal round, the Summit League is ready for its semifinal double-header in Sioux City tonight.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><u>#1 North Dakota State vs. #5 Southern Utah<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 ND State is two wins away from capping a great season with an NCAA tournament berth.\u00a0 And, they get tonight&#8217;s game on an extra day&#8217;s rest, whereas S. Utah has to come back from a win last night to play again tonight.\u00a0 Everyone has ND State, except Lynch, who had IUPUI, who lost to SUU last night.<\/li>\n<li><em><u>#3 Oakland vs. #7 South Dakota State<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 The surprise of the Summit League and one of the bigger surprises of the CTC so far was SD State&#8217;s upset win over Oral Roberts on Saturday night.\u00a0 Now, they actually gained the extra day advantage as they play an Oakland team that had to win the nightcap last night against IPFW.\u00a0 Everyone except Bry and Waters have Oakland winning this game (which would count as a mild upset).\u00a0 Bry and Waters both had ORU winning this tournament.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The calm after AND before the storm, as there are only a couple of games tonight.\u00a0 So, take a breath, think about the first week and get ready for\u00a0a big second week, starting tomorrow with the unprecedented Tuesday quadruple-header in &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=266\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,479],"tags":[493,497,495,499,488,494],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-hoops","category-conf-tourney-challenge","tag-colonial","tag-maac","tag-socon","tag-summit","tag-sun-belt","tag-wcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}