Big Red Freshness Lasts Right Through It. Cornell 95, Brown 76.  It probably took a little longer than the nervous Big Red faithful hoped to put away the pesky Brown Bears tonight, but in the end, it was simply a formality because Cornell players were so narrowly focused on winning their third straight Ivy League title and NCAA bid that there was no way they were going to lose this game tonight.  How focused were they?  Try a season-best 57% shooting and an utterly ridonkulous 20-30 from deep tonight.  At one point during the conflagration of shot-making by the Big Red, they hit eight treys in a row en route to an 11-13 first half.  But it was the second half where Cornell exhibited its dominance, using a 14-4 run early to take control of the game and ensure another title coming to Ithaca this season.  All five starters reached double figures, but it was lesser-known forward Jon Jaques who took the scoring honors with 20/7 tonight (including six threes).  In all, four players had four or more threes, which we figure has to be some kind of a record for versatile and voluminous shooting!  Cornell will now wait to see where their NCAA seed lies, but the smart money is on a #12 seed when the brackets are released.  Anyone up for a #12/#5 upset this year?

Will 3d Time Be the Charm For Cornell? (Ithaca Journal/G. Ertl)

RTC Live.

• Wichita State 73, Missouri State 63.  On Quarterfinal Friday in St. Louis, top seed Northern Iowa defeated Drake, Bradley upset Creighton and Illinois State won the nightcap. And in the game you followed here on RTC Live, Wichita State held off Missouri State, 73-63. A close, hard-fought and well-played game, the Shockers were paced by Garrett Stutz, whose play in the paint helped them overcome hot outside shooting of the Bears. Stutz finished with 19 points and 6 rebounds, and converted on back-to-back possessions during a key stretch of the second half to help them pull away. The Shockers advance to play the Redbirds of Illinois State tomorrow afternoon here in St. Louis.

Conference Tourneys.  Eight conference tourneys tonight, and a ridiculous thirteen tomorrow.  Let’s see what was interesting…

• Ohio Valley.  The top two teams — Murray State and Morehead State — both advanced tonight to the finals on Saturday.  Murray has put together a phenomenal 29-win season, so it’d be a shame to see them miss out on the NCAAs, but Morehead is the only OVC team to have beaten the Racers this year.  It was Morehead tonight, though, not Murray, who had the comfortable win in the semis.  Should be a great one on Saturday for the auto-bid.
• Atlantic Sun.  #6 seed Mercer continues to use its home court advantage to knock off higher-seeded teams with tonight’s victory over #2 Jacksonville.  #5 East Tennessee State was able to get by #8 Kennesaw State whom had knocked off top seed Belmont last night.  So it’ll be Mercer vs. ETSU for the automatic bid.  The Bucs will be playing in their third A-Sun title game in four years, and will be looking to win back-t0-back NCAA bids despite having not finished first in the regular season in either of the last two years.
• Horizon.  In the Horizon second round tonight, #7 Detroit continues to turn heads with another upset win behind Eli Holman’s dub-dub (16/11), while #4 Milwaukee earned the pleasure of facing #1 Butler in the semifinals on Saturday by defeating #5 Cleveland State.  The Titans will play #2 Wright State in the other semifinal — neither of the top two seeds have played yet in this tournament, while Detroit has already played two games and Milwaukee one.

• Missouri Valley.  Quarterfinal Friday at Arch Madness yielded only one minor upset, with #5 Bradley taking out #4 Creighton.  The top three seeds took care of business, and all will advance to Saturday’s semifinals.  UNI in particular got themselves down double-figures early, but used a 29-2 run bridging halftime to take complete control of their game against #8 Drake.  #2 Wichita State’s ten-point victory over #7 Missouri State was tonight’s RTC Live game (recapped above).  The semis will see UNI take on Bradley (RTC Live game), while Wichita and Illinois State will do battle in the second game.
• Colonial.  The big upset in Richmond today was #11 James Madison taking down #6 Drexel.  Otherwise, the higher seeds #5 VCU, #7 Hofstra and #8 Towson all advanced into the second round.  The JMU upset is surprising because the Dukes only won four CAA games all season, while Drexel was for a while in the thick of things in the conference race.  The beneficiary of the upset is #3 William & Mary, who will play JMU on Saturday in the quarterfinals.  Although the Tribe should be careful given one of their six conference losses was a six-point defeat to the Dukes.
• MAAC.  In the #8/#9 game, Manhattan took out Loyola (MD), and will be rewarded with playing #1 Siena in the quarterfinals on Saturday.  Siena is not a serious bubble team, so despite their talent and pedigree, the Saints need to win the MAAC Tournament to secure another bid to the NCAAs.  #7 Canisius also got past #10 Marist tonight, and the Griffins will get #2 Fairfield in the quarters tomorrow.
• Southern.  It’s weird seeing Davidson bowing out so early in their conference tournament, but that’s what happened tonight as the 9-22 Elon Phoenix knocked the Wildcats out in a first round game in Charlotte.  UNC-Greensboro, The Citadel and Chattanooga also advanced into the quarterfinal round.  The four favorites all play these teams tomorrow, and if they all advance to the semifinal round, this could be a wide-open battle from that point on.
• WCC.  In the WCC first round, #5 LMU continued its late-season surge by outlasting #8 Pepperdine behind Vernon Teel’s 27 points.  #6 San Diego extended its disappointing season by getting past #7 Santa Clara in the nightcap.  These teams move on to the second round to face #4 USF and #3 Portland, respectively.  The top two seeds, Gonzaga and St. Mary’s, will not play until Sunday in the semifinal round.

On Tap Tomorrow.  Championship Saturday, Part I. A ridiculous amount of games where one team will advance and another will finish its season on this day.  Make sure to keep an especially close eye on that OVC title game, because those are two excellent teams.

• Big South Championship – #3 Winthrop @ #1 Coastal Carolina
• Ohio Valley Championship – #1 Murray State vs. #2 Morehead State
• Atlantic Sun Championship – #5 ETSU @ #6 Mercer
• Horizon semis – #1 Butler vs. #4 Milwaukee; #2 Wright State vs. #7 Detroit
  
• Missouri Valley semis – #1 Northern Iowa vs. #5 Bradley; #2 Wichita State vs. #3 Illinois State
• Colonial quarters – #1 Old Dominion vs. #8 Towson; #4 George Mason vs. #5 VCU; #2 Northeastern vs. #7 Hofstra; #3 William & Mary vs. #11 James Madison
• America East quarters – #1 Stony Brook vs. #8 Albany; #4 Boston vs. #5 Hartford; #2 Vermont vs. #7 UMBC; #3 Maine vs. #6 New Hampshire
• MAAC quarters – #4 St. Peter’s vs. #5 Rider; #3 Iona vs. #6 Niagara
• Southern quarters – #N2 Western Carolina vs. #N6 Elon; #S1 Wofford vs. #N4 UNC-Greensboro; #N1 Appalachian State vs. #S4 The Citadel; #S2 Charleston vs. #N3 Chattanooga
• Summit quarters – #1 Oakland vs. #8 UMKC; #2 IUPUI vs. #7 Western Carolina
  
• Big Sky quarters – #3 Montana State vs. #6 Portland State; #4 Montana vs. #5 Northern Arizona
  
• WCC 2d round – #4 San Francisco vs. #5 Loyola Marymount; #3 Portland vs. #6 San Diego
• Sun Belt 1st round – #8 Florida Atlantic vs. #9 South Alabama; #5 Arkansas State vs. #12 Arkansas-Little Rock; #4 Western Kentucky vs. #13 New Orleans; #6 Denver vs. #11 FIU; #7 Louisiana-Lafayette vs. #10 Louisiana-Monroe

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 5:33 am by rtmsf and is filed under after the buzzer, Regular Features. Tagged: atlantic sun, brown, colonial, cornell, garrett stutz, horizon, ivy league, jon jaques, maac, missouri st, mvc, ovc, wichita st. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.