As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket next week. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winners

Wofford

Wofford will be a scary #12-seed next week if the matchup is right. (AP Photo/Adam Jennings)

• Southern Conference Champion (28-6, 16-2)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #48/#90/#86
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +5.0
• Likely NCAA Seed: #12

Strength: Control is the name of the game for Wofford, on both sides of the ball. Offensively, the Terriers like to slow things down (19.1 seconds per possession) and look for the best shot, which often winds up in the hands of conference Player of the Year Karl Cochran; the guard takes more than one-third of his team’s shots when he is on the floor. The SoCon champs also do a great job of taking care of the ball, coughing it up just four times in their 55-54 upset over North Carolina State in December. Still, as steady as its offense can be, Wofford’s real bread and butter is on the defensive end where it holds opponents to just over 0.97 points per possession. The Terriers tend not to gamble in the full-court (in line with that whole ‘control’ idea), but they do like making life difficult on the perimeter – reflected in their 30.8 percent three-point defense (26th-best mark in college hoops).

Weakness: Wofford severely lacks size – ranking 329th nationally in effective height – and it shows against much bigger opponents. In its season opener against Stanford, the Terriers were single-handedly beaten by 6’11” big man Stefan Nastic, who scored 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting. It was a similar story in Cameron Indoor Stadium, where Duke’s Jahlil Okafor shot 11-of-14 and scored 24 points. Forwards Lee Skinner and C.J. Neumann are both good players, but their lack of height (6’6” and 6’7”, respectively) could become a liability against a much larger NCAA Tournament opponent.

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Three more leagues crowned their champions last night, as Manhattan (MAAC), Northeastern (CAA) and Wofford (Big South) punched their respective tickets to the Big Dance. The Circle of March dropped 12 more teams from its ranks last night, leaving us with 210 eligibles still alive and a whole slew to come over the next six days. There will be three more championships completed this evening, as the NEC, Summit League and WCC finish off their tournaments before most of the big boys really get going on Wednesday.

Eliminations (03.09.15)

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Championship Week is upon us. And while some mid-majors have already locked up their spots in the Big Dance, it’s time for the major conference tournaments to get under way. Here’s a brief look at each of those upcoming tournaments with a description of one team in each that is primed to use the postseason as the catalyst for a run and one potential bid-stealer.

AAC

SMU is Somewhat Flying Under the Radar (USA Today Images)

• Team to Watch: SMU – This one might seem obvious as SMU is the top seed and the best team in the conference. But such is the state of the AAC that the Mustangs are really the only team with a shot to make some noise in March. Temple is an NCAA Tournament team but isn’t anything special, and the same could be said for Cincinnati and Tulsa, if either cracks the field of 68.
• Potential Bid-Stealer: UConn – Hey, we’ve certainly seen the Huskies get hot before. There haven’t been many indications that Kevin Ollie’s team can put together a run, but its draw is favorable — SMU is on the opposite side of the bracket — so a Sunday date with the Mustangs with an NCAA Tournament bid on the line is a distinct possibility.

ACC

• Team to Watch: North Carolina – The Tar Heels have amazingly lost six of their last 10 games en route to a fifth-place finish in the ACC. But since an ugly loss to NC State a couple weeks ago, they’ve looked decent and are capable of exploding at any time. North Carolina has elite athleticism and a guard in Marcus Paige who is one of college basketball’s best when he’s locked in. The Heels — playing in front of the always-friendly Greensboro crowd — should be favored against Louisville in the quarterfinals before meeting a Virginia team that could still be at less than full strength.
• Potential Bid-Stealer: Miami – Miami isn’t a bid-stealer, per se, because the Hurricanes don’t have to win the ACC Tournament to earn entry into the Dance. They probably only need two victories but they’ve been given an intriguing road as the #6 seed. Provided the Hurricanes win their Wednesday game against Wake Forest or Virginia Tech, Notre Dame and then potentially Duke await. Miami has already gone toe-to-toe with both this year in their buildings, and even beat Duke at Cameron. If Jim Larranaga’s team were to pull off those two upsets, anything could happen in the championship game.

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What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Griffin Wong (@griffwong90) is your weekly host.

Indiana Fans Getting Impatient

After getting handled by Iowa and versus Michigan State in Bloomington over the last week, Indiana has now lost four of their last five games. The Hoosiers are hanging by a thread and another misstep in the Big Ten Tournament could cost them an NCAA Tournament bid. For some Indiana fans, their anger toward head coach Tom Crean is growing.

Well, this is genius. http://t.co/6tl9Vm7x4U pic.twitter.com/1SQtuAnTrj

— Kami Mattioli (@kmattio) March 5, 2015

Wow. Just wow. RT @markalesia: And now we have this: http://t.co/mGwlTkbhTB (h/t @FakeCoachWilson) #iubb pic.twitter.com/2eTPGnSen5

— Matt Glenesk (@MattGlenesk) March 5, 2015

Well, well, well. http://t.co/83D7nh349X is officially a thing.

— Tony Adragna (@tonyadragna) March 5, 2015

A nice idea in theory, but $12 million is quite the sum.

Izzo’s Wild Saturday

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It’s not that Kentucky’s perfect regular season was never in doubt, because it often was. It took three overtime periods to dispatch the Wildcats’ first two SEC opponents (Mississippi and Texas A&M). LSU was a Keith Hornsby three away from ending the perfect season (ask Arkansas how that can turn out). And just earlier this week, Georgia had the ‘Cats on the ropes, leading by nine points in Athens with under 10 minutes to play. Kentucky was tested time and time again this season, yet the Wildcats found a way to outscore their opponents 31 times without fail. Fill in your own superlative here, because it’s been a truly historic run: No power conference team has completed a perfect regular season since Indiana did the trick on its way to a national title in 1976.

Kentucky’s History-Making Season Continued Saturday. Up Next: The SEC Tournament. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Bids at perfection in college basketball – and in all sports, for that matter — are so often accompanied by a burdensome tension. As the wins pile up, the looming specter of history can turn the games into an exercise in survival. Kentucky has somehow avoided this transformation. No matter how sturdy the challenger or dire the circumstances, the Wildcats have steadfastly maintained control of their season. John Calipari has cultivated a respect for the process rarely found among groups of 18- to 20-year olds. Accordingly, Kentucky has yet to flinch in the face of a challenge — his team has never lost trust in either its coach or the plan. Lately, amid the discussion of Kentucky’s postseason chances, a tired cliché has been making the rounds. Some pundits have said, “the only team that can beat Kentucky is Kentucky.” If missing jump shots is somehow beating yourself, then sure, Kentucky might end up “beating itself.” But anyone familiar with the team’s entire of body of work within this 31-0 regular season will be quick to tell you that, more than anything else, these young Wildcats have always shown up. Expecting a deviation from that standard is silly, particularly when you consider the considerable motivational talents of Calipari.

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With seven days left until the Field of 68 is announced, the Circle of March continues to shed contenders. Three more automatic qualifiers were anointed on Sunday — Coastal Carolina, North Florida and Northern Iowa are going Dancing — but 15 other schools will have to wait until next year. The next couple of days will be light in terms of eliminations, but we’ll be going from today’s 222 eligible teams to a third of that in really short order. Tonight the CAA, MAAC and SoCon will decide their champions. Enjoy the ride!

Eliminations (03.08.15)

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1. The first automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament were handed out over the weekend. The first school to earn an automatic bid was Belmont, which upset Murray State on Saturday night to receive the Ohio Valley automatic bid. Yesterday, they were joined by North Florida (Atlantic Sun), Coastal Carolina (Big South), and Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley). There will be three other automatic bids handed out later today with the Colonial, Mid-American, and Southern Conference all awarding their titles. If you are looking for a handy although not real-time infographic showing who is remaining in the field check out our Circle of March feature, which is updated daily.
2. On Friday, NCAA handed down its sanctions against Syracuse after looking into the school for eight years (full 98-page report here). The headline of the sanctions is that Jim Boeheim will have to sit out for half of next year’s ACC regular season (nine games) and have 108 wins vacated from his record (moving him from 2nd to 6th on the all-time Division I men’s wins list for the time being), but the other sanctions and the stain it will leave on the program and those around it will probably have a more significant long-term effect. The scholarship reductions and limitations on the number of assistants who can go on recruiting trips could significantly impact the program for years to come. On an individual level, this will also make it more difficult for Mike Hopkins (the long-time coach-in-waiting) to succeed Boeheim and will also make it more difficult for him to get hired. The level of penalties (and the decision by the NCAA to only prosecute violations starting a few weeks after Syracuse won its only national title–very convenient…) should also make other schools–like one in particular in North Carolina–nervous.
3. Speaking of NCAA violations, based on a report from Yahoo! Sports, Cliff Alexander is being investigated by the NCAA because his mother received a loan from a company that typically makes loans to professional athletes and agents. While it is not unusual for college athletes (or their families) to receive these type of loans it is usually after the athlete has finished competing in college as such a loan would be a NCAA violation. According to the report, both the NCAA and Kansas are trying to move the investigation along, but that Alexander’s legal counsel might be slowing it down. Given what we have read about the situation we doubt that we will see Alexander in a Kansas uniform again (at least until they need him for a promotional photo).
4. The coaching carousel is starting to heat up. As of Sunday night, the two newest positions to open up are at Holy Cross where Milan Brown was fired and Penn where Jerome Allen will step down (a nice way of saying he was fired). We doubt that either is big enough to attract a big name candidate both positions should attract attention from mid-major coaches although there is a possibility that someone who is out of coaching might use one of the positions as a stepping stone to get back in. During his five seasons at Holy Cross, Brown went 69-83 with only two winning seasons (15-14 in 2011-12 and 20-14 in 2013-14). Allen, a former star at Penn who was a 2nd round pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, is 66-103 in six seasons heading into his final game on Tuesday.
5. Senior nights are special in a lot of ways, but Georgetown’s senior night on Saturday stands out for the return of Tyler Adams, who has been sidelined since his freshman year due to an arrhythmia. While Senior Nights are typically reserved for individuals who remained on the team, John Thompson III, who has kept Adams on scholarship despite not playing for the team, decided to start Adams and ran the first play for Adams, which he dunked. Even though there were a lot of highlights from the weekend this moment will stick with us for the class that Thompson and Seton Hall showed giving Adams one last moment as a player as he enters the next phase of his life.

As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket next week. The first team to gain entry into the 2015 NCAA Tournament is Belmont, the Ohio Valley Conference champion. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winner.

Belmont Bruins

Belmont took down the 25th-ranked Racers and punched a ticket to the Dance. (Samuel M. Simpkins / The Tennessean)

• OVC Champion (22-10, 11-5)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #144/#147/#151
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +2.4
• Likely NCAA Seed: #15

Strength: Another year, another Belmont roster loaded with outside shooters. As usual with Rick Byrd’s 4-out, 1-in motion offense, Belmont hoists three-pointers at an incredibly high rate – 26 attempts per contest, which account for nearly 50 percent of its shots – and hits them often enough (37.9% 3FG) to remain competitive on most nights. And when the ball movement is really crisp and the shots are really falling, it’s capable of flat-out bludgeoning opponents; against Eastern Illinois in the Ohio Valley Tournament quarterfinals, the Bruins shot 16-of-27 from behind the arc and crushed the Panthers by 33 points. The constant movement and ball-screening also enables Byrd’s club to find easy buckets on backdoor cuts, a major reason why it ranks fifth nationally in two-point percentage (56.2% 2FG).

Weakness: The Bruins give up 106.4 points per 100 possessions this season, their worst mark since 2006 and the fourth-worst mark within the Ohio Valley. With no prominent player standing taller than 6’8”, they are susceptible to being gashed inside and occasionally manhandled on the glass. Belmont’s two-point defense (51.2% 2FG) ranks among the 60 worst in college basketball. Offensively, the Bruins turn the ball over at their highest rate since 2010 (evident at times against Murray State on Saturday), lowlighted by 18-turnover and 16-turnover losses to Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State, respectively, in early February.

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What a phenomenal Saturday of college basketball. The focus of the world was on the dramatics of games in Chapel Hill, Louisville, Norman and Bloomington, among others, but the Circle of March was instead tuned into the eight conference tournaments that were under way and the number of other leagues that eliminated schools from our eligibility list by virtue of the season ending. As a result, a whopping 39 schools dropped off of the CoM in the last 24 hours, leaving us with a total of 237 eligibles heading into the heart of Championship Fortnight. By this point next week, we’ll be down to around 80 or so. Congratulations are due to Belmont, the first automatic qualifier of the year as the OVC champion; the second qualifier from the Missouri Valley will solve for its representative later today at Arch Madness.

 Eliminations (03.07.15)

• Arkansas State
• Brown
• Bryant
• Cal State Fullerton
• Canisius
• Chattanooga
• Cleveland State
• College of Charleston
• Columbia
• Cornell
• Dartmouth
• Delaware
• Denver
• East Tennessee State
• Elon
• Florida Atlantic
• Gardner-Webb
• Idaho State
• Illinois-Chicago
• James Madison
• Longwood
• Loyola (Chicago)
• Marist
• Montana State
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Princeton
• Rider
• Saint Mary’s
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Santa Clara
• Siena
• Southern Utah
• Sain Francis (PA)
• Troy
• UNC-Greensboro
• VMI
• Western Illinois

We’re already through the first “week” of Championship Fortnight, and some 58 eligible teams have been eliminated from contention from the Circle of March (and National Championship contention). Friday night was particularly busy, with 18 more schools removed after losses in their conference tournaments. Saturday will be a very busy day, as the Summit League tips off its tournament and seven others are in action. The focus of today will be in the OVC, as Murray State will battle Belmont for the the league championship (and accompanying automatic bid), and the Ivy League, where Yale will attempt to wrap up its first conference championship in over 50 years (1962) with a road game at Dartmouth. Note that it’s our standard that we do not remove teams until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us for a little longer.

 Eliminations (03.06.15)

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