First of all, apologies for the lack of preview/recap of the regular season finale against Gardner-Webb. I was out of the country on a cruise for most of the last week, and chose to take a break from keeping up with this blog while enjoying my time away.
But it is now time for the Big South Tournament (well, I guess it already started Wednesday), and I’m about to hit the road to High Point and wanted to put some quick thoughts out there about the tournament this year.
QUICK TOURNAMENT PREDICTIONS
FIRST ROUND:
#9 Radford over #8 USC Upstate (ok, this already happened, but I’m pretty sure I would have picked it to end up this way)
QUARTERFINALS:
#1 High Point over #9 Radford
#4 Winthrop over #5 Longwood
#2 UNC Asheville over #7 Charleston Southern
#3 Gardner-Webb over #6 Presbyterian
SEMIFINALS:
#4 Winthrop over #1 High Point
#2 UNC Asheville over #3 Gardner-Webb
FINALS:
#4 Winthrop over #2 UNC Asheville
Even though I pick chalk in the first round, the bottom half of the league is peskier than you typically see in a normal year, so I wouldn’t be stunned if any of the top 4 seeds got dropped early, but I think they all survive.
Yes, despite WU going 0-6 vs. the top 3 seeds in the regular season, I have them beating HPU and AVL to earn the title. Yes, that’s somewhat of a homer pick, but the Eagles have let prior leads to those teams slip away during the year, and I think they figure out a way to pull out victories over those programs, when it matters most.
But I’ll be honest, and say this is definitely a Winthrop team that could get knocked out on Friday as well. They split the season series vs. Longwood, and the WU shooting from 3PT range and the FT line has struggled at times down the stretch this year, so the Lancers can definitely win that first round game. But I think the Eagles find their shooting touch just enough this week to avoid the early exit, and to surprise the top two seeds over the weekend.
Blogging the WU 