NEWS AND NOTES
Three more teams won their conference tournaments Tuesday night and accepted automatic bids to the NCAA tournament.
Butler downed UW-Milwaukee, 59-43, to wrap up the Horizon League's bid. Oakland capped a conference championship season with a 90-76 Summit League tournament win. Arkansas-Little Rock took the Sun Belt finals with a 64-63 nail-biter over North Texas. Milwaukee, the #1 Horizon tournament seed, is now "out" of my big bracket.
The Northeast and Big Sky conferences will add to the invitations list tonight. Long Island will try to validate its Northeast season title with a win against Robert Morris; and Montana and Northern Colorado battle for the Big Sky bid. There is probably room for only one Big Sky team to dance.
Princeton beat Penn, 70-58, to force a Saturday playoff against Harvard to determine the Ivy League champion. While both teams have had splendid seasons, only one will be invited to next week's party.
In other tournament action Tuesday, Dayton, St. Joseph's, LaSalle and Rhode Island advanced to the second round of the A-10 tournament. Villanova, once a top 10 team, lost its fifth consecutive game, falling to South Florida in Round 1 of the Big East tournament. That leaves the Wildcats five days to ponder their fate while waiting for Selection Sunday. Marquette picked up a much-needed win at Madison Square Garden; and UConn and Rutgers also advanced to today's Big East second round. In the MEAC, Maryland-Eastern Shore and South Carolina State earned second round berths. Bowling Green, Akron, Buffalo and Ohio advance to play the "byes" in 2nd round play in the MAC.
A number of conference tournaments start today: Big XII, Conference USA, PAC-10, Southland, SWAC and WAC. The ACC, Big Ten, Big West, and SEC don't tip off until Thursday.
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