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NCAA Tournament: Updating Conference Tournament Brackets & Who’s Dancing

By Nathan Giese

Mar 14, 2015; Anaheim, CA, USA; UC Irvine Anteaters forward Ioannis Dimakopoulos (12) kisses the trophy for the Big West Conference Tournament championship as the UC Irvine Anteaters celebrate after the game against the Hawaii Warriors at Honda Center. The UC Irvine Anteaters won 67-58. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 14, 2015; Anaheim, CA, USA; UC Irvine Anteaters forward Ioannis Dimakopoulos (12) kisses the trophy for the Big West Conference Tournament championship as the UC Irvine Anteaters celebrate after the game against the Hawaii Warriors at Honda Center. The UC Irvine Anteaters won 67-58. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports /
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Nov 13, 2015; Lubbock, TX, USA; High Point Panthers forward John Brown (0) dunks the ball against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the first half at United Supermarkets Arena. Mandatory Credit: Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 13, 2015; Lubbock, TX, USA; High Point Panthers forward John Brown (0) dunks the ball against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the first half at United Supermarkets Arena. Mandatory Credit: Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports /

Big South

Projected Champ: High Point Panthers

Actual Champ: High Point & Winthrop Eagles (co-champions)

Bracket

#1 High Point vs. winner of #8 Charleston Southern/#9 Longwood
#4 UNC Asheville vs. #5 Liberty
#2 Winthrop vs. winner of #7 Radford/#10 Presbyterian
#3 Coastal Carolina vs. winner of #6 Gardner-Webb/#11 Campbell

Yet another shared regular season title making another mid-major conference tournament interesting. Winthrop and High Point enter as the top seeds, having finished 13-5 in Big South play, but Coastal Carolina and UNC-Asheville each finished just a game back, so the race was rather close.

High Point enters with a six-game winning streak and one of the best small school players in the country in John Brown, who also happens to be one of the nation’s best dunkers.

Brown ranks third in the conference in scoring (19.6 points per game) for the Panthers. To counter, Winthrop has three players in the top 10 in conference scoring (Keon Johnson, Jimmy Gavin and Xavier Cooks) who all average 14.5 points or more.

The Favorite: High Point

There’s one aspect to High Point that feels very important: they have just one double-digit loss this season and that includes their non-conference schedule.

Even though that double-digit loss was a 20-point blowout defeat at Winthrop, every other game that resulted in a loss, including road games at Texas Tech, Georgia and N.C. State, came by five points or less. That’s unheard of for mid-majors, especially when you include their non-conference slate against power teams.

The Panthers have the momentum, including beating Winthrop on Thursday, and are in every single game. They haven’t been outplayed more than once this season and that’s critical for teams looking to advance to the NCAA tournament.