NCAA Tournament Watch: Austin Peay, Yale Going Dancing

Because, of course, it’s not March Madness without the madness. Eighth seed Austin Peay is going to the NCAA tournament. What you need to know about the Governors and the Yale Bulldogs.

Things have already gotten a little mad for March Madness. That much is certain, because we have the eighth seed from the Ohio Valley Conference being fitted for dancing shoes as we speak.

On Saturday, the Austin Peay Governors punched its ticket to the 2016 NCAA tournament, completing the four-wins-in-four-days gauntlet, knocking off second seed UT-Martin in the OVC tournament championship game.

This is Austin Peay’s first appearance in the Big Dance since 2008 as the OVC has recently been dominated by Murray State and Belmont, the latter being the team the Governors upset in the semifinal to get to Saturday’s game.

The Governors won on the heels of 16 made three-pointers, eight of which came from freshman Jared Savage, who went 8-of-14 from distance to the tune of 24 points to led the now-NCAA bound underdogs.

More hoops habit: NBA Power Rankings: Week 19

What You Need To Know:

Austin Peay is likely to become a 16th seed, as is the case most times when a team comes from out of nowhere to win their conference tournament. They now hold an 18-17 record and went just 7-9 in OVC play.

Their resume is rather … something. A 39-point loss to Vanderbilt opened up their season and was followed by a 26-point loss to Indiana. Their most recent loss, though, came more than two weeks ago as they have now won six straight games to get to this point. That loss was a 16-point defeat at home at the hands of Murray State.

You likely won’t need to worry about them busting any brackets as a probable 16th seed, but it’s a pretty nice story regardless.

As for Belmont, they’ll have to settle for the NIT, a victory for some for a season’s worth of work, but the Bruins had made the tournament four of the past five seasons, so this is a disappointment.

AND YALE!!

For the first time since 1962, the Yale Bulldogs are on their way to the NCAA tournament with the automatic bid earned from winning the Ivy League regular season title.

Harvard had been the Ivy representative in each of the past four year prior to Yale’s triumph this season, so this is relatively new for everybody involved.

The Bulldogs are led by Justin Sears, who averages over 15 points and seven rebounds per game.

Here’s what you need to know about Yale:

As of Sunday morning (March 6), ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Yale pegged as a 13th seed. Not a lot of big wins in the non-conference slate worth gloating about for the Bulldogs, but they lost at SMU by just two, at Illinois by four and at USC by 14, so they were close to some marquee wins a few times.

It should be noted that the same Lunardi bracket that has Yale in as a 13th seed does not have Austin Peay in the field yet. It’s possibly an oversight, but I would expect the Governors to be a 16th seed, as CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm has them as (playing the play-in game against projected Northeast Conference rep Wagner).

Next: 2016 NCAA Tournament: Finding Cinderella

Sunday brings three more tickets punched as the Big South, Missouri Valley and Atlantic Sun all hold their conference tournament championship games.