College hoops Sunday: More tournament bids won

A few more inches to the right and Michigan wins 73-72. Instead, Indiana escaped Ann Arbor with sole possession of the Big Ten regular-season title.

To paraphrase Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington, that’s the way basketball go sometimes.

Creighton led by 13 with five minutes remaining, but the Shockers made a late run to narrow the gap to one. However it proved to be too little to late, as the Bluejays held on for the win.

While Wichita State held the nation’s top shooting team in check, they only shot 33.8% from the field themselves and couldn’t hit from deep, going 7-of-22 from beyond the arc. With McDermott held in check, the rest of the Bluejays stepped up in a collaborative effort.

The Flames made a run midway through the second half and built a comfortable lead they would not relinquish. After taking a 35-34 halftime lead, Liberty and Charleston Southern stayed close until the Flames went on a run with about 13 minutes left in the game. The Flames went on a 20-10 run to build a 70-57 lead with 4:41 remaining and held on to earn their third NCAA Tournament bid.

The Flames made an exciting run through the Big South Tournament, defeating Coastal Carolina 78-61 in the first round, knocking off the No. 1 seed in the North, High Point, 61-60 in the quarterfinals, and defeating Gardner-Webb 65-62 in the semis.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 2 seed Western Illinois also advanced, and waits on the winner of No. 3 North Dakota State and No. 6 UMKC. The semifinal games will be played on Monday, with the title game on Tuesday.

An updated bracket is available here. Here is how the rest of the tournament schedule looks (all times Eastern):

The 2013 Southern Conference men’s basketball tournament is in full swing, with the semifinal portion of the bracket set to take place Sunday. All of the top four seeds are still alive, with top-seeded Davidson the favorite to win after going 17-1 in the conference (24-7 overall) to win a regular season championship. Last year, Davidson won the tournament in an overtime thriller against Western Carolina.

The tournament got off to an intriguing start, with lower seeds winning the first three games of the day on Friday. Higher seeds have won the last five straight, however. Davidson, Appalachian State, Elon and Charleston all won by an average of 14 points Saturday after resting Friday with first round byes.

Top-seeded Charleston Southern will take on Cinderella story Liberty on Sunday for the Big South title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The game airs on ESPN2 at noon ET and streams live on ESPN3.

Liberty is much more limited on offense, scoring five fewer points per game than the Buccaneers — 73.9 to 68.6 — and shooting a lower percentage from the field. So just how did Liberty get to this point? After soundly beating Coastal Carolina in the opening round of the tournament, the Flames squeaked by top-seeded High Point, 61-60, and Gardner-Webb, 65-62. Neither game got into the 70s, which is where the Buccaneers like to take things.