Another night, another upset

The Southern Conference tournament was supposed to conclude with a battle royale between the two teams that ate up select national headlines at times, Davidson and Appalachian State. Each team had 25 wins, but needed to win the SoCon tournament for bids due to the (very) weak underbelly of lower-tier SoCon teams.

Dontaye Draper and Charleston had other ideas, and took down the only conference team that beat Davidson in the regular season by winning 89-87 in OT. Draper had eight threes and finished with 38 points in one of the season's great performances. Charleston was a sick 11-of-21 from behind the arc.

So now, instead of the rematch between teams with 32 combined conference wins, the focus switches to whether or not Bobby Cremins can return to the NCAAs in his first year at the helm in the Lowcountry by beating a Davidson team led by freshman Stephen Curry.

In other conference tourney action, form actually held in an Arch Madness quarterfinal round for what seems like the first time this millenium. The victories by Creighton and Missouri State likely mean that this conference is a lock for three bids and will not have to be sweating (as hard as last year) on Selection Sunday. However, if Bradley can knock off Southern Illinois this afternoon, it sets up and intriguing Sunday scenario where the Valley could get their four bids from a year ago.

My dream of Yale sending the Ivy into apocalypse was officially killed off by Penn last night, clinching the first of the 31 auto bids for the Quakers.

Four conferences that decide things like they should give out their invites today. In addition to the aforementioned SoCon title game, East Tennessee State plays Belmont in the A-Sun, Winthrop and VMI get together in the Big South and Austin Peay takes on Eastern Kentucky in the Ohio Valley.