March 3-5
Hosted by: Mercer University, located in Macon, Georgia. The building is Mercer’s home court, the University Center, which holds 3200 people.
Sponsored by: General Shale Brick. Who else? The full name is: “Atlantic Sun 2011 Championship, brought to you by General Shale Brick: Building the American Dream.” American Shale Brick is entering their sixth season as sponsor, and is “one of the leading exterior building materials manufacturers in the United State,” offering “more than 250 types of brick in a full range of colors and textures as well as special shapes and details.” Hopefully those are the only bricks we see in Macon this week!!!!!!! LOL.
Tickets: $75 for adults. $50 for seniors. $20 Youth. $50 Students (12-22 with valid college id). What the hell? No grad students allowed?
The Bracket:
Another tournament in which the quarterfinals are split up. I don’t get these. Must be that they’re in cahoots with the establishments in Macon, Georgia in an attempt to get more tourists and visitors in for more days, and pump $$$$$ into the local economy, most notably, General Shale Brick.
Wednesday March 2: #1 Belmont v. #8 Kennesaw State
#2 East Tennesse State v #7 Campbell
Thursday March 3: #3 Jacksonville v. #6 North Florida
#4 Lipscomb v. #5 Mercer
Friday March 4: Semis
Saturday March 5: Finals.
The Favorite: Belmont. Far and away. I spent time talking about Belmont in my inaugural post of teams that are “underrated.” So, I will not reiterate those things now. The question, however, is what happens should Belmont lose? Would they make the tournament? I would put them in if I were on the committee. I’m not, however, and I would guess that they would not get in. Belmont played Kennesaw State yesterday, and won 88-41, so they should win again. However, they will then play Lipscomb or Mercer. Mercer is playing on home court, and Lipscomb is the only A-Sun team to take down Belmont this year. Potential pitfalls?
The argument of whether Belmont should get in relates back to my earlier point about looking at an entire resume. For arguments sake, lets look at Lunardi. He currently has Belmont as a #13 (moving down after winning by 47). Say they are on the level of Michigan, Baylor, and Richmond. Should any of those teams lose in their conference tourney (they almost all assuredly will), they will likely not fall out. If Michigan loses to Michigan State or Illinois, they will not fall out, but Belmont would. Now, I am not arguing that a loss to Mercer would be on par with a loss to Michigan State. What I am arguing is that it shouldn’t matter. If the teams are good enough and have shown enough to get into the tournament at this point, there shouldn’t be much jostling around. They’ve all played close to 30 games. They have 2-4 left. That is such a small percentage of their entire workload. There should NOT be radical changes in who is in and out based on the final week.
Trivia: If Belmont wins the title, they will be winners of 30 games, the most in A-Sun history.
The all time single season scorer in A-Sun history is Sam Mitchell, from Mercer University in the 1984-1985 season (hes 5th all time). A few interesting facts about Mitchell: a) he was on the inaugural 1989 Timberwolves team, b) he was involved in a trade with Pooh Richardson, c) he was head coach of the Raptors for a brief stint after Kevin O’ Neill was fired, d) he is now an assistant with the Nets.
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