Two of the spots in the NCAA Final Four will be determined today. However, those are not the only two Division I men’s basketball games on the schedule. In addition to the two Regional Finals, the CIT semifinals will be played today to determine the teams that will meet Tuesday night in the championship game. Today’s schedule (all times Eastern) is:
Evansville (21-14) @ East Carolina (21-12) 5:00 pm
Weber State (29-6) @ Northern Iowa (21-14) 8:00 pm
Both games will be streamed live at watchcollegeinsider.com.
While the first game on the slate presents an interesting match-up of teams that had somewhat mediocre regular seasons before putting together a run to this round of the CIT, it is the later of the two games that is clearly our featured game of the day. Weber State and Northern Iowa were, on paper, probably the two favorites to take the CIT title this season, anf the winner will clearly be the favorite to cut down the nets as champion.
Weber State sits at 29 wins on the season and has a chance to reach the elite level of 30 victories tonight. They were clearly the second best team in the Big Sky this season behind Montana, and but for a bad loss in conference play to Montana State, might have had a chance to host the conference tournament which could have resulted in a different NCAA tournament representative out of the Big Sky.
Northern Iowa was solid all season in the Missouri Valley Conference, picking up a win over Wichita State on the way and playing at times like a potential NCAA tournament team. They have already eliminated conference-mate Bradley, Illinois-Chicago and North Dakota in this tournament, all by fairly easy margins. However, Weber State has been even more decisive in their CIT victories, including a 42 point blowout of Cal Poly in the first round. While tonight’s game is far from the most important college basketball game to be played today, it may very well end up being the most exciting.