UTR Postseason News, Notes and Highlighted Games – Wednesday, April 3

For Jon Teitel’s interviews with National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Famer Homer Drew – CLICK HERE

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Omaha Academic All-American Matt Pile – CLICK HERE

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Danene Charles about her sister Daedra Charles (Hall of Fame from Tennessee) – CLICK HERE

The finals of the NIT are now set – the first team to advance was the Lipscomb Bisons thanks to their comeback from an 11-point deficit in the 2nd half. Lipscomb led by 5 at halftime, but Wichita State outscored Lipscomb 31-15 in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half to take a 61-50 lead. From there, Wichita State could only manage to score 3 points (all on free throws) and Lipscomb outscored the Shockers 21-3 to win 71-64. Garrison Matthews had 34 points for the Bisons; Rob Marberry also added 14 points.

Texas used some great defense last night to hold TCU to 17 points at halftime and ended up winning 58-44. Kerwin Roach II led the Longhorns with 22 points; Dylan Osetkowski also had 13 points and 9 rebounds. For TCU, the waiting game now begins to see whether or not Jamie Dixon will either move on to take the UCLA head coaching job or if they end up reaching an agreement to extend Dixon’s contract at TCU.

In the CIT, C. J. Burks hit four free throws in the final minute to give Marshall an 80-78 victory against the Hampton Pirates. Hampton was able to hold the high-scoring Marshall attack to 29 points in the 2nd half and was able to climb out of a 13-point halftime hole, but didn’t have enough left in the tank to close the deal.

Marshall will end up hosting Green Bay for the CIT Championship on Thursday; the Phoenix needed overtime but ended up beating Texas Southern 87-86. The Tigers actually extended the game to overtime by holding Green Bay scoreless for the final two minutes of regulation and were able to get a game-tying layup from Jeremy Combs with 7 seconds left. Combs looked like he was going to be a folk hero for the Tigers with his go-ahead shot with 8 seconds left in the OT period, but Sandy Cohen III hit a jumper from the free-throw line with 1.5 seconds remaining to give the Phoenix the victory.

On the head coaching front, there have been 2 notable events – one will be that Kelvin Sampson will remain at Houston and sign a contract extension after being courted by Arkansas. Buzz Williams, on the other hand, will officially move on from Virginia Tech to become the next head coach at Texas A&M.

CBI (Game 2, South Florida leads 1-0)

SOUTH FLORIDA AT DEPAUL (8:00 PM, ESPNU) – Despite being held 30 points below their average in the CBI Tournament on Monday, the Blue Demons still had a shot at extending the game to overtime after Eli Cain tied the game with under 10 seconds remaining in regulation. Alas for the Blue Demons, the Bulls’ David Collins answered with a driving shot of his own with 1.6 seconds left to give South Florida a 63-61 victory in the first game of the CBI Championship Series. USF can win the CBI with a victory tonight, but DePaul can extend the series to a third and final game with a win of their own.

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