Under The Radar Postseason News, Notes and Highlighted Games – Tuesday, March 22

Another day, another wave of upsets took place in the NIT last night. Sadly, one of the upsets means that we bid adieu to the Monmouth Hawks and the Hawk’s Nest for the 2015-16 season. GW got off to a fast start against the Hawks and held on for an 87-71 victory. Monmouth was able to shrink the deficit to 39-38 in the 2nd half, but GW gave itself some breathing room after a 10-0 run to open up their lead. The Colonials were a red-hot 9-for-19 from beyond the arc; Monmouth only shot 4-of-21.

For the second game in a row, South Carolina had 5 players suspended for this game and it cost them against Georgia Tech. Thanks to Marcus Georges-Hunt’s 14 points and 8 assists, the Yellow Jackets walked out of Columbia with a decisive 83-66 win against the Gamecocks. Their reward is a cross-country trip to San Diego to face San Diego State; they defeated Washington 93-78 last night. The Aztecs were led by Winston Shepard’s double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds.

In the CIT, the original Team of the People moves on once more to the quarterfinal round after defeating Boston U 83-72. Damon Lynn led the Highlanders with 31 points; Tim Coleman also had 20 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. They will get to host a game at the Fleischer Center for the 3rd straight time when Texas-Arlington visits Newark on Thursday night at 7:30 PM.

The CBI also had 4 quarterfinal games played last night. The first one was a thriller between Ohio and UNC-Greensboro; the Bobcats fell behind by as many as 12 points before clawing their way back to tie the game at 67-67 going into the final minute of the game. Jordan Davis hit a 3-pointer to put OU up for good; they also added a couple of late free throws for a 72-67 win. Ohio will end up hosting Morehead State in the semifinals; Morehead defeated Duquesne at home by an 82-72 margin. The momentum of this game shifted when Brent Arrington hit a halfcourt shot just before halftime to give the Eagles a 43-36 lead at that point.

Vermont has made the most of their cross-country roadtrip so far; they defeated Seattle 73-54 to advance to the CIT semifinals on Wednesday night. Kurt Steidl led the Catamounts with 17 points, including 3-for-4 shooting from beyond the arc. Vermont will stay out west and travel to Reno to face Nevada; the Wolf Pack beat Eastern Washington 85-70 largely due to the efforts of Tyron Criswell (a career-high 32 points) and another career-high 28 points by Cameron Oliver.

There is also one coaching vacancy that will need to be filled for a notable UTR program; Brad Underwood will be leaving Stephen F. Austin’s program to take over as head coach at Oklahoma State. Keep an eye out for our next HoopsHD podcast where we recap the tournament action from the past week plus other notable coaching changes that are being filled. That being said, it’s time to preview tonight’s postseason action:

NIT

(2) ST. MARY”S AT (1) VALPARAISO (7:00 PM, ESPN) – With the defeat of Monmouth last night, we are left with only two under-the-radar teams left in the NIT field, and they are both playing tonight at Valparaiso for the right to advance to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden. The Gaels haven’t shown that they can win notable games away from home outside of their Gonzaga win, and Valparaiso has only lost once at home all year (against Wright State). This will still be a showcase of some of the best UTR players with Valpo’s Keith Carter and Alec Peters and St. Mary’s Joe Rahon.

(4) CREIGHTON AT (2) BYU (9:00 PM, ESPN) – Creighton has been the most dominant team in the first 2 rounds of the NIT; they beat Alabama and Wagner by a combined 51 points. However, both wins were within the cozy confines of Omaha, and now must hit the road to play a BYU team that had a little harder road to get to this point. Will the higher altitude of Provo, Utah pose the same problems for Creighton that it did for their conference mates Seton Hall last weekend?

CIT

No games tonight, but here are the 4 quarterfinal matchups that were released last night:

Grand Canyon at Coastal Carolina (Wednesday, 7:00 PM)
Ball State at Columbia (Wednesday, 7:00 PM)
UC-Irvine at UL-Lafayette (Wednesday, 8:00 PM)
UT-Arlington at NJIT (Thursday, 7:30 PM)

As always, all 4 of the games will be streamed on the above CIT link.