Under the Radar Game of the Day: Liberty at UNC-Asheville

Liberty at UNC-Asheville, 2:00 PM Eastern, ASN

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The Big South Conference used to do things wrong.  They would play their entire conference tournament in Myrtle Beach on Coastal Carolina’s home court, giving the Chanticleers the home court advantage and the edge on winning the event even if they finished in second or third place in the league standings.  It was a format that we felt as completely unfair to the top teams in the league.  Last year, when Coastal Carolina announced that they were going to move to the Sun Belt, the league pulled the tournament out of South Carolina and sent it north to Campbell’s home court.  This season, they finally fixed the problem completely.  The two first round games (8 vs 9 and 7 vs 10) will be played on the home court of the higher-seeded team.  The eight remaining teams will then head to the home court of the regular season champion for the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds.  The finals will then be played on the home court of the highest remaining seed.  This format rewards regular season success and we here at HoopsHD fully applaud the Big South for adopting it.

Today, the regular season championship and home court advantage is up for grabs as we enter the final day of the Big South regular season with three teams tied for first place.  Two of those three teams, Liberty and UNC-Asheville, will play each other in Asheville, North Carolina in a game that could determine the championship.  Liberty enters play today at 14-3 in conference and 19-11 overall.  The Flames have been the surprise team of the Big South this season, only losing to Winthrop twice and at home to Asheville.  They defeated Longwood on Thursday night behind 13 points from Georgie Pacheco-Ortiz and 10 points from Ryan Kemrite.  UNC-Asheville is currently 20-8 overall and 14-3 in league play.  Ahmad Thomas continues to lead the way for the Bulldogs, including 25 points in their upset loss at Gardner-Webb earlier this week that created the three way tie in the standings.

As for the championship itself, once this game is done, the winner’s eyes will be focused squarely on the 4:30 PM Eastern Winthrop at Presbyterian game (espn3).  If Presbyterian pulls off the upset, then the Liberty-Asheville winner will host the conference tournament as regular season champions.  If Winthrop wins, then the tiebreakers kick in.  Should Winthrop and Liberty end the season tied for first, Winthrop will take the title based on their season sweep of the Flames.  Should Winthrop and UNC-Asheville end the season tied for first, the result of today’s Gardner-Webb at High Point game (4:00 PM Eastern, bigsouthsports.com) could decide the title.  A win in that game by Gardner-Webb would give Winthrop the regular season title based on their sweep of Gardner-Webb this season while Asheville split two games with the Runnin’ Bulldogs.  If High Point wins, then Winthrop and Asheville will end up in a dead heat in all tiebreaker categories and the final tiebreaker will be used — the team with the higher RPI on Sunday morning.  And it could not be a closer battle — heading into play today, UNC-Asheville’s RPI sits at 74 and Winthrop’s is 75.  Given that Asheville will be playing RPI 172 Liberty today and Winthrop will be playing RPI 346 Presbyterian, odds are that Asheville will win that tiebreaker.  But it will certainly be a close call either way.