For a copy of the 2017 NCAA Tournament Bracket – CLICK HERE
For Jon Teitel’s interview with Iona SG E.J. Crawford – CLICK HERE
For Jon Teitel’s interview with UNC-Wilmington SG Chris Flemmings – CLICK HERE
While folks around the country are beginning to fill out their brackets for the 2017 NCAA Tournament, the fields were also announced last night for the NIT, the CBI, and the CIT as well. These 3 tournaments will be played under experimental rules that will be played with two 20-minute halves that have the number of fouls reset at the 10-minute mark of each half. A 2-shot bonus will apply after the 5th foul of each 10-minute block, so there will be no 1-and-1 opportunities.
The four #1 seeds (aka the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament) are Syracuse, California, Iowa and Illinois State. The first round of games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some of the highlighted matchups include UNC-Greensboro playing at Syracuse and Indiana (despite a higher seed) playing at Georgia Tech. While the committee restrained itself from forcing the Orange to play their opener at Greensboro, Syracuse will not have to leave their home state in order to win this tournament.
16 teams comprise the CBI field this year. The first round games will be played on Wednesday and Thursday. While the field is mostly comprised of smaller conferences, there are 2 Atlantic 10 teams (George Washington and George Mason), 1 Mountain West team (Wyoming) and 1 WCC team (San Francisco) in the field this year. The tournament will culminate with a best-of-3 series starting on Monday, March 27.
The CIT actually uses the original NIT model as it relates to matchups – there are 26 teams in the field but there is no set bracket for the field. 13 first-round matchups will be spread through 4 days (Monday through Thursday) and also include 4 “trophy” games in the first round that are named after 4 selected coaches. Beginning this year, all of the early round CIT games will be streamed on Facebook Live.
TODAY’S GAME
NORFOLK STATE at LIBERTY (7:05 PM, CBI – Facebook Live). Norfolk State comes into tonight’s game after losing to North Carolina Central in the MEAC title game. Liberty lost their opener in the Big South tournament but were a much improved team from last season and finished a game behind Winthrop and UNC-Asheville in the regular season standings. This is the first of 4 “trophy games” – it is being billed as the John McLendon Classic (which Grand Canyon won last year in the CIT opener).