When the final buzzer sounded in Detroit last Tuesday, and the Phoenix officially staved off Wright State, 78-69, a program that peaked in the 1990s finally captured the elusive Horizon League tournament title that would quell a postseason absence.
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It’s a disappointment that the South Carolina Gamecocks didn’t make the NCAA Tournament. They haven’t won a tournament title since beating Baylor in 1987…. “End of the game, every time down, we played through him”.
Kentucky and Texas A&M slugged it out in a wonderfully entertaining SEC tournament championship game on Sunday at Bridgestone Arena, with the Wildcats pulling it out in overtime 82-77 thanks to a pair of clutch 3-pointers by Derek Willis and Jamal Murray with the shot clock winding down.
The seed came as a slight surprise to some, including Phoenix coach Linc Darner, who thought his team might get a No. 15. “This is what you work for”. “This is hopefully a great experience for us to get us ready for the NCAA Tournament and do something special in the tournament”. “Never gets rattled, runs our team”.
From their perch on risers at midcourt, players scrolled on cellphones and joked their way through questions that relived some of the best moments of a magical season.
The Green Bay Phoenix could be the one No. 14 seed to pull an upset in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament. The berth opposite second-seeded Oklahoma, another team in the West, triggered a sea of anticipatory cellphone videos lowered by a false alarm. “So we’re still improving, which makes me feel pretty good as a coach because it’s what we want”. “Shots just didn’t go down for us”.
It would not be a Texas A&M vs. Kentucky game if it didn’t go into overtime.
In a March twist, the pairing of Phoenix and Aggies was unknowingly foretold earlier in the day.
The SEC’s highest scoring offense went cold at the wrong time, as the LSU men’s basketball team was eliminted from the SEC Tournament by No. 1 seed Texas A&M on Saturday in Nashville, 71-38. Switching gears to the Kentucky defense, teams seem to consistently miss shots against the Wildcats, who are the ninth-best team in the nation in terms of opponent field goal percentage allowed at.399. However, in overtime, Murray hit a long pull-up three to clinch the game for the Wildcats.
On Sunday the Kentucky Wildcats were playing for their 29 SEC championship.
LSU head coach Johnny Jones, right, argues a call with an official during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Texas A&M in the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, March 12, 2016. That year, the Phoenix defeated the Aggies, 60-49, in a game played in Milwaukee as part of the First Bank Classic.
“We knew what we were capable of”, Egbunu said.
Record: 26-8, 13-5 in Southeastern Conference. That changed in the final week of the regular season, as the athletic and rangy 6-foot-11 forward shined in wins over Florida and, especially, LSU, with an excellent mid-range game and an impact as a rebounder and shot blocker.
NCAA history: 9-13 (no titles); last appearance in 2011, Round of 64.
Billy Kennedy’s troops tend to have that effect on foes. The Longhorns dropped five of their last nine, including embarrassing defeats at the hands of Kansas and Baylor (twice) to close out the season.
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Worst losses: at Arizona State, 67-54; at Alabama, 63-62.
