Selection Sunday in college basketball is mostly about revealing the 68-team bracket for the NCAA Tournament, but there was some unfinished business to take care of on the court first. Five conferences still needed to crown a tournament champion entering the day, and those results helped shape the final spots for the Big Dance.
Princeton secured its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2017 by beating Yale 74-65 to win the Ivy League Tournament. Tosan Evbuomwan led the Tigers with 21 points in a revenge game for a pair of regular-season losses to the Bulldogs. Princeton is an elite rebounding team, and at 6-foot-7, Evbuomwan could be a matchup problem in the Big Dance.
VCU is going dancing for the the second time in the past three seasons ,and for the third time under sixth-year coach Mike Rhoades, after beating Dayton 68-56 to win the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The Rams trailed 36-30 at halftime, but held Dayton to just 20% shooting in the second half as the Flyers missed their final 15 shots from the floor. With an elite defense and wins over the likes of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt on its résumé, VCU will be a tough draw in the NCAA Tournament.
From a power conference standpoint on Sunday, Alabama won the SEC Tournament, Purdue won the Big Ten Tournament and Memphis upended No. 1 Houston in the AAC Tournament.
The two weeks leading up to Selection Sunday brought 32 conference tournaments that produced results ranging from predictable to entirely unexpected. Here is the full rundown of who secured automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament by winning their conference tournament.
Sunday’s conference tournament championships
Ivy – No. 2 Princeton 74, No. 1 Yale 65 — Recap
Atlantic 10 – No. 1 VCU 68, No. 2 Dayton 56 — Recap
SEC: No.1 Alabama 82, No. 2 Texas A&M 63 – Recap
American: No. 2 Memphis 75, No.1 Houston 65 — Recap
Big Ten: No. 1 Purdue 67, No. 10 Penn State 65 — Recap
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2023 conference tournament schedules, champions
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