Atlantic Sun

In the lastest installment in his "Forgotten Legends" interview series, CHN writer Jon Teitel spent some time with Lipscomb great John Pierce. During his four seasons in Nashville, Pierce lit up scoreboards to the tune of 4,230 points, a college record that stands to this day. After a five-year career in Australia and Japan, Pierce returned to Nashville where he's now a teach and coach at Franklin Road Academy.

CHN writer Jon Teitel continues with his NCAA Tournament interviews, this time catching up with Belmont guard Kerron Johnson. The Bruins will be making the second consecutive NCAA tournament appearence as winners of the Atlantic Sun, knocking off FGCU in Saturday's title game. Belmont lost to four-seed Wisconsin in last year's tournament appearance.

Jon Teitel: You were an AAU teammate of Jon Hood, who is recovering from a torn ACL on the bench of top-ranked Kentucky. Have you talked to him at all during his rehab from surgery?

Our game prediction guru Greg Mengelt has been on fire this year. He'll be picking every conference tournament game over the next 2 weeks.

Three tickets to the NCAA tournament will be punched on Saturday, beginning with the Big South title game matching seven-seed VMI and regular season champion UNC Asheville. Eddie Biedenbach's Bulldogs have avoided the turmoil on the opposite side of the bracket, which saw both Coastal Carolina and Campbell fall in the quarterfinals. Duggar Baucom's Keydets were the ones who knocked off CCU, as they shot an impressive 14-for-28 from three in their 85-68 win over the Chanticleers.

Our game prediction guru Greg Mengelt has been on fire this year. He'll be picking every conference tournament game over the next 2 weeks. Read more about Championship Week at CollegeHoops.net.

Friday will be a busy night in regards to conference tournaments, with eight leagues paring down their respective fields. But there's no team on the slate more in need of a win than BYU, who takes on six-seed San Diego in the second quarterfinal of the night. The uncertainty that surrounds forward Noah Hartsock's knee injury doesn't help matters for Dave Rose's team, but whether or not he's able to play the Cougars need to avoid a misstep agains the Toreros.

Johnny Dee went off on Pepperdine on Thursday night, scoring 30 points to lead San Diego to the 76-54 win.

Our game prediction guru Greg Mengelt has been on fire this year. He'll be picking almost conference tournament game over the next 2 weeks.

 

Three more conferences begin tournament action on Thursday night, which includes four quarterfinal match ups in the NEC. The higher-seeded teams host all four games, which includes regular season champion and top-seed LIU-Brooklyn hosting a Sacred Heart team they've beaten twice this season. But this isn't your usual 1/8 matchup as LIU head coach Jim Ferry pointed out earlier this week, as both meetings have been close.

LIU won at Sacred Heart by six (87-81) on January 5th and their meeting in Brooklyn was a wild 103-91 overtime track meet.

Four more conferences join in on the tournament fun on Wednesday while the Big South moves on to the quarterfinal round, meaning that more teams will see their season come to an end. The top two seeds in the Atlantic Sun, regular season champion Belmont and host school Mercer, begin their journey in Macon and both teams will be prohibitive favorites to advance. Rick Byrd's Bruins enter tournament play on an 11-game win streak and they won both regular season meetings with 8-seed Jacksonville by double digits.

Our game prediction guru Greg Mengelt has been on fire this year. He'll be picking almost conference tournament game over the next 2 weeks.