And Down the Stretch They Come

With the last weekend of conference play looming, absolutely nothing is settled. Depending on how things go, every team in the conference can move as many as two conference tournament seed lines. The only exceptions are Campbell and Stetson, who are playing for the six seed.

Not to go all NFL on you, but here are the conference championship scenarios:

Jacksonville -- Win at Lipscomb OR Win at Belmont. This eliminates ETSU, and Jacksonville wins all tiebreakers with Belmont by virtue of Lipscomb finishing with a better conference record than Campbell.

Belmont -- Win vs. Jacksonville AND Lipscomb win vs. Jacksonville. For Belmont to win the conference title, they need to be tied with Jacksonville going into Saturday's game.

ETSU -- Win vs. Kennesaw AND Win vs. Mercer AND North Florida win at Belmont AND Lipscomb win vs. Jacksonville AND Belmont win vs. Jacksonville. ETSU's only hope is to get into a three-way tie with Jacksonville and Belmont at 14-6. If they do, they win because they would have a season sweep over Mercer while Jacksonville's best sweep would be Stetson and Belmont's would be Campbell. In that scenario, the outcome of the Stetson-Campbell game would determine who gets the 2 seed (and the Wednesday quarterfinal) and who ends up third.

This year, winning the conference title is huge, because you get both an automatic invite to the NIT even if you lose in the conference tournament, PLUS you get a bye into the semifinals, meaning you don't have to play until Friday. The 2-seed plays the seven Wednesday night, while 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 happen Thursday.

While another Battle of the Boulevard might be fun, what I would really love to see is a Belmont-Campbell rematch. Seriously, that comeback was ridiculous.

Player of the Week -- Eni Cuka gets the nod from the conference office. Now understand three things: 1) I love North Florida. The whole idea of a knock-down, drag-out, team-wide road trip chess tournament is just too awesome for words. 2) I like the idea of limiting "Player of the Week" to teams that won both games. I disagree with the policy but I appreciate the sentiment behind it. 3) I am typically critical of players who pad their own stats at the expense of the team.

That being said, this is the week to give James Florence the POW. He rallied his team from a 25-point first-half deficit against Lipscomb to get within 5 in the second half. He may have been a one-man team, but that night he was all Mercer had working, and ended up with a 29 PEG. Then he posts another team-leading PEG of 22 in a huge win against Belmont -- a win which, by the way, keeps Mike Smith and ETSU alive for the conference title.

Weird Stat -- Belmont and Kennesaw State played a 57-possession game last week. Both teams average over 73 per game.

I'll be at the Lipscomb-North Florida double-header Saturday. I've been promising Erica a trip to a basketball game, and I wanted to find one where I could let her root for the home team. ;) Stop by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood.