I'll try to keep it together long enough for a Final Four recap. As I type this, I'm at work and wearing my bright yellow Wooster "Fear the Scots" t-shirt. I can't wait for my coworkers to ask about it so I have to explain my pretend basketball team to them. Good times.
First off, congrats to Piedmont and bunkerbuster who took home the PI title last night after a 86-76 victory over Howard Payne. H-Payne bombed away from 3pt land all game but Piedmont had too much inside and forced 29 fouls, sinking 34 of 43 free throws. As mentioned by others, Peidmont had six sophomores and six freshmen this season so um, best of luck to the rest of the USA South the next couple years. Enjoy having that team on your schedule a couple times.
Moving over to the NT, in the first of two final four games top-seeded Millsaps moved to an impressive 34-0 on the season with an 89-63 defeat of 4-seed Dickinson. About eight minutes into the game Dickinson was in the lead 11-9. Over the remaining twelve minutes of the first half Millsaps outscored them 31 to 11 en route to a big 40-22 halftime lead. Millsaps kept up the pressure after the break and pretty much maintained the lead the rest of the way to stay undefeated on the season.
The other game was a much closer affair with both teams battling the entire forty minutes. 1-seed Wooster was able to make a run at the end of the first half and went into the locker room with a 45-37 halftime lead. It was far from over though as 3-seed Emory quickly closed the gap when play resumed and were able to take the lead a couple times midway through the second. Shortly after that, Wooster again went on a run to retake and expand the lead but could never quite knock Emory out for good. The Fighting Scots were up 10 with three minutes to play but some fierce Emory defense and missed Wooster free throws made for a close finish. Enough free throws went down in the last minute for Wooster to survive, 83-78.
So that sets up two 1 seeds in the final game, undefeated Millsaps against 32-2 Wooster. One team has been the undisputed #1 team throughout the year while the other has bounced between #2 and #3 most of the time. And apparently the odds-makers are on drugs because they have Wooster as a 4 point favorite, not sure where that came from. These two played an exhibition game on the second day of the season this year with Wooster prevailing at home in overtime 90-86.
Good luck tonight brian, hopefully it's a classic.