Basketball Conference Championships: NCAAT Previews, Open Thread

If you’re a person who likes to procrastinate or do literally anything else at work, usually involving watching sports illicitly on your computer or phone...well, later this week will be exciting for you. But, in the meantime, there’s lots of bad basketball to keep you warm well into the night!

After you go take part in our Big Ten Tournament Pick’em Challenge, review the weekend that was in Big Ten basketball, and check out all our other basketball coverage, stick around and talk some hoops with us into the late hours of the night, as we tip off with the Delaware Blue Hens and Hofstra Pride on CBSSN at 5pm and don’t look back until the finish of San Diego and St. Mary’s sometime around 1am God’s Time. The NCAA Tournament is on the line! These games matter!

Here’s what you may have missed:

• Missouri Valley drama: With 6-seed Northern Iowa having knocked off MY second-seeded Drake Bulldogs and fifth-seeded Bradley taking down 1-seed Loyola, it was a fight to the finish in St. Louis. The Panthers had opened up a lead of as many as 18, but the Braves clawed their way back, using a 4-point technical foul sequence to take a 53-50 lead, which they held onto after a wild final sequence. It’s their first trip to the Big Dance in 13 years.
• Bulldogs Runnin’: Gardner-Webb! The Runnin’ Dawgs from the Big South sprung consecutive upsets of the Campbell Fighting Camels and Radford Highlanders to leave the confines of the Never Made the Tourney Club. Congrats to them!
• Patriot League Pace: Go Colgate.

Today’s Schedule:

My picks? Delaware-Hofstra Pride to start, Green Bay-Wright State when the clock strikes 6, and riding that sweet, sweet Horizon League action through until I fall asleep to San Diego Toreros-Saint Mary’s Gaels.

Open thread. Behave.