Appalachian basketball turned the corner tonight, with a hard fought win. Just wish we were going to NOLA & see how far we could go with a little confidence & momentum.

I believe we control our own destiny. Unless I am missing something, Beat stAte Saturday and we are in.

We aren't the only conference that doesn't give every team a shot in he conference tournament, and I for one am very opposed to it.

Texas State can still jump us with two wins. I'm not sure what happens if they win tonight and tie is come Saturday. We win tiebreaker with Arkansas St on head to head (assuming a Saturday win) and vs Texas st (with same record) because of today's victory. But I'm not sure how a three way scenario plays out if we tie with both Arkansas St and Texas St.


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Here's the road to NOLA.

1) Beat Arkansas State
2) South Alabama beats Texas State

That's it. Win our game then score-watch and root for USA.

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:We aren't the only conference that doesn't give every team a shot in he conference tournament, and I for one am very opposed to it.

I like it. Between that and giving the top two seeds a double-bye, the regular season actually means something.

In 8 team tourney, a double bye for top 2 seeds is ridiculous. Jmo

EastHallApp wrote:

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:We aren't the only conference that doesn't give every team a shot in he conference tournament, and I for one am very opposed to it.

I like it. Between that and giving the top two seeds a double-bye, the regular season actually means something.

What's the point of having automatic conference bids, without a shot for the entire conference to win? The NCAA tournament is a privilege, not conference tournaments. It's small conferences that do this, maybe to protect their top seeds from a potential upset and better representation at the big dance.

Wow what a win last night. All things considered that has to be a top 10 all time hoops victory considering the records and with the dismal performance we have displayed this year. As far as how teams are picked from smaller conferences I personally think that any conference regular season champ with at least 25 wins should get in without winning their tournament. The post season tournaments are getting antiquated anyway. A hundred years ago in conferences like the ACC when only 32 teams were selected the tournament actually carried some weight. Now some of the big boys who pretty much have high seeds locked up don't look to exert the extra energy to win 3 or 4 games in as many days. Even though there is no perfect way to select the teams it has never made sense to allow a crappy team who gets on a mini roll and wins a reasonably bad conference tournament. I guess the thinking is if you dominated all year you should win the tournament. Oh well, hope we get in Sunbelt tournament and win it all! Go Apps

This might even be the 5th best win in school history. The top four are the 2 conference championship wins, beating a ranked Nebraska, and beating a ranked UNCC. This team was just outside of the rankings and only had 3 losses coming in. The only wins that may top it are Wichita State or UVa. Still we were much larger underdogs in this game so it takes 5th for me.

Great job by the entire team!

JTApps1 wrote:This might even be the 5th best win in school history. The top four are the 2 conference championship wins, beating a ranked Nebraska, and beating a ranked UNCC. This team was just outside of the rankings and only had 3 losses coming in. The only wins that may top it are Wichita State or UVa. Still we were much larger underdogs in this game so it takes 5th for me.

Great job by the entire team!

Were the wins over Nebraska and UNCC early in the year? Hard to imagine any Nebraska team ranked late in the season. Was the UVA win in the Puerto Rico tournament several years ago? I readily admit that my App basketball history is not up to speed. Didn't we knock off Duke at home in '80 or '81? At any rate I figured that all things considered (late season, ARL's record, our record, etc) this had to rate pretty high. I would think a comparable ACC win would be someone like BC knocking off UVA right about now.

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:We aren't the only conference that doesn't give every team a shot in he conference tournament, and I for one am very opposed to it.

I agree...every conference should figure a way to involve all teams in the conference tourney. It gives every team that fleeting hope of still having a chance to make the Big Dance - Some conferences have "play in games" at campus sites...there are ways everyone can be involved and have a chance ---

Early in K's tenure we beat Duke. Of course, they weren't very good at the time.

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:We aren't the only conference that doesn't give every team a shot in he conference tournament, and I for one am very opposed to it.

I like it. Between that and giving the top two seeds a double-bye, the regular season actually means something.

What's the point of having automatic conference bids, without a shot for the entire conference to win? The NCAA tournament is a privilege, not conference tournaments. It's small conferences that do this, maybe to protect their top seeds from a potential upset and better representation at the big dance.

That's exactly why they do it. Makes sense for the conference, and for the NCAA Tournament in general, which is better off with the best teams from each league than with sub-.500 teams that got hot for a weekend.

As to your question about automatic bids - I believe the point of those is that conference tournaments generate TV content.

JTApps1 wrote:This might even be the 5th best win in school history. The top four are the 2 conference championship wins, beating a ranked Nebraska, and beating a ranked UNCC. This team was just outside of the rankings and only had 3 losses coming in. The only wins that may top it are Wichita State or UVa. Still we were much larger underdogs in this game so it takes 5th for me.

Great job by the entire team!

I don't think it ranks that high, as I think you have to factor in what it meant for App's team. If we go on and get to NOLA, then make a miracle run to make the big dance, OK. Otherwise, it's just a silver lining on what's still been a terrible season, over a team that most fans outside the Sun Belt have never heard of.

UVa in '07 shared the ACC regular season title. Vanderbilt that year made the Sweet 16. Even VCU beat Duke in the tourney. Those were big wins that launched App to its best regular season ever. Even some of the regular season conference wins in our better years (Davidson in '99 and '07, Clemson in 2000) were more consequential IMO.

Little Rock wasn't really "just outside the rankings" - they had only a vote or two in each poll and won't even be able to get an at-large bid now.

bigdaddyg wrote:

JTApps1 wrote:This might even be the 5th best win in school history. The top four are the 2 conference championship wins, beating a ranked Nebraska, and beating a ranked UNCC. This team was just outside of the rankings and only had 3 losses coming in. The only wins that may top it are Wichita State or UVa. Still we were much larger underdogs in this game so it takes 5th for me.

Great job by the entire team!

Were the wins over Nebraska and UNCC early in the year? Hard to imagine any Nebraska team ranked late in the season. Was the UVA win in the Puerto Rico tournament several years ago? I readily admit that my App basketball history is not up to speed. Didn't we knock off Duke at home in '80 or '81? At any rate I figured that all things considered (late season, ARL's record, our record, etc) this had to rate pretty high. I would think a comparable ACC win would be someone like BC knocking off UVA right about now.

Nebraska predates me, but UNCC was the second game of the year (and the first App game I ever attended). It was an incredible atmosphere. That UNCC team wound up playing the great Jamison-Carter UNC team in the second round of the tournament and taking them to OT.

It may not have seemed such at the time, but looking back, the win over the Steph Curry Davidson team looks pretty darn good right now.

Both App and Texas State are favored tomorrow. At least the first half of the day is solidly in our control.