2010 Big South Conference Tournament Preview

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/01/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The surprising Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are the top seed in the Big South Conference Tournament for the first time since the 1990-91 campaign, and they have seemingly come out of nowhere to become the favorite to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Coastal Carolina (36-5) closed out the regular season with five straight wins, which means it is not only 15-3 versus the rest of the league, but also riding the longest win streak among the programs in the Big South. Because of the squad's efforts, the Chanticleers get to entertain eighth-seeded VMI at Kimbel Arena on Tuesday night. Good news for Coastal Carolina, which last won the tourney title in 1993 and has a total of three crowns to its credit over the years, is that it lost just a single home game this season.

The Chanticleers finished the regular season second in the league in scoring with 74.5 ppg, but more importantly, had one of the best defenses in all of college basketball with just 59.0 ppg allowed. Joseph Harris and Chad Gray are the key offensive producers for the squad with 14.8 and 14.1 ppg, respectively. From a national standpoint, the team ranks in the top-10 in three-point shooting defense, allowing foes to convert a mere 27.8 percent of their chances.

Coincidentally, VMI (10-18, 5-13) ranks first in the nation in three-point field goals per game with almost 12 per outing, contributing heavily to the squad's 89.8 ppg which also leads the country at the moment. However, the run- and-gun Keydets have a problem with getting back on defense as they rank dead last among the 334 programs charted by the NCAA with a hideous 96.9 ppg allowed. VMI, which has a mark of just 4-4 in this tournament over the years and lost in the title game to Radford last season and Winthrop three years ago, has Austin Kenon putting up 18.7 ppg and Keith Gabriel another 17.3 ppg.

The defending tournament champion Radford Highlanders took down Winthrop on Saturday to assume the second seed in this event, and the squad is slated to host seventh-seeded Charleston Southern at the Dedmon Center. Radford heads into the post season riding a four-game win streak thanks to a 54-52 victory on Saturday. Behind Coastal Carolina, the Highlanders have the second-best scoring margin in the league at plus-3.5 ppg, but you could never tell that since they have the worst free-throw shooting in the conference at a meager 59.1 percent. Artsiom Parakhouski, the tournament MVP from a year ago, leads the league in scoring with his 21.6 ppg, but he is the main reason why the team has fumbled at the charity stripe, having made just 148-of-266 (.556).

As for the Buccaneers, a team that is second only to Winthrop in tournament titles with four, they are trying to win their first crown since 1997. Charleston Southern ended up three games below .500 on the season (13-16) and was just 7-11 in conference. Led by Jamarco Warren and Kelvin Martin with 15.9 and 14.0 ppg, respectively, the Bucs have not won back-to-back games for nearly six weeks.

Because of the loss to Radford on Saturday, Winthrop now assumes the third seed in the event and will host sixth-seeded Liberty at Winthrop Coliseum on Tuesday. The Eagles (16-13, 12-6), winners of nine Big South Tournament titles, are nowhere near the team they've been in the past, seeing as how they won by just two points in the season opener against Limestone. Nevertheless, being the most successful program in this tournament, with a record of 31-15 over the years, has to account for something. Registering the second-best scoring defense in the league (61.8 ppg) is certainly a plus, but by no means does that make up for the fact that Winthrop ranked among the worst in the country with 37.9 percent shooting from the field and a woeful 24.8 percent beyond the arc.

Liberty (15-15, 10-8) took a huge step back when Seth Curry decided to transfer to Duke after last season, yet there was still some encouraging play from the likes of Kyle Ohman (15.1 ppg) and Evan Gordon (12.2 ppg) who both exceeded their overall scoring averages when it came to league action. The Flames were middle-of-the-road in most stats this year, but a couple of the trouble areas for Liberty lie in turnovers per game (15.8) and turnover margin (minus-2.3) as the Flames can ill-afford to make too many mistakes right out of the gate.

The final quarterfinal matchup has fourth-seeded UNC Asheville settling into the Justice Center versus fifth-seeded High Point. The Bulldogs (14-15, 11-7) closed the campaign strong with four wins in five tries, with the lone loss coming in overtime against Winthrop a week ago. In terms of scoring defense, Asheville was somewhat weak in that area with 76.8 ppg allowed, but there were moments when the defense shined as they averaged better than five and a half blocked shots per contest to rank in the top-20 nationally. The squad was also first in the conference with more than 16 assists per game, but those passes also went hand-in-hand with more than 17 turnovers per contest, one of the highest averages in the nation. J.P. Primm (12.1 ppg) tried to give the team a lift in the passing department with his 158 assists.

The Panthers (15-14, 10-8) had a couple of games early on against the likes of UNC Pembroke and Hampden-Sydney in which they scored a combined 204 points and that really boosted their stats, but in the end they finished fifth in the league with an average of 72.3 ppg. Nick Barbour was one of the more consistent performers for the program with his 18.6 ppg, shooting 40.5 percent behind the three-point line, but with an average of barely one assist per game if he didn't score rarely did anyone else. Eugene Harris accounted for 14.2 ppg as he made 71 three-pointers to pace the group, helping to make the team third in the conference with 35.8 percent accuracy beyond the arc.