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The day before Selection Sunday is finally here, which means that a number of conferences will determine their winners throughout the course of the day. Thirteen automatic bids are up for grabs and a 14th, the battle between South Dakota and North Dakota in the Great West, will be for an automatic bid in the College Insider Tournament. The Big 12 and Big East title games may receive a great deal of attention (and rightfully so), but the first meeting between teams with 30 victories will take place in the Mountain West final.

Three more tickets were punched on Tuesday night with one being snagged by Greg Kampe's Oakland Golden Grizzlies in a 90-76 win over Oral Roberts in the Summit League title game. Regular season and tournament MVP Keith Benson went off for 28 points, 14 rebounds and four assists and Reggie Hamilton added 26 points and six assists as Oakland completed an impressive run through the conference that included just one loss (IUPUI).

It's a mixed bag today as three leagues determine their NCAA Tournament representatives and four others begin their sprint to the finish line. But the preview today will focus on the lone "regular season" game because there's an awful lot riding on it. Rivals Princeton and Pennsylvania meet at the Palestra, and the visiting Tigers need a win to force a playoff with Harvard for the Ivy League title (that game would be played at Yale).

By this time next Sunday there will be more than 20 teams guaranteed inclusion in the 2011 NCAA Tournament and the first three tickets were punched on Saturday. UNC Asheville (Big South), Belmont (Atlantic Sun) and Morehead State (Ohio Valley) all won their conference tournament finals while Princeton (Ivy) missed out on a chance to join the fun with their loss at Harvard. Now the Tigers need to beat rival Penn at the Palestra to forge a tie atop the standings, forcing a one-game playoff with Harvard for the Ancient Eight's automatic bid.

With three NCAA Tournament tickets assured of being punched (that number becomes four if Princeton wins at Harvard in a crucial Ivy League tilt), it makes sense to touch on each of those games as opposed to the usual daily preview. The title game in the Atlantic Sun provides a matchup of the prohibitive favorite taking on the underdog, a storyline that usually doesn't come into play for another two weeks.

You know it's March where there's midday college basketball to be discussed. Friday afternoon delivered just six games (one in progress) but there hasn't been a lack of drama. The Colonial, Missouri Valley and Southern conferences all had afternoon doubleheaders in their tournaments, with the MVC in the quarterfinals while the other two leagues are playing first round games today. 

Colonial

(8) Georgia State 58, (9) UNC Wilmington 52

 

With Ivy League become fully joined so to speak this weekend it's a good opportunity to take a look at the league to this point in the season. CHN writer Jon Teitel compiled some quotes from the coaches' midseason media teleconference a couple weeks ago, and those will be combined with notes and evaluations of each of the Ancient Eight. This weekend's schedule:

Friday, January 28th
7:00 PM Brown at Princeton
7:00 PM Cornell at Dartmouth
7:00 PM Columbia at Harvard
7:00 PM Yale at Penn

"I try to make him earn everything he gets. Like I said, he's got all of those accolades, but he's gotta come in and prove it."

- UNLV guard Tre'Von Willis on BYU's Jimmer Fredette in Tuesday's Las Vegas Sun

In the latest installment in his "Forgotten Legends" interview series, CHN writer Jon Teitel spent some time with Harvard great Joe Carrabino. Carrabino, who is the only player in Harvard history to be named Ivy League Player of the Year, is the school's all-time leading scorer with a total of 1,880 points. A sixth round draft pick of the Denver Nuggets in 1985, Carrabino is currently the managing director at AEA Investors.