We start Conference Championship week with a fun and eventful 2020 Big South conference tournament. The past four years there has been a different champion crowned, and it looks like that trend will continue this year as well. Lets take a look at how I think this years tournament will pan out.
2020 Big South Conference Tournament Bracket
Favorite to Win: Radford
The Radford Highlanders are looking to make their third tournament appearance in school history. I will admittedly say that I had picked Winthrop to win the tournament in The Jerome tournament pick’em. Looking back though, I think that I should have done a bit more research.
The Highlanders have been the most impressive team in the Big South this season. They have kept a balanced attack while keeping their opponents at 65 points a game, which would rank 80th nationally. At 20-9, Mike Jones has done a terrific job getting this team to first place in the Big South.
The Highlanders have played a couple of tough non-conference games. Though they won at Northwestern, and Richmond. They played some very close games at Bradley, at Liberty, and at Mississippi State.
Team to Watch: Winthrop Eagles
The Eagles have been going toe to toe with Radford this entire season. They have had a fairly good non-conference resume. A win at then #18 Saint Mary’s, and some close losses at East Tennessee State, at Duke, at TCU, and at Furman.
Though a couple of those losses sound terrible, ETSU and Furman are a couple of teams that have a resume that could pull off a bubble or at least a deep NIT run. These are the types of teams that can pull off a Lehigh or FGCU if given the right opportunity.
The Eagles have gone step for step due to their offensive prowess. Pat Kelsey’s Eagles rank 12th in the nation in points per game at 80.7. While they can put up points, they average 16 assists per game (tied 26th in the nation), and 40.7 rebounds a game (22nd in the nation).
Hampton is one team that I would keep a tab on. They have made a run in their conference tournament before, and with Jermaine Morrow, I wouldn’t count them out of any title race.
Player to Watch: Carlik Jones
The Radford point guard is a do it all playmaker. He leads the team in minutes played, points, assists, steals, and field goal percentage. There is no doubt in my mind that under the brightest lights this young man will go on a tear.
It has only been a few few weeks that he had dropped a career high 33 points on a very solid Hampton team. I expect him to replicate some of these numbers during this post season run if the Highlanders expect any success.
Tournament Teams: Conference Winner
Again, it seems as if it will be the Big South conference champion that will be making it to the Dance. I can imagine that there would be a different conversation being had if Winthrop won some of those non conference games that they had just narrowly lost. It is my opinion though that there will only be one team from the Big South represented in March.
You can view the rest of our conference tournament previews here.