Tag: Champ Week

A dumb NCAA rule is the reason Bellarmine won’t make March Madness despite winning the ASUN tourney

A weird rule is keeping the Knights from the Big Dance.

The Bellarmine Knights defeated Jacksonville University in the ASUN Conference championship game, 77-72. They won’t, however, be going to the NCAA tournament thanks to a weird rule. Bellarmine made the jump to Division I on July 1 of 2020, moving all 22 varsity programs up from the lower division.

Since the men’s basketball team is within the four-year window of making the change up to D1, the Knights are not eligible for postseason play in the NCAA tournament this year.

Bellarmine stunned Liberty in the ASUN semifinals, and Jacksonville upset top-seeded Jacksonville State to set up Tuesday night’s title game. The Knights held off a late push by the Dolphins with strong free throw shooting, but they won’t get to celebrate like we’d all hope.

In the weirdest twist possible, the representative for the ASUN isn’t even Jacksonville. It’s Jacksonville State. Since the Dolphins fell in the championship to an ineligible team, the Gamecocks — which won the ASUN regular season — will take the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Bellarmine will finish with 20 wins at 20-13 overall in just their second D1 season.

According to the ESPN2 broadcast, they do get to claim the title and trophy that comes with being ASUN champs, just not the coveted auto-bid.

Come on, NCAA. Let Bellarmine dance.

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A running list of women’s March Madness teams who have clinched bids in 2022

We keep a running list of women’s basketball teams that have earned a spot in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

Champ Week is well underway in women’s NCAA basketball, and a handful of teams have already punched their tickets to the big dance. The Stanford Cardinal are looking to repeat as national champions after hoisting the trophy in 2021, and they have already earned an automatic qualifier to this year’s tourney with a Pac-12 tournament title.

For the first time, 68 teams make the women’s NCAA tournament as a vote to expand the bracket was approved in the fall of 2021. Thirty-two spots will go to automatic qualifiers, and the other 36 spots being awarded to at-large teams.

The official bracket will be announced on Sunday, March 13 at 8 p.m. on ESPN, shortly after the men’s bracket is revealed.

Here is the current list of teams that have earned a spot in the NCAA tournament: