LMU Leads SAC Men’s Basketball Championship Field
Regular-season champion Lincoln Memorial will be the top seed in the 2014 Food Lion SAC Men’s Basketball Championship, which begins with quarterfinal games on Wednesday. LMU finished the regular season 24-2 overall and 20-2 in conference play.
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Regular-season champion Lincoln Memorial will be the top seed in the 2014 Food Lion SAC Men's Basketball Championship, which begins with quarterfinal games on Wednesday. LMU finished the regular season 24-2 overall and 20-2 in conference play.
LMU's SAC title was its second-straight and third in four years under head coach Josh Schertz, and its conference winning percentage of 90.9-percent is the fifth-best in league history. The Railsplitters were ranked 13th in the nation this week and second in the latest NCAA Division II southeast region poll.
Up first in the tournament for the Lincoln Memorial will be a home quarterfinal against No. 8 seed Wingate, which has won the last two SAC Tournaments.
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Carson-Newman won at Newberry on Saturday to clinch the bracket's No. 2 seed. The Eagles – 19-7 overall and 16-6 in the conference – will host seventh-seeded Coker in the quarterfinals. Coker and Wingate finished tied for seventh in the SAC standings at 11-11, but the Cobras earned the tiebreaker over WU for the No. 7 seed by virtue of their 2-0 head-to-head record.
Anderson and Lenoir-Rhyne both finished 15-7 in the SAC and split their head-to-head meetings. Anderson claimed the event's No. 3 seed, however, because of its 1-1 record against LMU, while Lenoir-Rhyne went 0-2 against the Railsplitters and will be the No. 4 seed.
Anderson will host a quarterfinal against sixth-seeded Queens, which finished 14-12 overall and 12-10 in the SAC. Lenoir-Rhyne will play host to fifth-seeded Newberry, which concluded the regular season 18-8 overall and 14-8 against the league.
Following campus-site quarterfinals on Wednesday, the SAC Championship will move to Timmons Arena in Greenville, S.C. for Saturday's semifinals and Sunday's title game.
2014 Food Lion SAC Men's Basketball Championship
Quarterfinals – March 5
No. 8 Wingate at No. 1 Lincoln Memorial, 8 p.m.
No. 7 Coker at No. 2 Carson-Newman, 8 p.m.
No. 6 Queens at No. 3 Anderson, 7 p.m.
No. 5 Newberry at No. 4 Lenoir-Rhyne, 8 p.m.
Semifinals – March 8
No. 1/No. 8 vs. No. 4/No. 5, Noon
No. 2/No. 7 vs. No. 3/No. 6, 2:30 p.m.
Final – March 9
Semifinal 1 winner vs. Semifinal 2 winner, 1 p.m.