Sitting courtside at the smallest Division I basketball facility in the country -- Charleston Southern's Field House, aka the Buc Dome. The joint seats 789, and CSU's combined attendance for five Big South home games (3,834) doesn't equal the attendance at Liberty's opener against NAIA Division II Montreat. But I digress ...
Liberty enters tonight's game at 9-5 in league play, a game and a half ahead of UNC Asheville (8-7). This trip to the South Carolina beach schools is quite important for the Flames, because staying in third place is important. Third place gets you a few things come conference tournament time. The three seed gets a home game in the first round of the tournament and a neutral-site game in round 2, a much better proposition than having to face the host team on its home floor in the semis. Plus, if the four-five winner springs an upset in the semifinals, the two-three winner hosts the conference tournament title game.
The Flames haven't swept the beach trip since the 2004-05 season. So despite the fact that Liberty is playing Charleston Southern (2-10 Big South) and Coastal Carolina (5-9) during this run, there's a ton at stake. Winning on the road is never easy, as Liberty found here last year in a loss to the Bucs. CSU hasn't won a game at home yet during league play, so I asked LU coach Ritchie McKay Thursday if this was the sort of game a team in the top half of the league standings has to win.
His response: "I never look at it like that. I think that's when you get caught. Look at Xavier and Dayton this past week. Dayton lost to Charlotte, and Xavier lost to Duquesne, which was .500 in the league at that time. I think you've got to be really careful when you look at standings and you evaluate teams on their records. You'd be crazy to evaluate us on our record. I think we're better than our record would show, but we've lost a few tough games. We've just got to take these 40 minutes and value them. Not look at the standings. Not talk about what other teams are doing. We've got to worry about Liberty's basketball opponent for the next 40 minutes. That's Charleston Southern, who is in a playoff race of their own."
Indeed, Charleston Southern might be done if it loses this game tonight. The other four Big South games are over, and as it stands, CSU is a half-game back of a High Point team it split with in the regular season. A loss here puts CSU a full game behind with five to play and in a precarious position in terms of earning the final berth to the Big South tournament.
Liberty ran into a hungry CSU team here last year and got blitzed. The Flames didn't defend, especially on the perimeter, and CSU hit 12 of 26 from 3-point range in an 87-82 victory.
"On the road, you've got to rely on your defense," McKay said Thursday. "One of the things I was most happy about these past two games was our defense. Both Presbyterian and (Winthrop) came in here playing very well, and I thought we defended them well in the second half. Hopefully, we'll carry that over."
* Here's a quick handicap of where the league race stands before tip-off. (Note, I'm not including Presbyterian in this breakdown, since the Hose aren't Big South tournament eligible):
1. Radford (12-2). The Highlanders escaped UNC Asheville with a victory earlier today and moved into sole possession of first in the conference standings.
2. VMI (11-3). For the second straight game, VMI didn't defend. This time it bit the Keydets. Coastal shot 60 percent from the floor and beat the Keydets.
3. Liberty (9-5). With a sweep of this trip, the Flames would have a legit shot of catching VMI for second, seeing as Liberty hosts VMI a week from Tuesday with a chance of nabbing a season sweep.
4. UNC Asheville (8-7). Despite the loss to Radford Saturday, Gardner-Webb's home loss to High Point keeps UNCA in prime position to host a tournament game.
5. Gardner-Webb (7-8). GWU is essentially two games behind UNCA because UNCA swept the season series.
6. Winthrop (6-9). Winthrop needs only to forge a tie to pull ahead of UNCA because the Eagles swept the season series. Winthrop still plays at Gardner-Webb, which is a must win if the Eagles want to keep pace with GWU. The Bulldogs won the first meeting in Rock Hill.
7. Coastal Carolina (5-9). Coastal has a game in hand against Winthrop and still has to travel to Rock Hill.
8. High Point (4-11). GW-Danville graduate Nick Barbour is just tearing this league up right now. His last seven games: 25 points, 21, 18, 22, 32, 31, 28.
9. Charleston Southern (2-10). CSU plays three straight at home and probably will need to at least win two to stay in the hunt for a tournament spot.
****
Other quick-hit notes:
* CSU's Jamarco Warren hasn't been starting of late. He leads the Bucs in scoring at 18.3 points per game and is the sort of player who can get hot at home and become a problem.
* Sources tell me there might be a shakeup in the starting lineup tonight. Perfect timing, I suppose, for the piece I wrote on Austin Smith, which appeared in today's newspaper.
* Crucial XM jam on the trip down: Biz Markie's "Vapors"
* Number of combined appearances by the Police and John Mellencamp on XM Classic Rewind: 5. And I only flipped to that station a few times.
That's all for now.
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