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Big South Conference Shaping Up For Thrilling Finale

By John Parker

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Five days ago, Coastal Carolina downed High Point to create a seven-way tie at the top of the Big South standings. The teams were joined by Radford, Charleston Southern, UNC-Asheville, Gardner Webb and Winthrop in the cluster of conference leaders. Match-ups pitting formerly tied opponents against one another have whittled the list of conference leaders down to 4: UNC-Asheville, Radford, Charleston Southern and High Point.

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Here’s a rundown of how those four stayed put at the top of the standings:

UNC-Asheville 92 Gardner-Webb 89 (game played on 2/9)

UNC-Asheville found itself alone on top of the Big South for two days after knocking off Gardner-Webb in the closing seconds on Monday night. Asheville trailed by seven with under three minutes to go, but finished the game on a 10-0 run to pull off the victory.

Andrew Rowsey knocked down three free throws after being fouled on a pump fake from beyond the arc to put Asheville ahead for good with three seconds remaining. The Bulldogs will have another opportunity to pull half of a game ahead of the pack with a Thursday contest against Presbyterian.

Radford 80 Longwood 75

Radford is the only first place team that had the chance to take on a bottom four team from the conference, and the Highlanders didn’t let the opportunity slip away. The team became the next to join UNC-Asheville atop the conference by holding off Longwood on Wednesday night. After leading by 11 at the half, Radford let the Lancers within a single possession with 22 seconds to play, but scored on every possession for the rest of the night to keep out of striking distance.

Charleston Southern 83 Coastal Carolina 72

Charleston Southern used a 51-point second half to pull away from Coastal Carolina in one of Wednesday’s two contests featuring a pair of first place teams. The teams traded baskets until the final eight minutes of play, when Charleston Southern used a 10-0 run to pull ahead by seven. Coastal Carolina found itself unable to close the gap any tighter, and is now tied with Gardner-Webb and Winthrop a game back of the pack.

High Point 73 Winthrop 72

Winthrop should be one of the four teams leading the conference. The Eagles led High Point by 10 with 3:28 to play, but went ice cold down the stretch and had the victory snatched from them in the final seconds.

Keon Johnson went to the line for Winthrop, who led 72-71 with five seconds remaining. Johnson missed the front end of a one-and-one. 2014 Big South Player of the Year John Brown grabbed a defensive rebound, got fouled, and knocked down a pair of free throws with three seconds remaining to steal the victory for High Point.

Without a team in the RPI Top 100, the Big South race doesn’t figure to play much of an impact on the NCAA Tournament. Still, it looks poised to be easily the most entertaining conference title chase in the nation, and there are some interesting possibilities for the teams that are in the hunt. With seven teams clearly a step above the bottom four, whoever finishes in first place will get a comparatively easy game against the 8th or 9th place finisher following its first round bye. On the other side of things, the teams that finish in sixth and seventh place will be tasked with playing an additional game before entering the conference’s gauntlet of contenders.

How do you think the Big South race will play out? Let us know in the comments!

Next: Virginia Cavaliers: State of the team without Justin Anderson

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