NCAA Basketball: Takeaways from UMass Myrtle Beach Invitational title

The Myrtle Beach Invitational is an annual NCAA Basketball non-conference tournament that typically is one of the earliest to start. It concludes each Sunday before “Feast Week”, providing a lot of good games during the week. There are usually 1-2 ranked opponents, along with a number of capable mid-major teams that can make noise both here and potentially in March.

Speaking of March and “March Madness”, we got a bunch of that from the invitational alone. There were four quarterfinal matchups, with each having a clear favorite and underdog. And somehow, all four on-paper favorites fell. Colorado lost to UMass, Texas A&M fell to Murray State, Boise State was defeated by Charlotte, and Loyola-Chicago was vanquished by Tulsa.

That created several matchups that were expected to happen, just on opposite ends of the bracket. Charlotte beat Tulsa and UMass beat Murray State to create the unlikeliest of title-game matchups in the 49ers against Minutemen. In the end, new head coach Frank Martin and UMass beat Charlotte to win the entire event. On the opposite end, Texas A&M, who was ranked heading into the event, avoided going 0-3 in the Myrtle Beach Invitational by beating Loyola-Chicago in the 7th-place battle. The results were unexpected all around and could have big implications months down the road, particularly for the power conference participants.

With so many interesting results, there’s a lot to take away from this tournament, both good and bad. Here are my biggest overall observations from all eight NCAA Basketball in this event.