While “Feast Week” doesn’t officially start until Monday of this week, us NCAA Basketball fans got a nice early treat with the Continental Tire Main Event Tournament. It was a four-team field, with all four of them ranked in the AP top-25 poll. It’s the only event that can say that, guaranteeing us two matchups each between ranked opponents on both Friday and Sunday.
Things got off to an unexpected start, with Virginia and Baylor going into a high-scoring battle, one in which the Cavaliers pulled off the upset on paper. In the other semifinal battle. UCLA and Illinois put up an intense, close battle. The late heroics of Terrence Shannon Jr. was enough to push the Big Ten program into the finals.
It was a cool 3rd place battle between UCLA and Baylor, a pair of preseason top-10 teams just looking to avoid going 0-2 in this event. In the end, the Bears got the edge in the final minutes to squeak by with an 80-75 victory. And for the finals, Virginia was trailing at the half but made a late run to win the title, 70-61 in what was an emotional week for the team and university overall.
Coming into the event, one could argue that the Cavaliers were the underdog and were most likely to go 0-2. Instead, they won and erased any preseason doubts after missing the NCAA Tournament a year ago. There is plenty to take away from their side and the other three teams, both good and bad. He’s a closer look at what happened this weekend.