It’s 1 vs. 2

Based on seeding Day one of the Men’s tournament produced two upsets out of five games as #8 FAU fell to #9 USA and #10 ULM beat  #7ULL.  Day two saw the higher seeds go 3-1 with #6 Denver beating #3 seed MT. Day three belonged to the favorites with #1 Troy advancing to face #2 UNT.

The men’s side had been a pile-up all year and ended the regular season with a three-way tie. The semi-finals though reflected the regular season. Each division champion dispatched  a foe from their division to set-up the final.

On the women’s side, UALR arrived in Hot Springs as the West champion and #1 seed riding a 19 game winning streak. Middle Tennessee came in with an identical 17-1 league record and 13 game winning streak.

While everyone anticipated a UALR-UNO final, the story the first two days was #12 seed UNO playing its final Division I games knocking off #5 FAU and #4 Denver before getting blasted by UALR. #10 UNT provided the only other upset taking out #7 FIU before getting smashed by MT.

The Alysha Clark / Chastity Reed scoring duel provided much of the early round drama. Clark set a tournament scoring record with 40 points against UNT. Reed broke the record with 41 on Monday against UNO. Reed’s ownership of the record ended in the second frame of the afternoon session as Clark scored 44 against WKU.

The men’s 1 vs. 2 battle tips at 6:00 pm Central on ESPN2. The women’s 1 vs. 2 tips at 1:00 pm Central on ESPNU.