UAB dunks Temple in AAC final
FORT WORTH, TEXAS >> Alejandro Vasquez scored 29 points and UAB locked up the American Athletic Conference championship by beating an exhausted Temple, 85-69, in the championship game on Sunday afternoon.
The 11th-seeded Owls (1620) were trying to complete a remarkable March story by winning five games in five days to earn a berth to the NCAA Tournament.
But they were denied by the fourth-seeded Blazers (23-11), who got off to a quick start and led wire-towire.
The Temple team was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons at the end of the season after it was revealed there is an ongoing investigation into gambling irregularities in its games.
Suspicion that something nefarious might be going on came to light in the most recent meeting against UAB when the line on the game jumped nearly eight points on gameday. Temple lost that day, 100-72.
Since then the Owls had rallied to win five straight games, with four of them coming in the AAC Tournament. Those wins included a semifinal upset over Florida Atlantic.
Hysier Miller scored 32 points in the final for Temple.
SEC
AUBURN 86, FLORIDA 67 NASHVILLE, TENN. >>
Johni Broome scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as No. 12 Auburn won the Tigers’ third Southeastern Conference Tournament championship by beating Florida in a game marred by a gruesome injury to Gators center Micah Handlogten.
The Tigers (27-7) avoided the upset bug that took out the SEC’s top three seeds in Friday’s quarterfinals, leaving them as the highest seed still standing. They never trailed in the final, adding titles to those won in 1985 and 2019 and earning a second under coach Bruce Pearl.
Denver Jones scored 11 points for Auburn. Chad Baker-Mazara added 10 before going to the bench along with Broome and getting a standing ovation with two minutes left.
The sixth-seeded Florida Gators (24-11) were playing their fourth game in as many days and trying to win the program’s fifth SEC Tournament title and first since 2014. But they lost Handlogten, who was taken off the court on a stretcher, to a broken lower left leg within the first three minutes.
Zyon Pullin led the Gators with 15 points. Walter Clayton Jr. added 13, Tyrese Samuel had 12 and Thomas Haugh 11.
Atlantic 10
DUQUESNE 57, VCU 51 NEW YORK >>
Duquesne earned an NCAA Tournament bid for the first time in 47 years, beating fifthseeded seeded to win the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship.
The sixth-seeded Dukes (24-11) led by 14 at the half, but bringing home that long-awaited invite to March Madness was a struggle. Duquesne scored only 21 points and shot 5 for 29 from the field in the second half, but the small Catholic school in Pittsburgh will head into the NCAA Tournament with an eight-game winning streak.
Coach Keith Dambrot, who coached LeBron James for two years in high school, and the Dukes matched a program record for victories set in 1953-54, when Dambrot’s father, Sid, played for Duquesne.
The last time Duquesne won the A-10 and went to the NCAA Tournament was in 1977, when future NBA All-Star Norm Nixon and the Dukes beat Villanova in the title game.