No. 12 Auburn takes SEC Tournament title
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 86-67 on Sunday 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 (2411) 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.
No. 13 Illinois 92, Wisconsin 87
MINNEAPOLIS – Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 34 points on 15-for-17 shooting from the free-throw line, helping 13th-ranked Illinois past Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament championship.
Marcus Domask added 26 points, eight assists and seven rebounds and Dain Dainja had nine points and seven rebounds for the Illini (26-8), who won their fourth conference title and their second in four years after shooting 16 of 26 from the floor in the second half.
Shannon finished with 102 points in three games this weekend, one short of the Big Ten Tournament scoring record, and was voted the Most Outstanding Player. Keegan Murray had 103 points for Iowa in 2022, but the Hawkeyes played four games that year on the way to the title.
A.J. Storr had 24 points and Chucky Hepburn added 20 points for the Badgers (22-13), who went 7 for 20 from 3point range after going 33 for 79 over their first three games of the tournament.
Yale 62, Brown 61
NEW YORK – Matt Knowling hit a jumper at the buzzer and Yale closed the game on an 8-1 run to beat Brown in the championship game of the Ivy League Tournament at Francis S. Levien Gymnasium,
sending the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time.
Kino Lilly Jr. sank two free throws to give the fourth-seeded Bears (13-18) a 60-54 lead with 27 seconds remaining. Bez Mbeng answered with a three-point play for No. 2 seed Yale (22-9) to make it a one-possession game. Nana OwusuAnane hit the second of two free throws for Brown, but John Poulakidas buried a 3-pointer and the Bulldogs trailed 61-60 with 14 seconds left.
Poulakidas fouled Malachi Ndur, who missed two foul shots to set the stage for Knowling.
It was a tough finish for the Bears, who beat Yale 84-81 in the final game of the regular season. Brown won six in a row to end the season and grab the tourney’s fourth and final berth. The Bears beat top-seeded Princeton 90-80 in the semifinals in search of their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1986. Their only other trip to the Big Dance came in 1939.
Duquesne 57, VCU 51
Duquesne earned an NCAA Tournament bid for the first time in 47 years, beating fifth-seeded seeded VCU 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.
Joe Bamisile led fifth-seeded VCU (22-13), which was trying to repeat as A-10 tournament champs, with 20 points.
UAB 85, Temple 69
FORT WORTH, Texas – Alejandro Vasquez sank five 3-pointers on his way to scoring a career-high 29, Yaxel Lendeborg finished with his 19th doubledouble of the season and UAB cruised to a wire-to-wire victory over Temple in the championship game of the American Athletic Conference Tournament, earning the Blazers a spot in the NCAA Tournament for a 17th time.
Vasquez opened the scoring with a 3pointer two minutes into the game and the fourth-seeded Blazers (23-11) never looked back, heading to the Big Dance on a five-game win streak. Vasquez had 21 points by halftime to lead UAB to a 4327 advantage.
Vasquez accounted for nearly half of UAB’s first-half output, hitting all five of his 3-point attempts on 7-for-9 shooting. The Blazers shot 52% in the first half and made 7 of 13 from beyond the arc.
Hysier Miller hit two 3-pointers and had 16 points at the break for Temple. Miller hit 4 of 8 shots, while the rest of the Owls made 5 of 22. Temple shot 30% overall and missed 10 of 12 from distance.
Miller scored a career-high 32 to lead 11th-seeded Temple (16-20). He made 9 of 18 shots with four 3-pointers and 10 of 11 foul shots. Shane Dezonie added 11 points, four rebounds and four assists.