Four Teams Advance in Developmental Men’s Basketball Championship
BRACKET | TOURNAMENT WEBPAGE
MULTIPLE SITES – The Conference Carolinas Developmental Men’s Basketball Championship began on Monday with preliminary rounds at four different sites across the conference and four teams advanced to the semifinals which will be contested on Monday, Feb. 12.
Barton, Converse, Erskine and King each hosted three-team brackets with the winner of each bracket advancing to play for the title next week.
The first bracket champion was in Due West, South Carolina as Erskine A went 2-0 to earn a spot in the semifinals. They first defeated Erskine B, 63-56, then took down Emmanuel, 69-51, to book their ticket. Erskine B won the third game, 87-80, over Emmanuel.
Erskine A will face Belmont Abbey A in the first semifinal on Feb. 12 as the Crusaders won the Converse bracket. Belmont Abbey A took down the host Valkyries in game one, 77-66, then Abbey B defeated Converse, 90-72, in Spartanburg. In the decisive third game between the two Crusader programs, it was Belmont Abbey A that earned an 81-69 win.
It was a wild day in Wilson, North Carolina, the site of the Barton bracket which needed an overtime tiebreaker to decide the champion. The day began with the host Bulldogs capturing an 87-77 victory over Mount Olive, only to then lose to Francis Marion, 90-77. The Trojans bounced back to defeat FMU, 98-81, to give each team a 1-1 record. The three then played two five minute games to determine a champion. Barton and the Patriots squared off first with the home team winning, 14-9, before also defeating Mount Olive, 14-12, to advance.
Barton will face Southern Wesleyan in the second semifinal on Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. as the Warriors won the King bracket in Bristol, Tennessee. Lees-McRae took game one, 90-82, over the host Tornado before Southern Wesleyan eliminated King with a 117-59 victory. In the final game, Southern Wesleyan earned a 110-103 overtime win over the Bobcats to earn the bracket title.
The championship final will be held at 4 p.m. on Feb. 12 with both the semifinals and final being contested at Converse in Spartanburg.
The games will all be streamed live on the Conference Carolinas Digital Network at ConferenceCarolinasdn.com.
Earlier this fall Conference Carolinas announced that a developmental championship will be held in men’s soccer, men’s wrestling, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s volleyball and baseball. The developmental teams will be composed of student-athletes that have either not competed at the varsity level in 2023-24 or have competed sparingly at the varsity level by the time of the championship.