By Justin Zackal
The 2018 PAC Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament tips off with four quarterfinal games tonight at 7 p.m. with the four higher seeds hosting the four lower seeds, followed by the semifinals Thursday at 7 p.m. and the finals Saturday night at 7:30. The winner will receive the league’s automatic qualifying bid to this year’s NCAA Division III Championship Tournament.
Here are five things to watch in the PAC tournament:
Damion King and the Thomas More Saints will try to make it two titles in a row in the PAC.
ONE MORE TIME. Defending champion Thomas More (20-5, 16-2 PAC) enters the PAC tournament as the No. 1 seed for the first time since the Saints won their only other title in 2009. But this will be their last chance with the school leaving the conference after the academic year.
After chasing down Saint Vincent, which won the previous four PAC titles, Thomas More and its five returning starters would like to leave with two straight championships.
“We’re the hunted as opposed to the hunter,” said Thomas More head coach Drew Cooper. “Last year was all about dethroning Saint Vincent and now that we’ve done that it’s a different type of challenge. I wouldn’t point to our experience (as an advantage) because we’ve not had experience being the hunted and that is different for us.”
BALANCING ACT. Experience is actually an equalizer this year. Although Thomas More lost only two PAC games — at second-seeded Bethany (14-11, 14-4 PAC), 72-65 on Dec. 2, and at third-seeded Saint Vincent (16-9, 13-5 PAC), 65-50 on Feb. 14 — Cooper said the conference is equally matched. Sixth-seeded Geneva (11-14, 7-11 PAC) nearly won both of the games it lost to Thomas More (72-71, 86-80) and three of the league’s top four teams lost games to teams that don’t have winning PAC records.
The reason?
“The experience in the conference this year makes it certainly more balanced,” said Cooper, anecdotally naming seniors on each of the teams. “The four games Tuesday night, I anticipate four wars.”
To quantify the experience, four of the PAC’s top five scorers are seniors, which includes Calique Jones (18.6 ppg) and Tyriek Burton (16.1 ppg) of eighth-seeded Thiel (7-16, 5-13 PAC), Thomas More’s quarterfinal opponent. Overall, 11 of the league’s top 18 scorers are seniors.
ROAD TRIPPING. With a campus at least a four-hour drive from any other PAC school, Thomas More is undefeated in nine conference home games this year. But the three other quarterfinal hosts — Bethany, Saint Vincent and fourth-seeded Westminster (18-7, 12-6 PAC) — have home losses this year against teams seeded lower than them.
And here’s where Cooper hopes his team remembers what it’s like being the hunters.
“Home court is nice but hopefully if we learned anything from last year, we had to go on the road and win the thing, and we did that,” said Cooper, whose Saints won 79-68 at Saint Vincent in last year’s championship game. “That experience will hopefully help us prepare.”
Junior G Damion King, who scored a game-high 24 points in the finals last year, is Thomas More’s leading scorer this year with 15.2 ppg.
Cameron Kane-Johnson and the Westminster Titans could be primed and ready to make a run.
WHO’S HOT? Cooper seemed most weary of Westminster, the only PAC team that enters the tournament on a three-game winning streak, all against teams that qualified for the PAC tournament after the Titans lost at home to Thomas More, 76-60, on Feb. 7.
“If Westminster shows up and has a great shooting night, they are going to be conference champions,” said Cooper, naming outside shooters like Cameron Kane-Johnson (17.3 ppg, PAC-best 2.8 3-pointers per game) and the inside presence of Deontay Scott (11.5 ppg, PAC-best 8.2 rpg). “Their scoring punch is probably the best in the conference.”
The Titans host fifth-seeded Grove City (16-9, 9-9 PAC), which beat Bethany, 66-57, Saturday, but lost at Westminster in overtime, 76-65, in the teams’ last meeting. Seventh-seeded Waynesburg (10-15, 6-12 PAC) has won three of its last five including home victories over Westminster and Geneva.
EXPECT AN UPSET. Westminster was the only quarterfinalist to be upset at home in the first round last year, losing a 4-versus-5-seed matchup against Bethany, but two years ago the Titans advanced to the semifinals as a seventh seed. Cooper won’t be surprised if a lower-seeded team can make a run, but he would if one of them goes all the way.
“Five, six, seven and eight are as dangerous as they’ve ever been,” Cooper said. “I don’t know if any of them can win three games, but they sure as heck can win one or two. And one, two, three and four on any night can (beat each other).”
Although there will likely be an upset, it won’t occur because a team is overlooked.
“Each team has a handle on what to expect from the team they are going to be playing,” Cooper added. “It’s just a matter of who is going to show up for each team.”
