The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

NCAA Division I basketball conference championships are underway and teams are vying for bids in the NCAA Tournament.

Radshad Davis had a premature end to the Conference USA tournament after the FIU Panthers were eliminated without playing a single game.

Tuesday’s East Division Preliminary Round game featuring the No.7 Panthers and No. 6 Middle Tennessee was cancelled due to COVID-19 protocols and contact tracing in the FIU programme.

Middle Tennessee automatically advanced to face No. 3 seed North Texas in the First Round.

FIU concluded the regular season 9-17, 2-15 in C-USA. In his lone season at FIU as a redshirt senior, Davis appeared in 16 games and averaged 13.1 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. He shot 48 percent from the field, 34 percent from three-point range and 83 percent from the free throw line. He posted three double doubles on the year. He scored a career high 28 points against Flagler in just the second game of the season and posted 10 rebounds on three different occasions.

In the Big 12 Tournament, Kai Jones and the No.13/16 Texas Longhorns will take on the No. 20/22 Texas Tech Red Raiders tonight at 9:30pm local time at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.

Texas is looking to advance to the semifinals at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship for the first time since 2014. The Longhorns have reached the semifinal round in 13 of their first 23 appearances at the Championship.

Jones recently won the conference’s Sixth Man award and was an All-Big 12 Honourable mention.

He said his hope for the postseason is for his individual success to coincide with the success of the team.

“From watching film, to talking to coach, I understand the things that I do very well. It’s been something I’ve understood since the beginning, but it’s just a matter of me doing that consistently,” Jones said.

“I feel like I’m starting to find a rhythm and it feels really good but as long as we’re winning games I’m happy with that and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

At the 2020 Big 12 Tournament, the Longhorns were going through pre-game warmups with the Red Raiders when news broke that the Power Five conferences all cancelled their conference basketball tournaments due to the threats of further spread of COVID-19.

The Longhorns have lofty expectations this season after a 19-7 regular season.

“It’s kind of exciting, I feel a buzz around the team. I feel really energised. I couldn’t sleep, I feel really ready to go and I’m excited. They took it away from us last year with COVID so now we get to really go and I feel like we have a chance to do something special so I’m pretty excited to say the least,” Jones said. “It’s just a genuine love for the game. I feel like I’m doing what I want to do and what I was meant to do.”

Sammy Hunter and the Ole Miss Rebels are seeded No. 6 in the SEC Tournament and will open play tonight against the No.11 seeded South Carolina Gamecocks at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

The matchup will be the last of four games that day, and will begin 25 minutes after the conclusion of the 6pm game.

The Rebels ended the regular season with a perfect week, and concluded with a 15-10 record - 10-8 record in conference play.

“Coach talked to us about it and people like Jarkiel [Joiner] and Romello [White], especially Romello because this is his last year at Ole Miss, we have been talking about it and we’re trying all we can to make it to the NCAA Tournament,” Hunter said. “It’s possible, anything’s possible, you just have to believe. Call us crazy but we believe in each other, we believe in ourselves. We’ll just take it game by game, day by day, practice by practice and see what happens.”

Phillip McKenzie and the Houston Baptist Huskies advanced to the second round of the Southland Conference against the No.6 seed Lamar Cardinals. The Huskies opened play with an 80-68 first round win over Incarnate Word.