The Big South tournament works a little differently than most conference tournaments. Only the top eight teams (of ten) qualify, and it's seeded with the low seed at the high seed. Then in a couple days, the four winners will go play, according to their seeds, at the highest seeds home (most likely Coastal Carolina). Then another couple of days after that, the final two play at the higher seeded team's home. So it's not the shared court, play every day until you lose style of most college conference basketball tournaments. But here are the fourteen dudes repping Big South schools coming back to this year's tourney with the most previous tournament points under their belts...
#1: Amir Johnson (Radford guard; 61 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Radford is the defending Big South champion, but Coastal Carolina is the team to beat this year, going into the tourney as the #1 seed. Radford is a solid #2 seed though, hosting Charleston Southern tonight at home. Amir Johnson runs the show for the Highlanders, operating as the outside presence to complement the big foreigner fucker Radford has as their inside presence.
#2: Kyle Ohman (Liberty guard; 58 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Senior guard for the Liberty Flames, who will probably not see his collegiate career end with March glory, as Liberty enters the tourney tonight as the #6 seed, on the road at an always decent (by Big South standards) Winthrop team.
#3: Austin Kenon (VMI guard; 56 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Kenon is the holdover from last year's high offense, and he's been lighting it up like crazy in recent weeks, including a 38-point performance against High Point. But there's not enough out there on the VMI floor with him, and they're going to be fighting out of the 8th spot in the Big South tourney anyways, though they could give Coastal Carolina trouble. I don't even know where Coastal Carolina is at.
#4: Joey Lynch-Flohr (Radford forward/center; 53 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Lynch-Flohr is a Senior leader (like Amir Johnson) that smaller schools lean on heavily this time of year for those successful runs into March Madness.
#5: Artsiom Parakhouski (Radford center; 47 previous points in the Big South tournament) - There's an article in Sports Illustrated last week about foreign players finding their way to smaller schools and it talks in-depth about Parakhouski, who was an All-American honorable mention last year, and has NBA potential, which is pretty much unheard of in the Big South. If big ugly Belarusian pride Art takes over during the Big South tournament, Radford could easily side step Coastal Carolina to get the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. He's the type of player that makes small schools notable in the first two days of the NCAA tournament, and he's also leading the country in double doubles.
#6: John Williams (UNC-Asheville forward; 42 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Williams is the point-scoring heart of the middle-of-the-Big-South-pack UNC-Asheville Bulldogs, and hopes to carry them into the second round of the tourney at least, hosting High Point in the first round.
#7: Eugene Harris (High Point guard; 42 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Star of the High Point Panthers, along with a black dude named Cruz.
#8: Sean Smith (UNC-Asheville guard; 39 previous points in the Big South tournament) - He is Swedish, chilling in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, on scholarship. I imagine he smiles often.
#9: Mantoris Robinson (Winthrop forward; 37 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Multi-year starter for Winthrop, who along with Radford, are the only real threats to Coastal Carolina getting the automatic bid from the Big South. Winthrop won the Big South tournament for four or five years in a row before last year. Mantoris also is the best fucking name in this tournament.
#10: Tyler Baker (Liberty forward; 34 previous points in the Big South tournament) - On again/off again kid who has started alternate years for Liberty, and barely played the other ones, including this year.
#11: Charles Corbin (Winthrop forward; 29 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Corbin's been picking up his pace towards the end of the regular season, taking over a couple of games here recently. A semifinal match-up between Winthrop and Radford could be a good one later this week.
#12: Matt Dickey (UNC-Asheville guard; 26 previous points in the Big South tournament) - The Bulldogs' second gun behind John Williams, your standard small college whiteboy sharp shooting fundamentally sound guard.
#13: Logan Johnson (Coastal Carolina forward/guard; 23 previous points in the Big South tournament) - Senior star of the top-seeded team in the Big South tournament, who hope to go to the NCAA tournament for the first time in as long as it's been since they've been there.
#14: Adam Lonon (VMI guard; 23 previous points in the Big South tournament) - #1 on the VMI roster came from a basketball-specializing private school in Richmond, and has seen his playing time dip the past two years.
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