The NCAA Tournament gets started off on Tuesday night with the first game of the play-in matchups that will decide the final bracket before the actual postseason tournament begins on Thursday as Liberty takes on North Carolina A&T in Dayton, Ohio.
Liberty enters the game as a 20-loss team, but one with momentum and enthusiasm after winning the Big South Conference tournament, while North Carolina A&T comes into the game out of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. The two teams facing off on Tuesday night will then play Louisville in the actual first round, as they are the number one overall seed.
Liberty is in a strange spot, as they enter the game after dealing with some charter plane trouble on Tuesday morning. Coach Dale Layer said his team was excited and ready to play.
"On 2 1/2 hours of sleep, an 8-hour plane delay -- hey, it's great to be in Dayton!" Layer said with a wide smile.
The team is one of the worst to ever make the tournament based on record and the Flames got off to an awful start to the year, losing their first eight games. The team picked things up at the end, winning five in a row while taking the Big South title and now with play in the NCAA First Four against NC A&T at the University of Dayton Arena.
North Carolina A&T is an improbable story as well, as they are just 18-16 to break a streak of 15 straight losing seasons while taking the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament title. Liberty University made headlines a few weeks ago when Tim Tebow came for a visit to the evangelical Christian school and they are the first team to make it with 20 losses after Coppin State in 2008.
"The low point was probably the beginning of the year when we were 0-8," guard Davon Marshall said. "Guys started to quit. It was a lot of long days of practice. Guys were down on themselves, thinking about next year."
At one point the Flames were 10-20 and never even thought about sniffing the NCAA tournament. Then things chanced with a win at Radford before taking down Coastal Carolina, High Point, Gardner-Webb and Charleston Southern to take the title. John Caleb Sanders led the team in scoring with nearly 15 points per game, while junior JR Coronado was tops in rebounding.
North Carolina A&T made a big rebound to make it as well, coming from 14-16 before the conference tournament to take the automatic bid with a win over Morgan State. The team last made the Big Dance in 1995 and hadn't had a winning season since 1997.
"We hadn't won more than two games in a row all year," said coach Cy Alexander said. "Fortunately for us, the guys waited until the right time to win three -- plus one more."
Liberty ranks 132 in scoring with just under 70 points per game, while they are 122nd in rebounding and 197th in field goal percentage. The team lost nine of its first 11 games of the season before winning three in a row and they saved their best basketball for last as they won five in a row to take the title.
North Carolina A&T ranks all the way at 290th in scoring with under 63 per game and are 131st in rebounding with just over 35 boards. The team has some issues with assists and field goal percentage, but their strong play over the final stretch, winning six of its last seven games, could propel them into a matchup with Louisville if they can beat Liberty.
