2015 Conference USA Men's Basketball Tournament
The 2015 Conference USA Men's Basketball Tournament was held at the BJCC's Legacy Arena on March 11-14, 2015.
Of Conference USA's fourteen teams, twelve participated in the tournament. Florida Atlantic, at 2-16 in CUSA, failed to qualify and Southern Miss imposed a post-season ban on their own team after evidence of recruiting violations surfaced. Louisiana Tech came into the tournament as the top seed with a 24-7 overall record (15-3 in CUSA). The UAB Blazers were seeded fourth with a 16-15 overall record (12-6 in CUSA). The top four seeds were given a first-round bye.
Western Kentucky, Florida International, Middle Tennessee State and Rice won their first-round match-ups to advance to the quarterfinals on March 12. Old Dominion was the only top-four team to fall in that round, losing 59-52 to Middle Tennessee State. UAB edged 5th seed Western Kentucky by one point to advance to the semifinals.
MTSU continued their surge on March 13, upsetting second-seeded Texas-El Paso in the early game. UAB pulled out a 72-62 win against Louisiana Tech in the second game, overcoming a 10-point halftime deficit to go into overtime and outscoring the Bulldogs 14-4 in the extra period in front of 6,429 fans and a CBS Sports Network audience.
UAB faced MTSU in the final on March 14, broadcast on Fox Sports 1 with 8,279 fans on hand. The Blazers surged ahead to a 37-26 halftime lead and held off the Blue Raiders to claim a 73-60 victory. UAB's automatic bid made them the only Conference USA team invited to the 2015 NCAA tournament. The Blazers upset Iowa State in the opener, but lost in a rematch with UCLA in the round of 32. Louisiana Tech, UTEP and Old Dominion played in the NIT tournament. Of the three, only Old Dominion advanced, reaching the semi-finals where they lost to Stanford.
References
- Birdsong, Nick (March 8, 2015) "C-USA Tournament 2015: Bracket, seedings, who plays whom in Birmingham, and when." The Birmingham News
- "2015 Conference USA Men's Basketball Tournament" (March 26, 2015) Wikipedia- accessed May 14, 2015
External links
- 2015 Men's Basketball Championship at conferenceusa.com