TSU Men's Basketball Breaks NCAA Drought With OVC Title Win

For the first time in 32 years, Tennessee State men's basketball is going dancing.

The Tigers (23-9) defeated Morehead State 93-67 in the Ohio Valley Conference championship on Saturday night, setting records for most points scored and biggest margin of victory in OVC title game history en route to clinching the program's third-ever NCAA Tournament bid. TSU's previous two appearances came back to back in 1993 and 1994. 

Graduate student Dante Harris — an All-OVC honoree — compiled a double-double, with 16 points and 11 rebounds in addition to four assists and three steals to earn tournament MVP honors. 

Four other Tigers finished in double figures: Antoine Lorick III (18), first-team All-OVC member Travis Harper II (17), Carlous Williams (16) and OVC Player of the Year Aaron Nkrumah (14). Harper and Nkrumah joined Harris on the All-Tournament Team. 

First-year head coach Nolan Smith has TSU on fire heading into the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers have won nine of their past 10 games, with four of the wins by 20-plus points. TSU's 23 wins and 15 conference wins both set school records for the Division I era.

For his efforts in turning around the program in year one, Smith was voted the OVC Coach of the Year and was named a finalist for a trio of national awards: the Joe B. Hall Award for the best first-year head coach, the Ben Jobe Award for best minority head coach and the Hugh Durham Award for best mid-major head coach.

Smith is familiar with high-level NCAA play. The 2011 first-round NBA Draft pick of the Portland Trail Blazers was a national-championship-winning All-American at Duke. Following his playing career, the former point guard had stints on the coaching staffs at Duke, Louisville and Memphis. Smith replaced Nashville native Brian "Penny" Collins, a Belmont alum, as the Tigers' head coach. Collins stepped down from his role at TSU after seven seasons and a 98-118 record to become an assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies.

After becoming the first conference champion to clinch an auto-bid this season, the Tigers will play the waiting game until Selection Sunday on March 15. TSU is projected by most bracketologists to be a 16 seed, but upsets in other conference tournaments could vault the Tigers up to the 15- or 14-seed lines. 

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During the program's other two NCAA Tournament appearances, the Tigers fell to Seton Hall (1993) and Kentucky (1994) in the first round. 

Nashville's other schools did not fare as well in postseason play over the weekend. After receiving a double-bye to the quarterfinals, No. 5-ranked Vanderbilt women's basketball was upset 89-78 by Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament.

In an even more surprising — and damaging — upset, Belmont men's basketball, the top team in the Missouri Valley Conference all season, was blown out by Drake 100-79 in its first game of the postseason. Despite being on the periphery of the at-large bid discussion for the past few months, the Bruins are now knocked out of NCAA Tournament contention

Lipscomb men's and women's basketball were each eliminated in the first games of their ASUN Conference Tournaments, while the TSU women failed to qualify for the OVC Tournament.

Vanderbilt men's basketball, Belmont women's basketball and both MTSU squads get started on postseason play this week. 

This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.