It's still 35 days away until a champion will be crowned in the NCAA Men's basketball tournament, so no need to scramble for brackets just yet. But Cinderella's dreams start today! The Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament (Jacksonville University and UNF's conference) starts today and will run through next Tuesday. The A-Sun, as it is known, hasn't had a central location for its tournament in a few years, so the lower seeds will host the higher seeds all through the tournament. University of North Florida plays on the road today at Lipscomb at 8pm on ESPN+. Jacksonville University has an opening round bye and will host a game Thursday night at Swisher Gym on the JU campus. All of the preliminary games will be shown on the subscription-based ESPN+; the A-Sun championship game, though, will air March 8th at 5pm on ESPN.
This is where Cinderella happens, the winner of the A-Sun tournament gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. UNF's only appearance in the big tournament was in 2015 after an amazing run through the A-Sun tournament. JU's last appearance was in 1986. Here's hoping the slipper fits for one of our local schools this year!