With a Southern Conference title and a 20-10 record under its belt, East Tennessee State now looks to who it will face in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
So far, Austin Peay won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament to advance and Creighton is in the tournament after claiming the Missouri Valley Conference. Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis is another possibility after winning the Mid-Continent Conference and Manhattan took the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title to move on.
The Big South Conference will be represented by North Carolina-Asheville, and North Carolina-Wilmington won the Colonial Athletic Association.
Pennsylvania will represent the Ivy League schools and San Diego took the West Coast Conference title.
Troy State is coming from the Atlantic Sun Conference and Western Kentucky from the Sun Belt Conference, while Wisconsin-Milwaukee took the Horizon League title to advance.
The rest of the list of teams will be rounded out this weekend as conference championship week comes to a close.
The NCAA Selection Show will determine who faces who. It airs on Sunday at 6 p.m. on CBS.
Another uncertainty is where the Bucs will play.
There are eight regional sites. Nashville, the location of the South Regional, is the closest.
Other possibilities are Boston, Tampa, Birmingham, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City and Spokane. (Boston, Oklahoma City and Spokane have reportedly already sold out.)
ETSU students can reserve tickets to the Bucs’ first round game by calling the ETSU ticket office (439-5371). Students need to give basic information to be placed on the waiting list.
The ticket office will start selling tickets on Monday. Prices so far range from $120 to $170. There will be no student discounts for tickets.
Last year’s SoCon champs, Davidson, took the 13th seed and was sent to San Diego, where it lost to Ohio State (69-64).
This will be the Bucs’ sixth appearance at the NCAA tournament. The last time ETSU was there was 1992 after a four-year run as conference champs.
This will be the first NCAA trip for DeChellis as a head coach. He went twice as an assistant at Penn State.
The Centre at Millenium Park will host a gathering Sunday to see where the Bucs will be heading. Fans are invited to join ETSU coaches and players.
Due to spring break, the East Tennessean will be unable to print any results from the NCAA tournament until March 26.

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