Having grown up in northern New Jersey I've always had a soft spot for the NEC. I was a 15-minute drive from the campus of Farleigh Dickinson and attended the Knights summer basketball camp as a youth. Tonight we'll crown a champion of the Northeast conference at the WRAC where the Long Island Blackbirds will host the Robert Morris Colonials.
We know Robert Morris, we're familiar with Robert Morris. The Colonials have won back-to-back NEC championships and reached tonight's final with a 64-62 victory over Quinnipiac in the semifinals. Then there's LIU, a team whose greatest claim to fame in the last 20 years might be the presence of Charles Jones who led the nation in scoring in back-to-back seasons in 1997 and 1998. Of course, the Blackbirds also qualified for the NCAA Tournament in that 1997 season, the last time the school made a trip to the Dance.
Will number-one seed LIU snap a 14-year NCAA Tournament dry spell or is a three-peat in the cards for the third-seeded Colonial? Come on in and share your thoughts!