The Latest on Selection Sunday: Tide, Bonnies win titles

The latest from NCAA Tournament selection Sunday (all times EDT):

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3:45 p.m.

Alabama, St. Bonaventure and Colgate locked up automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament by wining conference championships a few hours before the field of 68 was revealed.

Selection Sunday featured five conference tournament title games as a undercard to the main event starting around 6 p.m. EDT: the unveiling of the NCAA bracket.

There were no potential “bid stealers” in the early games.

No. 6 Alabama won the Southeastern Conference by beating LSU, but the Tigers are in good shape to earn an at-large bid. The Crimson Tide closed its case for a No. 1 seed with an 80-79 victory.

St. Bonaventure beat VCU to win the Atlantic 10’s automatic bid as the top seed in the conference. The Rams went into the game expected to be on the right side of the bubble no matter the result, but they’ll have to wait a few hours to make it official.

Colgate earned the Patriots League’s automatic bid by beating Loyola, Maryland.

Still to be played was the Big Ten championship game between No. 3 Illinois and No. 9 Ohio State and the American Athletic Conference championship between No. 7 Houston and Cincinnati, which needs to win to get in the NCAA field. The Bearcats could put the tournament hopes of bubbles team such as Syracuse, Utah State and Mississippi in jeopardy.

There are 38 at-large selections available and the NCAA’s deadline for teams to inform the selection committee that they would not be able to compete in the tournament passed Saturday night with no schools dropping out.

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