Getty Carlik Jones and the Radford Highlanders will host the Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs.
The Radford Highlanders will host the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs at the Donald N. Dedmon Center for the Big South Conference Tournament championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament on Sunday.
The game is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN. If you don’t have cable, you can watch a live stream of ESPN on your computer, phone or streaming device via one of the following live-TV streaming services:
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Gardner-Webb vs Radford Preview
Gardner-Webb went 10-6 in the Big South regular season, earning a first-round bye as the No. 4 seed. They then snuck past No. 5 High Point 75-69 to reach the semifinals, where they upset the regular-season champion Campbell Camels.
“We’ve been in the semifinals four of my six years here,” Gardner-Webb coach Tim Craft said, according to The Gaston Gazette. “And we’ve lost some close, just knock down, drag out, one-possession games. So, to finally kind of punch through and make it to the next step and get to Sunday, it’s exciting for our program.”
The Runnin’ Bulldogs held Campbell senior guard Chris Clemons, who leads Division in scoring at 30 points per game, to 23 points on 9-of-24 shooting. Gardner-Webb freshman forward Jose Perez led his side with 19 points, tying for team highs with six rebounds and three assists.
This is Gardner-Webb’s 17th season as a Division I team. They’ve never won a conference title or been to the NCAA tournament.
“We’ve got to just keep making history,” Perez said, per the Gazette. “We’ve just got to go in there and play hard. Whatever happens happens. … No one expected us to be how we are this year. We were chosen sixth (in the preseason), we came out fourth (in the regular season) and now we’re in Championship Sunday. So, whatever happens, we’ve got to play hard, do what we do and hopefully we come out champions.”
Radford, the No. 2 seed thanks to a 12-4 regular season record, overcame a 15-point deficit in the second half of their semifinal matchup with Charleston Southern, winning 63-54. The Highlanders missed their first seven attempts from the field and shot 24 percent in the first half, trailing 29-19 at the midway break.
“We faced a lot of adversity in the first half,” Radford head coach Mike Jones said, according to The Roanoke Times. “I thought our guys didn’t show any signs of welting or letting them affect them in a negative way.”
Gardner-Webb and Radford met once this season. The Highlanders shot an electric 13-of-26 (50 percent) from deep in a 75-58 home win.
They’re two of the best long-range shooting teams in the nation. The Bulldogs connect on 39.3 percent of their 3-point attempts, good for 12th out of 353 Division squads. The Highlanders aren’t far behind, 23rd in the nation at 38.2 percent.
“Radford just presents a whole new set of challenges,” Craft said, per the Gazette. “Great style of play, and they kind of have everything. We were talking about it on the bus. They’re tough. They’re one of the best rebounding teams in the league on both ends. And they’re big and physical inside. Then, they’ve got guards who are 40 percent three-point shooters. They’ve got a point guard who can playmake in (Carlik) Jones and a star in (Ed) Polite, who can play inside and out. So, they’re a challenge.”