On Friday, Liberty secured the ASUN automatic bid to the 2021 NCAA Tournament thanks to the Flames’ win over Stetson in the ASUN semifinals coupled with North Alabama’s win over Florida Gulf Coast. The Flames and Lions will meet in the ASUN Championship game on Sunday at 2 pm from UNF Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. The game will be televised on ESPN.
North Alabama is in its third season of a four year transition period from Division II to Division I, and is therefore ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. The ASUN has elected to allow transitioning teams to still compete in the conference tournament despite being ineligible for the Big Dance. If North Alabama were to defeat the Flames on Sunday, Liberty would still earn the automatic bid as the ASUN has elected to reward the regular season champion the automatic bid if an ineligible team wins the conference tournament.
Liberty is the first team in the country to officially secure an NCAA Tournament bid. It is the 6th automatic bid the Flames have secured, as Liberty won the Big South Tournament Championship in 1994, 2004, and 2013. The Flames have won the ASUN Tournament Championship each of the past two seasons. Liberty earned the ASUN’s bid in 2020, but obviously didn’t participate because of the COVID pandemic which forced the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament.
The 5-seed Lions defeated 6-seed Florida Gulf Coast, 96-81, to secure a trip to Sunday’s championship game. It will be the first ASUN championship game appearance for North Alabama as the Lions picked up their first two ASUN conference tournament wins in school history this weekend.
1-seed Liberty will be looking to secure its third consecutive ASUN Tournament Championship and match its three straight regular season titles. The Flames are 8-0 all-time in the ASUN Tournament and have advanced to a fourth straight conference championship game. Liberty lost to Radford on a Carlik Jones buzzer beating three pointer in the 2018 Big South Tournament Championship game.
North Alabama (13-10, 7-8) and Liberty (22-5, 11-2) played in a pair of games less than two weeks ago at Liberty Arena in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Flames won both games, on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23, by the exact same margin of 74-54.
