The 2009 Summit League men's basketball tournament was the

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

post-season tournament for Summit League, an NCAA Division I athletic conference. It took place March 7–10, 2009 at

Sioux Falls Arena Sioux Falls Arena is a 7,500-seat multi-purpose arena located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The facility was built in 1961. It seats 6,113 for basketball games and 4,760 for indoor football and hockey. It was the home of the Sioux Falls Skyforce b ...

in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Top-seeded

North Dakota State North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural College in 1890 as th ...

defeated #3 seed

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

66–64 to earn an automatic berth into the

2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament The 2009 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament in which 65 schools competed to determine the national champion of the men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2008–09 basketball ...

. The winning points came on a shot by

Ben Woodside Benjamin Michael Woodside (born July 1, 1985) is an American former professional basketball player who spent the majority of his eight-year career playing in Europe. College career From 2005 to 2009, Woodside was a member of the North Dakota State ...

, who was also named the tournament MVP, with 3.3 seconds left. North Dakota State trailed for most of the final; the Bison were behind by as much as 14 points in the first half and 12 with less than 10 minutes left, but they went on an 18–4 run to end the game, capped by Woodside's shot. A long three-pointer by Oakland's

Johnathon Jones Johnathon Christopher Jones (born May 1, 1988) is an American professional basketball player who last played for KK Igokea of the Bosnian League and Adriatic League. At the collegiate level, he played with Oakland. As a junior in 2008–09, h ...

at the buzzer bounced off the rim, preserving the Bison victory. The Bison, who were in their first season of eligibility for Division I postseason play, became the first men's team in Division I or its predecessors in more than 35 years to qualify for the NCAA Tournament in its first year of eligibility. The previous team to accomplish this feat was Southwestern Louisiana, now

Louisiana-Lafayette The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, ULL, or UL) is a public research university in Lafayette, Louisiana. It has the largest enrollment within the nine-campus University of Louisiana System and the s ...

, in

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

. The Bison were the second Summit League team ''that day'' to accomplish this feat—

South Dakota State South Dakota State University is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Brookings, South Dakota. Founded in 1881, it is the state's largest and most comprehensive university and the oldest continually ...

, also in its first year of Division I postseason eligibility, won the Summit women's tournament final, held at the same site, to book a place in the NCAA women's tournament. In another coincidence, the Jackrabbits defeated

in their final.

Format

Unlike most Division I basketball conferences, the Summit League does not send all of its teams into its conference tournament. Out of the league's 10 teams, the top eight receive berths in the conference tournament. After the 18-game conference season, teams are seeded by conference record, with tiebreakers used if necessary in the following order: # Head-to-head competition # Winning percentage vs. ranked conference teams (starting with #1 and moving down until the tie is broken) #

Ratings Percentage Index The rating percentage index, commonly known as the RPI, is a quantity used to rank sports teams based upon a team's wins and losses and its strength of schedule. It is one of the sports rating systems by which NCAA basketball, baseball, softball, ...

# Coin flip

Bracket

''* Overtime''

References

{{2009 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament navbox Tournament Summit League men's basketball tournament Basketball Basketball competitions in Sioux Falls, South Dakota College basketball tournaments in South Dakota