It’s been a long strange trip, one that started at the Lakeside Drive Sheetz at 7:15 a.m. Thursday and will end in an empty High Point gym tonight as I watch the NCAA Selection Show by myself on my laptop. *single tear*

Obviously, Virginia Tech is in full panic mode at this point. Slated as one of the “last two in” on Joe Lundardi’s ESPN Bracketology, the Hokies must sweat out the SEC championship game today. Mississippi State is the first team out. If the Bulldogs beat Kentucky (not out of the realm of possibility, seeing as the Dogs has Big Blue beat in Starkvegas a few weeks back before gacking), that leaves one bid up for grabs. This is why you don’t lose to the 12 seed in the conference tournament. And this is why you don’t schedule everyone at the bottom end of Division I in the non-conference season. Seth Greenberg will watch the selection show with his team at his Blacksburg home and has closed the gathering off to reporters. My guess is the Hokies might be one of the featured bubble teams on the selection show. Agony or ecstasy? We shall find out soon.

Let’s touch on a few things in regard to the Big South women’s tournament championship game, which will tip off here at the Millis Center in about an hour.

I often tell people that, as a sportswriter, I don’t root for teams, I root for stories. And, man, there are a lot of storylines here today.

First off, anything other than a Liberty-Gardner-Webb final would have been a massive disappointment. These are the best two teams in the conference by a mile. They played two great games in the regular season and played a one-point game in last year’s Big South championship. Some of the storylines to watch:

* The Rick Reeves factor. No, it won’t go away. In Reeves’ press conference yesterday, Big South media liason Nic Bowman noted that Gardner-Webb had tied the Big South record for wins in a season at 28. He immediately piped in. “Who did it first?“ Of course, a Reeves-led Liberty team did in 1997-98, going 28-1. A Carey Green-led Liberty team matched that mark two seasons ago, going 28-4. Reeves doesn’t have any animosity toward Liberty. He enjoyed his time in Lynchburg and still has plenty of friends in town. His daughters went to high school and college in Lynchburg. He told me last year that playing Liberty is the hardest thing he has to do on a personal level.

* The rivalry factor. Gardner-Webb’s motto this season has been “two more points,“ one borne from its one-point loss to the Flames in last year’s title game. Liberty has the same sort of motivation heading into today. As Green put it yesterday, “they beat us twice. We have to respect that.“ But there isn’t one player on the Liberty roster that doesn’t believe LU is the better team, despite the on-court results.

* Never have two 25-win Big South teams met in a game. This will be a great showcase for the conference in a regionally televised game.

* Liberty’s Avery Warley should be rested and a bit feisty, considering she played 15 minutes and had four fouls yesterday.

* Liberty has won 13 of the last 14 Big South tournament championship games and has never lost once it has reached the final stage. The only Liberty loss in the last 34 tournament games came in the semifinals by two points to Radford three years ago.

* Both teams are guaranteed some sort of postseason action. The women’s NIT has expanded to 64 teams and each conference receives an automatic bid. So the loser will go to the little dance. If Liberty goes, the Flames will be on the road. LU will not put in a bid to host an NIT game.

* I’ll be posting live thoughts on Twitter throughout the game, so follow me at @chris_lang_blog if you want the updates.

* Interesting quote from Green yesterday that didn’t make the newspaper. I asked him about the differences on defense after halftime in the High Point game. The Panthers shot 51 percent in the first half but Liberty clamped down after the break and ran away with the game.

“It really wasn’t a tactic. It was that we focused better. And we saw that when we were out of position, what that did to us, and that we weren’t able to execute defensively. I think the girls were quick learners. Learning is a great indicator for success. What did they learn during the game, in the first half? I asked them that question, and they answered it. They’re good students. They were repeating back, ‘Coach, we weren’t doing this, we weren’t doing that.‘ So it makes you feel good as a teacher that your students answer the question.“

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Moving on, some wrap-up thoughts on the four days down here in the Triad, starting with Thursday’s ACC games. All in quick-hit fashion:

—Best pep band: Tie between Boston College and Florida State. Both had great selections of old favorites and some new stuff you usually don’t hear at a basketball game. Florida State gets a bonus because half of the band was wearing sunglasses. Nice touch.

—Best press conference moment, part 1: Seth Greenberg doesn’t seem to have a filter. Neither do certain media members. When asked Thursday after Tech’s loss to Miami what he would do to keep his players’ minds off the NCAA tournament selection show, he responded, “I’ll take away their cell phones and remote controls and lock them in a rubber room.“ Someone behind me in the room muttered, rather loudly, “you need to be locked in a rubber room.“ Greenberg’s response: “You’re not the first person to say that to me.“

—Best press conference moment, part 2: Let’s go back to the play in the Maryland-Georgia Tech quarterfinal game Friday. Maurice Miller goes to the rack with the shot clock running down, and tries to lay the ball in off the glass. He misses rim altogether, but man-child Derrick Favors is there for the follow up and jams it home. My seat was exactly perpendicular to the backboard, so I saw the red light go off before Favors caught the basketball. Absolutely should have been a shot-clock violation, and the officials blew the call. My seat was also right across from the Georgia Tech bench, so Jackets coach Paul Hewitt had roughly the same view as I did. Someone asked Hewitt about it after the game, and he cut the inquisitor off: “Looked good to me,“ with a sheepish grin on his face. He knew it should have been a violation. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

—Best press conference moment, part 3: I asked Gardner-Webb’s Margaret Roundtree yesterday about how important controlling the pace in today’s game would be. Reeves: “You know, he’s from Lynchburg now. Don’t give him anything that could end up on the bulletin board.“

—Player I was most impressed with: Derrick Favors, Georgia Tech. And this kid is just scratching the surface. I’d love to see him stay at Georgia Tech next year, because he could be a national player of the year type.

—Best media meal (look, reporters like to eat ...): High Point’s chicken Cordon Bleu before the Liberty game. Followed by cheesecake. Nice hosts here down at the Millis Center.

—Most annoying arena song: Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA. My head might explode if it plays again.

—Loopy moment: Exhausted after being at the arena for 14 hours, Party in the USA comes on at halftime of the N.C. State-Clemson game Thursday. I run back for a bottle of water, and half of the ACC stat runners are in the copier area, dancing along to the song.

—Best cheerleaders: N.C. State. They had a strange, wholesome, almost Hoosiers-like feel to them. Kind of like the Wolf Pack players, who wear the most basic, old-school uniforms in the conference.

—Best dance team: Florida State. Yeah, the Golden Girls are easy on the eyes. Oh, they can dance a bit too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

—Near disaster moment: During the N.C. State-Florida State game Friday, I clumsily knocked an empty cup off press row onto the floor. Thankfully an alert referee saw the transgression and scooped the offending cup away before Derwin Kitchen could slip and tear his ACL on it. Thanks ref! Party foul averted.

—Friendliest mascot(s): Liberty’s Sparky tends to take a keen interest in what I’m writing on my laptop. And Duke’s mascot made a point to fist bump everyone on press row before the Virginia game Friday. So it’s a tie.