I’ve been bugging Hoya Prospectus to expand his fine coverage beyond Georgetown. And although today’s post includes plenty of nuggets on the Hoyas, the main point is clear. What are the worst losses by Big East teams this season?
Second, the conference tournaments are finally here. As usual, I want to emphasize how fun it is to fill out printable brackets and recommend that you print them out through the links listed below.
Realistically, I only follow tournaments with NCAA bubble implications. For me, there are clearly five of these starting this week: the Horizon, WCC, MVC, CAA, and MAAC. In these conferences, Butler, Gonzaga, and Northern Iowa appear to be locks. If they lose, they take an at-large bid from some other bubble team. But St. Mary’s, Old Dominion, and Siena also have solid profiles and should be in the discussion.
Horizon League Tournament Bracket – Butler is slotted into the semifinals so there isn’t anything for bubble teams to worry about until Saturday, 8pm, on ESPNU.
West Coast Conference Tournament Bracket – St. Mary’s and Gonzaga are also slotted into the semis, so there isn’t anything to worry about until Sunday. Both semifinals are on ESPN2. Portland has some nice wins, so it wouldn’t hurt to watch for their box score on Saturday.
Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Bracket (see page 2 of the linked PDF) – For the rest of these elite leagues, the challenge is winning three games in three days. Northern Iowa starts Friday morning. Southern Illinois usually brings a ton of fans to St. Louis so if the Salukis win on Thursday, it could be a scary match-up on Friday.
Colonial Athletic Association Tournament Bracket – Old Dominion really helped its case for an at-large bid by winning the CAA outright. Their three-day quest begins Saturday morning.
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament Bracket – (The direct link to the printable bracket isn't working as of Sunday Night. But it can be found near the top of this page on the right.) Siena’s three-day quest will also begin on Saturday. I know what you are thinking. Why is Siena a bubble team and not Murray St. Didn’t Murray St. dominate their conference too? Here’s the difference in my eyes. Siena is 0-4 vs the RPI top 50, but but they have 5 wins vs RPI 51-100 and a decent SOS. On the flip side, Murray St. has just 1 win against the RPI top 100. Look for MidMajority.com to have fantastic coverage of the smaller tournaments, but for me, the discussion ends here. OK fine, I’ll include the OVC link, but don’t think I’m watching:
Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Bracket – Murray St. kicks off Tuesday at home.