5 Conference Tournament Championship Games & 5 New Conferences Tip Off Tuesday

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**I will not be posting a blog entry tonight, but I will be updating the standings**

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Today's schedule is overwhelming, anything I post here won't do it justice, but I will try. We have games tipping off at 10:30 AM CST, 3 conferences playing semifinals games, 5 new conferences tipping off and 5 conference tournament championship games. The current standings are located here and fully up to date with the results of last night's late games. Per usual, we'll lead this thing off with previewing the conference championship games. 🏆

Colonial Conference 

We will preview these championship games in alphabetical order because with 5 championships games on the schedule for tonight we'll see overlap in start times. The 6:00 PM CST Colonial Conference game will be a somewhat uneventful matchup for our pool with (2) Charleston taking on (4) UNC-Wilmington. While 57% of our pool picks are backing Charleston, we don't have anyone on UNC-Wilmington which means we won't see any bonus points or wild swings in the standings. Charleston is favored by 10 points and is the much better team, this game may not be much of a contest, but we have seen bigger upsets in the last 7 days.

Horizon League

In the 6:00 PM CST Horizon League game we have (3) Cleveland State vs. (4) Northern Kentucky and we are guaranteed to award bonus points tonight. 40% of the pool is on Northern Kentucky, but we do have 5 people on Cleveland State. Northern Kentucky is favored by 2.5 points so expect a close game. This could be one of the best championship games of the night and is crucial for our pool. For those not on either of these teams you don't have a great outcome to root for and the standings will get very messy towards the top. I love it! 💗

Northeast Conference

In the weirdest championship game today, we have a chalk matchup of (1) Merrimack vs. (2) Fairleigh Dickinson and we already know that Fairleigh Dickinson is going to the NCAA tournament win or lose. Merrimack is currently in the process of reclassifying to Division I and ineligible for the NCAA tournament this year. However, our pool is a conference tournament challenge and since Merrimack is allowed to compete, we award points to the conference tournament champion. We are split pretty evenly between these two teams, except for those of you that already have been eliminated, and this game has no spread. As odd and chalky as this matchup is, it has significant meaning to the standings for our pool.

Summit League

Finally! A nice 8:00 PM CST start time for some late-night conference tournament championship game action. Undefeated (1) Oral Roberts plays an always tough (3) North Dakota State. 77% of our pool picks are on Oral Roberts, they are favored by 10 points and undefeated. However, BI and Matthew believe in North Dakota State. Although I personally am on Oral Roberts, a part of me is rooting for North Dakota State to create some more bonus points and make the standings even more messy. I love the chaos!

West Coast Conference

In our final championship game of the night, we get (1) Saint Mary's vs. (2) Gonzaga and no, I do not have the seeds wrong. 72% of our picks are on Gonzaga, but we do have a good number of people backing Saint Mary's. While no bonus points will be awarded, depending on how the previous championship games turn out a Saint Mary's win may end up being very meaningful for our pool. This is another game with a 2.5 spread, in favor of Gonzaga, so expect another close back and forth game with these teams. 

That wraps up the conference tournament championship games today. We'll have 3 conferences playing semifinals games today and 5 new conferences tip off. It's starting to get real as almost 60% of conference tournaments have either tipped off or are complete and this will all be over in 6 days.

Finally, the conferences getting underway today include the Atlantic 10, ACC, Big West, MAAC and WAC. The major conferences have started to join the party now. We'll do a one sentence preview for each of these new conferences, that's all I have in me.

In the Atlantic 10 over 50% of our picks are on two seed Dayton, the computers agree with us, but at a lower 37%. One seed VCU was only picked by 5 people in our pool. Over in the ACC our picks are all over the place with four seeded Duke making up 25% of the selections. The Big West is another league where our picks all over the place, with two seed UC Santa Barbara making up just 30% of our pool picks. The MAAC is where we have the most agreement, with 69% of our pool picks on one seed Iona and the analytics giving Pitino a 62% chance to win the whole tournament. Finally, in the WAC, over 50% of our pool selection are on one seed Sam Houston State and we're guaranteed that New Mexico State will not win this conference for once. I'll end this blog entry by leaving you with the brackets in all their glory. 🏀