Thursday is going to be the busiest day of conference tournament college basketball to date with 7 leagues in play. We have a variety of action ranging from the Atlantic Sun seminfinals to the tip off of one of my favorite conference tournaments, Arch Madness. We now move to the point in conference tournament play where we have games begining late morning, starting with the Sun Belt gifting us a 11:30 AM CST matchup. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we now get late night conference tournament games with the West Coast Conference tip off, which also happen to be in the happiest place in the world, Las Vegas. This may end up being a lengthy blog post by the time we get done covering all the action.
Sun Belt
We're going to change the preview cadence and cover the conferences based on game start times now that we will have games all day. This means we will start in the Sun Belt and preview the 2nd round games. And yes, that is correct, the Sun Belt has a 2nd round which means they are one of the only non power conference to have a 5 round conference tournament. Seeds 5 through 13 are in action today, as the top 4 seeds do not start until the quarterfinals. The 11:30 AM CST game is (8) South Alabama vs. (9) Appalacian State which means right off the bat Chris and Tammy are at risk for a loss as they both took Appalacian State. South Alabama is favored by 5 points which sounds about right for an 8/9 matchup. The following 3 games (5) Troy vs. (13) Arkansas State at 2:00 PM CST, (6) Old Dominion vs. (11) Texas State at 5:00 PM CST and (7) Georgia Southern vs. (10) UL Monroe at 7:30 PM CST all have no impact to our pool. We will not need to pay attention to this conference after the Appalacian State game is over.
Missouri Valley
Our next conference tipping off, still in the afternoon, is the Missouri Valley, otherwise known as Arch Madness. The good news is that we have 4 first round games, spread out through the entire day. The bad news is that these are the 5 through 12 seeds and only Izzy reached into those low seeds. The game to watch here is Izzy's (5) Indiana State vs. (12) Evansville. In other news, Evansville just gained 31 brand new fans for Thursday's game. Indiana State is a 17 point favorite against a 1-19 (MVC record) Evansville, I wouldn't expect an upset to take place here.
Patriot League
We now get to talk about the quarterfinals of the Patriot League tournament and all remaining teams will be playing. All games will essentially be played at the same time, I never will understand why leagues don't stagger these matchups. Only 3 games matter for our pool starting with (1) Colgate vs. (8) Loyola Maryland. An astonishing 80% of our pool picks are backing Colgate and TeamRankings gives Colgate a 64% chance of winning the tournament. This is tied for highest percentage of our picks on the same team. Colgate is favored by 16 points which tells me they are in no real danger to lose this game, maybe next round. The next game that matters, for at least 3 of you, is (2) Navy vs. (7) American and then standing all alone, Tammy is on (3) Lehigh vs. (6) Lafayette.
Horizon League
Another league moving on to the quarterfinals is the Horizon League and yes, every single team will be playing tonight. We are all over the place with our picks in this league making these games tonight super exciting. 6 of the 8 teams are picks in our pool, we will see red all over the spreadsheet after these games end. The interesting thing about this conference is 40% of our picks are on the four seed, Northern Kentucky, we're either very savvy or idiots. TeamRankings gives the one seed, Youngstown State almost a 37% chance to win this tournament, so the analytics are not on the side of Northern Kentucky. One other thing to watch for tonight is Antoine Davis of Detroit Mercy could set the all-time NCAA basketball scoring record tonight, passing Pistol Pete. If Detroit Mercy loses, which is a real possibility as 9 point underdogs, this will be Davis's last game.
Atlantic Sun
The conference that is closest to crowning a tournament champion, the Atlantic Sun, has now moved on to the semifinals. It feels like everything is moving so fast now, I just want it to slow down! It is absolutely ridiculous that both of these games are on at the same time, tipping off at 6:00 PM CST. Let's look at the breakdown. (1) Kennesaw State plays (5) Lipscomb, neither team a popular pick in our pool. While 5 people are on Kennesaw State, only 1 person picked Lipscomb, and that is Matthew. It's very early for me to pull out this statement, but if Lipscomb wins this conference tournament it will be a pivital win for Matthew and puts him in the driver's seat for a long stretch. Looking at the game at the bottom of the bracket, (2) Liberty will play (3) Eastern Kentucky. While 66% of our picks are on Liberty, Chris and PGilly are riding Eastern Kentucky. We have a couple very fun and pivotal games coming our way tonight. The Atlantic Sun really did do a good job of making a nice-looking bracket this year.
Ohio Valley
Another exciting conference playing tonight is the Ohio Valley as they move into the quarterfinals and all 4 teams playing tonight are pool picks. Both games are a 1 point spread so we could have some great finishes that can go either way. At 6:30 PM CST (4) Tennessee State plays (5) Southeast Missouri State and at 9:00 PM CST (3) UT Martin takes on (6) SIUE. I understand that playing at a central location forces these games to be staggered, but great job to the OVC for not giving us overlapping quarterfinals games. 10 people in our pool are at risk of a loss tonight with 3 guaranteed losses being handed out.
West Coast Conference
Our final conference tipping off its tournament tonight is the West Coast Conference. Due to the Mortal Kombat ladder style bracket our pool does not come into play until we get into the quarterfinals. For those of us in the Central and East Coast time zone these games are perfect to watch super late into the night and see the camera shots of Vegas without the stress of a potential pool loss.
By this evening we will have 9 conference tournaments in progress, that is more than a quarter of the conferences. With all of the action expected to take place today I plan on making a blog entry late tonight, along with at least one update to the standings. As a reminder, the standings are updated here. Depending how many pool related upsets we have, I may post multiple blog entries today, or at least multiple standings updates. For those who are able, enjoy watching wall to wall basketball all day today! 🏀
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