Outside the Hashes

Click here to check out all the conference tournament predictions.

In the final installment of my conference tournament predictions, we look at the remaining 6 conferences. They range from the Big  Ten–one of the best conferences of recent memory–to the Great West, at 5-team conference which doesn’t even receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

In the ACC, it’s Duke out in front…again. NC State was a disappointment, while Miami was a surprise regular season champion. However, with Ryan Kelly back, the Hurricanes are back to doing what the rest of the ACC is used to doing: trying to catch Duke.

The Big Ten was an absolute gauntlet this season. My predictive rankings have 6 teams from the Big Ten in the top 12. That’s right, half of my top 12 are from one conference. Throw in Iowa (27) and Illinois (32) and two-thirds of the conference are 2nd-round-caliber teams. Indiana is the class of this conference, which speaks to just how good the Hoosiers are this year. Unfortunately for them and Michigan and Wisconsin, the three best teams in the conference reside in the same half of the bracket. That gives 2-seed Ohio State a (relatively) easier path to the final and the most likely team to win the tournament should Indiana falter. Whatever happens, it should be an entertaining weekend.

The Atlantic-10 looks like a two-team tournament, with Saint Louis and VCU on a collision path toward the final. Three teams are lurking–Temple, Butler, and La Salle–hoping to crash the party. Those 5 teams may all find themselves in the big dance should things fall into place this week.

Perhaps the most balanced conference tournament of all this year is the Big West. The favorite, Pacific, isn’t even a 1-in-4 chance to win it all, while UCSB is the biggest longshot but still has a 4% chance to pull it off.

I’m not even going to say anything about the Great West, but here are the predictions.

It feels like every year, but once again Montana and Weber State are the overwhelming favorite to meet for the Big Sky championship. My predictive rankings actually rank Weber State as a better team than Montana (#126 versus #188), but the conference gives the #1 seed every advantage possible. The whole tournament is on Montana’s home floor, only the top 7 teams qualify meaning the #1 seed receives a bye to the semifinals and only has to win two games, and the semifinals are re-seeded so should an upset occur in the first round Montana will be the beneficiary. All of that puts the Grizzlies right at 50/50 with Weber State close by at 41%.

That does it for this year’s conference tournament predictions. I’ll report back after the conclusion of all the tournaments with how my predictions fared against KenPom and TeamRankings (and maybe I’ll report some intermediate results some time this week).

Click here to check out all the conference tournament predictions.

It’s a weak SEC, but they do have one Final Four contender in Florida. That combination makes the Gators overwhelming favorites. Behind them are bubble teams galore, with Kentucky as the most likely to unseat Florida, but they are without star Nerlens Noel.

As always, Kansas is the favorite, though the field is a better bet. Kansas State tied the Jayhawks for the regular season title but it’s the 3-seed Oklahoma State that has the best chance to knock off Kansas.

In my update on potential Bid Stealers, the top two teams that could turn a 1-bid league into a 2-bid league were Middle Tennessee and Memphis. Well, Middle Tennessee already lost in the Sun Belt tournament, and while other bracketologists aren’t quite as high on their at-large chances as my system is, they do all agree that Memphis is a tournament lock regardless. The worse news for bubble teams is that the rest of the conference–led by 2-seed Southern Miss–provides enough competition to make it more likely than not that someone besides the Tigers wins the C-USA tournament.

The Pac-12 isn’t as bad as it has been, but it’s still not great. Arizona, despite their #4 seed, is the clear favorite. But the rest of top 5 plus 8-seed Stanford all have reasonable shots to take the auto bid.

A conference has to be pretty bad for the 220th-best team to be an 80% favorite. And, well, the SWAC is that bad. The only other team that could compete with Southern is Texas Southern and they are ineligible for the conference tourney. Of note is that even in a group of terrible teams, one teams stands out from the pack. Grambling is so bad this year that they are 96% likely to lose to the 6-seed and 339th-ranked (out of 347) team in the country, Alabama A&M. That’s impressive ineptitude.

The Southland tournament features one of the best low-major teams in Stephen F. Austin. They have a 62% chance to join the big dance, but Northwestern State and Oral Roberts could both stand in the Lumberjacks way.

Next up: the final installment including the ACC, Big Ten, Atlantic 10, Big West, Great West, and Big Sky.

Click here to check out all the conference tournament predictions.

Georgetown got the #1 seed but 2-seed Louisville is the big favorite here. Pittsburgh is actually the most likely team to emerge from Georgetown’s half of the bracket.

New Mexico is the top seed and Colorado State is the best team and 2-seed, but it’s host UNLV that is the favorite to win the Mountain West tourney. Ah, the powers of home court. The final four with the three aforementioned teams plus San Diego St. should be a lot of fun to watch. All four teams are ranked between 15th and 33rd in my predictive rankings with UNLV actually the worst of the four.

Denver is a near coin-flip to win the WAC. Top seed Louisiana Tech and 3-seed New Mexico State should provide some stiff competition, however. Utah State has a decent shot to upset.

Next up: the SEC, Big 12, C-USA, Pac-12, SWAC, and Southland tip off Wednesday.

Previously covered: (1) Big South and Horizon, (2) A-Sun, Northeast, Patriot, OVC, and WCC, (3) MVC, (4) SoCon, MAAC, and Sun Belt, and (5) America East, Summit, and Colonial.

As the clear-cut best teams in the conference and armed with double byes to the semifinals (actually a triple-bye), Akron and Ohio are the clear favorites to win the MAC. However, Akron just lost their starting PG, Alex Abreu, which should make Ohio the odds-on favorite. Kent State and Western Michigan get the two double byes as the 3rd and 4th seeds and are dark horse candidates. Look for the Golden Flashes, especially, as they appear on Akron’s half of the bracket.

North Carolina Central is a decent favorite, but the conference is very balanced behind them. Last year’s tournament cinderella Norfolk State, who knocked off Missouri as a 15-seed, is the top seed here and the most likely team to knock of NC Central.

Next up: Big East, Mountain West, and WAC.

Previously covered: (1) Big South and Horizon, (2) A-Sun, Northeast, Patriot, OVC, and WCC, (3) MVC, and (4) SoCon, MAAC, and Sun Belt.

Three tournaments begin play Saturday. The America East is a 3-team race led by top seed Stony Brook, who wins nearly half the time. The 2-seed Vermont has the best chance to knock them off, and the host Albany can’t be overlooked with home court advantage throughout.

Before Taylor Braun went out with a foot injury, North Dakota St. was riding high at 15-3 as one of the best non-major conference teams in the country. In the 10 games he missed, they went just 5-5 and dropped to 3rd in the conference. Braun is back and after struggling in his first game back, went for 22 in his 2nd game back. Watch for the Bison in this one as even with those 10 games weighting them down, I still project them to win over half the time. The biggest competition is last year’s conference champion South Dakota St. led by Nate Wolters. Those two teams win over 80% of the time. Continue reading →

If you missed it, here are the previous conferences covered: (1) Horizon and Big South, (2) A-Sun, Northeast, Patriot, OVC, and WCC, and (3) Missouri Valley.

The Southern Conference, once again, has been dominated by Davidson. The Wildcats haven’t been quite good enough to garner any at-large consideration, but the way they’ve run through the SoCon it shouldn’t matter. They have a 2 in 3 chance to head back to the NCAA Tournament. Should somebody stop them, it will have to be the College of Charleston, and they have a 20% chance to do so. Elon at 8% is the only other team with more than a prayer. Continue reading →