We did not experience any pool eliminations on Tuesday, but unfortunately that will come to an end tonight. Today we have 7 conference tournaments in action, including 5 new conferences tipping off. I will break down each conference below and most of the pool has at least one team at risk today, a few of us have multiple teams at risk. As a reminder, you can access the latest standings here and I will keep the standings updated as teams are eliminated, even if you don't see a blog update published. Now on to the basketball. 🏀
Atlantic Sun
We have our first morning and afternoon conference tournament games today, thank you Atlantic Sun! We will have a total of four games, tipping off at 11:00 AM CST, between the 5 through 12 seeds. At risk today is Patriotic Doug with (7) Eastern Kentucky, Conservative Doug riding (12) North Alabama and Galpin on (5) Florida Gulf Coast. A loss is guaranteed for someone as Florida Gulf Coast plays North Alabama.
Looking ahead, this conference does not have a clear-cut favorite, and our pool picks are all over the board. (1) Central Arkansas won the conference, (2) Austin Peay is the projected winner by the computers with a 27.48% chance, and our popular pool pick to win is (4) Lipscomb at 27.78%. In addition, we have people riding (3) Queens, along with the lower seeded teams that play tonight. I'm excited to watch this one play out throughout the week.
Big South
Only 1 game is being played in this first round of the Big South conference tournament, with absolutely no impact to our pool At 6:30 PM CST (9) Gardner-Webb will play (8) South Carolina Upstate for the privilege to get slaughtered to 1-seeded High Point 48 hours later.
High Point has a 64.77% to win this conference tournament and 63.89% of us picked High Point to win, we are aligned with the computers. We do have a handful of (2) Winthrop picks, but Patriotic Doug has (7) Charleston Southern and B.I. has (3) Radford. This could be a league that separates our standings if the favorites do not win, otherwise this will be a boring championship.
Horizon League
Most Horizon League teams play tonight, and all 4 games tip off at 6:00 PM CST. Although almost all of us have teams at risk tonight, if all the favorites win, that ,means we will only see one loss in our pool. As usual, I like to root for chaos, even if that impacts my pick, it's boring when these tournaments are all chalk, even though Sohler loves that chalk.
(1) Wright State is the Horizon League regular season champion, and the favorite to win the tournament at 31.78%, but our pool favorite is (2) Robert Morris, making up 44.44% of our picks. Additionally, we have action on the 3, 4, 5 and 9 seeds, meaning plenty of opportunities for bonus points if the favorites go down flames. This league has a track record of 4-seeds winning often.
Northeast
Here we go! Every Northeast Conference team is playing at 6:00 PM CST today, which means we all have teams at risk. The computers give (1) Long Island a 55.28% chance to win this tournament, and our picks are aligned with 66.67% on the sharks. The rest of our picks are sprinkled on (2) Central Connecticut, (3) Mercyhurst, (4) Le Moyne and (5) Stonehill. We are guaranteed one loss in this conference tomorrow, but we may see more. This is another conference where we have recently witnessed 3, 4 and even 6 seeds winning the tournament.
Ohio Valley
As the first-round tips off in the Ohio Valley, the only teams in action are seed 5-8 and Ballincat is riding with (5) SIUE while Galpin is on (6) Lindenwood. Those teams do not play each other, Conference champion (1) Tennessee State is a 34.92% favorite to win this tournament, but we believe in (3) Southwest Missouri State. We also have a few (2) Morehead State and (4) UT Martin picks mixed in; we really are all over the board in this league.
Summit League
We do not need to pay attention to the Summit League today, nobody picked (8) Oral Roberts or (9) Kansas City. Technically this is the first round, but the bracket makes this game look more like a "play-in" game prior to the quarterfinals tipping off. This is my least favorite league because it has way too many Dakotas and it's hard to keep them all straight. We do have all 4 Dakotas covered with our picks.
Even though (1) North Dakota State won the conference and has a 38.05% chance to pull off the championship, we are overwhelmingly on (2) St. Thomas-Minnesota with 58.33% of our picks. Many of us are falling for the narrative that the Tommies are the next coming of a Gonzaga-like basketball program.
Sun Belt
It is time to pay attention to the Sun Belt today. They may only be on round 2 of 7, but B.I. has (10) Georgia Southern and Novakii has (9) James Madison. They do not play each other so a loss is not guaranteed, but that just means we can root for 2 losses (or 2 wins)! This conference literally only plays two games each day, which is super weird, but I already said I like the format of this bracket, so I can't bad mouth it now.
Over the next 5 days, all conferences will wrap up the regular season and conference tournament seeding for the remaining conferences will become final. In regards to our pool, we'll see Max Points fluctuate as 2-seeds become 4-seeds and 3-seeds become 1-seeds. In addition to the standings changing due to losses, it will also change due to fluctuating Max Points. Then on Saturday, March 7, we will get our first conference tournament champion, in the Ohio Valley. 🎉
The next blog entry could either be spotlighting a bloodbath of losses tonight or a nice preview of Thursday's games. Either way I am hoping to post something tonight as we should experience a minimum of 2 pool losses by the end of Wednesday
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