In addition to Arch Madness this Thursday, we have several leagues playing critical, pool impacting, quarterfinals games, the Sun Belt proceeds to round 3 of 7, and two new conferences get things started. I will run through the conferences playing in the quarterfinals first, as that has the most impact on our pool, then I will get to the Sun Belt, and finally we'll take a peek at the new conferences tipping off. For those of you that still have not saved a link to the standings, go ahead and click here to see the latest version of where you currently stand. We do have some overnight updates relfected in the current standings.
Ohio Valley (Quarterfinals)
We have two quarterfinals' games being played today and a few pool losses are guaranteed based on the match-ups. At 6:00 PM CST (4) UT Martin taking on (8) Eastern Illinois and at 8:30 PM (3) Southeast Missouri State plays (6) Lindenwood. The 1-seed and 2-seed both have the double bye, those teams are safe until Friday.
Nobody in our pool is riding with Eastern Illinois, but 6.5 favorite UT Martin has been picked by 6 people, making it possible to escape this game without a pool loss or it will ruin the bonus point dreams for 15% of the pool. The later game is more interesting for both sides. We do have two people on 6-seeded Lindenwood; however our pool favorite is 3-seeded Southeast Missouri State, with 12 people riding them. Vegas has this game as a 1-point spread, I expect this to be a fun game to watch, especially for those that don't have either of those teams.
Patriot League (Quarterfinals)
In my least favorite conference tournament scheduling style, all four Patriot League games are played at the same exact time, 6:00 PM CST. It's hard to showcase your league when people must pick and choose which game to watch. It's not worth providing a further pool related breakdown of action tonight because all 36 of us are still alive, and unless a major upset occurs, the only pool loss will by (8) Bucknell. The Bison are a 16-point underdog to (1) Navy.
Summit League (Quarterfinals)
Back to a league that understands how to run a tournament, the Summit League will be playing two conference tournament games today and the majority of the pool will have teams playing. At 6:00 PM CST (1) North Dakota State plays (8) Oral Roberts and at 8:30 PM CST (2) St. Thomas-Minnesota matches up against (7) South Dakota State. Almost 90% of our pool picks are on the one and two seeds in this league, which means unless a major upset happens these games are not meaningful. Kevdurks, Ballincat, Conservative Doug and Patriotic Doug reached for the bonus points here, so they will be rooting against the rest of us.
Sun Belt (Round 3)
It will be worth paying attention to these games today as we are guaranteed at least one pool loss and possibly more. Beginning at 5:00 PM CST (8) Southern Mississippi plays (9) James Madison and this game is only important to Novakii as he reached for the James Madison Dukes as a bonus pick. The 7:30 PM CST game is (7) Arkansas State vs. (10) Georgia Southern. Four pool picks are on Arkansas State, while B.I. is the lone Georgia Southern rider. Every day the Sun Belt pulls a few more of us in!
MAAC
Our first of two new conferences tip off Thursday evening, and both MAAC games could have a potential impact on our pool. First, at 5:00 PM CST (8) Iona will play (9) Sacred Heart, and KatieMay and Patriotic Doug have Iona. They can both escape without a loss, but Iona is only favored by 3 points tonight. Then, at 7:30 PM CST (10) Manhattan takes on (7) Fairfield, and Jack is the lone man on Fairfield.
This was the only conference that caused updates to our pool standings before any games tipped-off as Siena moved from a 2-seed to a 3-seed, and St. Peter's moved from a 3-seed to a 2-seed, flipping bonus point opportunities for many of us. 1-seed Merrimack won the regular season and accounts for 47.22% of our pool picks, however Siena is the computer favorite with a 20.63% chance to win this championship. The top 5 seeds in this conference all have a similar chance to win, making this a wide-open conference tournament. Our pool is backing 8 of the 10 teams in this league, and based on historical winners, seeding does not matter in this conference tournament. In 2021 we saw Rick Pitino win with 9-seed Iona and just last year 6-seed Mount Saint Mary's won.
West Coast
We do not need to worry about this conference until Round 3 on Saturday, but our first Vegas tournament is now tipping off! From a pool perspective this may end up being boring, Gonzaga won (shared) the regular season title, they are the computer favorite to win at 73.82% and 77.78% of our picks are backing the bulldogs. For the five people that did not pick Gonzaga, if the bulldogs can't pull off the championship, this ends up being a conference that could help decide our pool champion.
The next blog update will be focused on reviewing the standings and conferences that are in the semi-finals or finals. We hit the breaking point on Friday, and it is impossible to keep breaking down each conference. This weekend brings us 5 conference tournament champions and heading into Monday we will have a good idea about who are pool champion contenders, and who needs to dig out of a hole. It is rare that we see people go wire-to-wire in this pool, champions typically come from somewhere in the top 15 after this first weekend wraps up, but nobody will be eliminated yet. 🏀
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