Sunday morning and into the afternoon we will have 3 conference tournament championship games starting with the Big South at 11:00a central time. At 1:00p central time both the Atlantic Sun and Missouri Valley conference tournament championship games will tip off. Let's look at each of these conferences and how these games could impact our pool.
Big South
23 out of 30 are still alive in this conference with 22 on (1) Winthrop and 1 lone person in Brad on (3) Campbell. Winthrop is a huge favorite at 11.5 points, but if Campbell wins that ends up being 2 points for Brad which can make the Big South a pivotal conference for our pool. Before the Big South even tipped off, 65% of our pool picked Winthrop and Team Rankings gave Winthrop a 64% chance to win the conference tournament. Mattyboi and Brad will be the most impacted with a Winthrop win, dropping them to the bottom half of the standings. The last 1 seed to win the Big South conference tournament championship was Winthrop in 2017.
Atlantic Sun
Although the Atlantic Sun is hosting a conference tournament championship game, (1) Liberty has already been awarded the NCAA Tournament bid regardless of a win or loss today. (5) North Alabama is ineligible for the post season as they are in the middle of a 4 year transfer window from Division II to Division I. Having said that, this has no impact to our pool as the winner of this game is still the Atlantic Sun conference tournament champion. Absolutely nobody picked North Alabama, but 24 are on Liberty. Liberty is a 13.5 point favorite, but who knows how hard they will be trying. Why risk an injury before going to the NCAA tournament. Before the Atlantic Sun even tipped off, 71% of our pool picked Liberty and Team Rankings gave Liberty a 63% chance to win the conference tournament. Liberty is going for the 3-peat as they won as a 1 seed in 2020 and a 2 seed in 2019.
Missouri Valley
What should be the most competitive of the 3 conference tournament championship games today, as expected (1) Loyola Chicago faces off against (2) Drake. 29 out of 30 are alive in this conference with our only loser being Jenn with her Missouri State pick, which I assume was an accident. Maybe her finger slipped when clicking on the dropdown in the spreadsheet. Of the 29 still alive in this conference 24 are on Loyola Chicago and 5 are on Drake. Loyola Chicago is a 7.5 favorite, but that is a generic number used for favorites in conference tournaments and not an indication of who will win this game. Before the Missouri Valley conference even tipped off, 71% of our pool picked Loyola Chicago and Team Rankings gave Loyola Chicago a 55% chance to win the conference tournament so expect a close game. The last 1 seed to win the Missouri Valley conference tournament championship was Loyola Chicago in 2018.
These are of course not the only conference tournaments in play today, but they are the most important to our standings. While no new conferences tip off today, we'll have many conferences playing quarterfinal and semifinal games including the Colonial, Southern, Summit League and Sun Belt. We also had a few MAJOR standings updates since the last version due to a loss and more conferences with finalized seeding. The biggest impact comes with the announcement that Stephen F. Austin has elected to move their 2022 post season ban to 2021 making them ineligible for the Southland conference tournament and handing out 10 losses in our pool.
Clickable links below to the blog and current standings:
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