Busy Day Today with 6 Conference Tournament Championship Games

Today we have 6 conference tournament championship games. We'll go through each conference to determine which championships are important for our pool. Unlike yesterday, the tip offs for these games are a bit more spread out, ranging from 4p CST to 8p CST. Depending how things break today we may have a better understanding of who could possibly finish top 4, a few may be mathematically eliminated or it could bunch up towards the top of the leaderboard.

Atlantic Sun (4p CST)

Outside of our pool impacts this conference has an interesting scenario that we have scene only a few times over the past few years. (2W) Bellarmine takes on (2E) Jacksonville for the championship, however Bellarmine is ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. If Bellarmine wins today then Jacksonville State, not Jacksonville, will receive the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament as they were the regular season conference champion with the best record. I hate this scenario, I would prefer a team remains ineligible for the entire post season.

In terms of our pool only Pizzy has Bellarmine, a win would be huge for him and allow him to climb up the standings. Only 7 people have Jacksonville, meaning no matter which team wins this afternoon, even though no bonus points are available, it means a lot to our pool. Bellarmine is favored by 2 points and I would normally say to expect a good game, but spreads have not meant anything over the past few conference tournament championship games.

Northeast Conference (6p CST)

This is a matchup of chalk as (1) Bryant plays (2) Wagner and 31 out of 35 of us have a team still alive. This is a scenario where Team TNTs low accuracy becomes an issue as she was one of four people to lose this conference, so no matter what happens a bunch of people are going to jump ahead of her in the standings. 63% of our picks are on Wagner, the analytics before the tournament started gave Wagner a 42% chance to win the conference tournament, but the spread for today's game is Bryant -4 and Bryant is the one seed. I expect this to be a fun game.

Colonial (6p CST)

This conference could be another one of those pivotal conferences with (2) UNC-Wilmington vs. (5) Delaware since we only have 7 people with a team still alive. A Delaware win would give bonus points to Pizzy, The Gruesome Threesome and Evan, putting them in a great position during the stretch run. Those that have UNC-Wilmington will not get a bonus point, but they would definitely jump over many people in the standings with a win. We got this conference very wrong as 60% of us were on the one seed Towson and analytics gave Towson a 43% chance to win the conference tournament. As we have seen in the past, sometimes it is just about which team gets hot for a 3-4 game run. No better example of this than seeing Delaware is favored by 2 tonight as a 5 seed playing a 2 seed.

Horizon League (6p CST)

Tonight is going to be wild for our standings with these 6:00p CST games and the Horizon League guarantees us bonus points. (3) Northern Kentucky plays (4) Wright State and we are heavily weighted to one side of this matchup with 6 on Northern Kentucky and 11 on Wright State. Most of the Northern Kentucky crowd is towards the bottom of the standings, with Wright State supporters towards the top of the standings. If Wright State wins tonight we will for sure have significant separation in the standings and those at the bottom will be mathematically eliminated. Northern Kentucky winning is what is best for the competitiveness of the pool. As I am writing this Northern Kentucky is favored by 1 point, this one is going to be close!

West Coast Conference (8p CST)

This conference tournament does not deserve a write up, we're 100% on (1) Gonzaga over (2) Saint Mary's, meaning a win or loss here means nothing to our pool. This is the first time in the history of this pool that we have been all aligned on a pick, usually someone strays off with a 2 or 3 seed in this conference.

Summit League (8p CST)

At first glance it looks like everyone is on (1) South Dakota State over (2) North Dakota State, which is somewhat true with 74% riding with South Dakota State. However, if you look closer we see that Pizzy and Evan are on North Dakota State, along with Izzy, but the reason I call this out is if a few games break the right way today, Pizzy and Evan are going to be 1 & 2. This will be difficult though as the analytics love South Dakota State, giving them a 62% chance to win the conference and the spread is -6 for South Dakota State. It's not impossible for North Dakota State to win based on that spread, but all signs are pointing to South Dakota State tonight.

In addition to 6 conference tournament championship games we have 7 other conferences in play, many in the opening round today. The power five tips off today with the ACC first round, giving us games tipping off today from 1p CST to 10:30p CST. The majority of the opening round conference tournament games today are not impactful to our pool. We currently have 18 conferences complete or in progress.

No changes to the standings since the last blog entry, but I will continue to post the link for easy reference.

Link to Standings

Click HERE or use the full URL below. 

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsXZYEv74FyvhuUNqFVB8_-W7TeBlQ?e=gDAbuX

Many of you are going to be angry at the end of the night tonight when you realize you're essentially eliminated from the pool and that is ok. After you release your angry remember a few things that will get you to Selection Sunday:

1. Find a friend to root for, it's just as fun!
2. The Power Five conferences have not yet started, someone will win $150 bonus still
3. Depending on how far you reached, the lowest winning seed may still be in play for you along with a $100 bonus
4. The SEC Championship game is Selection Sunday, if you guessed the correct score you'll have $50 coming your way
5. Individually bet on games and use the pool to influence your decisions

Good Luck!