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The Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Mountain West, and WAC each have varying degrees of multi-bid potential. Let's take a look at the probabilistic breakdown for each conference.
Atlantic-10: March 9, 12-14 (first round on-campus, remainder in Atlantic City)
Seed Qtrs Semis Final Champ
1 Temple 100 88.8 68.4 37.1
2 Xavier 100 68.4 47.4 29.8
3 Richmond 100 78.0 31.4 15.4
7 Dayton 80.2 29.1 16.6 8.3
5 Rhode Island 81.5 45.0 14.0 4.2
4 Saint Louis 100 51.0 13.9 3.6
6 Charlotte 74.5 19.2 3.8 1.0
8 St. Bonaventure 50.7 5.7 1.7 0.2
9 Duquesne 49.3 5.4 1.6 0.2
10 G. Washington 19.8 2.4 0.6 0.1
12 Saint Joseph's 18.5 4.0 0.4 0.04
11 UMass 25.5 2.7 0.2 0.03
This is a log5 table, and it's explained here.
Xavier and Temple are equivalent teams, but the one-seed turns out to be worth something here. Xavier may well draw a dangerous Dayton team in the quarterfinals and then should see surging Richmond if they make it to the semis. Temple on the other hand gets the St. Bonaventure/Duquesne winner first and then the winner of what would be a relatively weak 4/5 game between Saint Louis and Rhode Island.
Conference USA: March 10-13 (all games in Tulsa)
Seed Qtrs Semis Final Champ
1 UTEP 100 85.9 55.4 34.2
2 Memphis 100 77.0 47.7 24.8
3 UAB 100 72.2 35.4 16.0
4 Marshall 100 53.7 22.5 11.0
5 Tulsa 93.2 46.8 19.7 9.5
6 Southern Miss 81.2 26.0 8.3 2.4
7 Houston 84.5 22.1 8.3 2.3
8 SMU 63.1 10.3 2.7 0.7
9 Central Florida 36.9 3.8 0.7 0.1
11 Tulane 18.8 1.9 0.2 0.02
10 East Carolina 15.5 0.9 0.1 0.007
12 Rice 7.8 0.5 0.03 0.002
Well, this is something new. The CUSA tourney is no longer the Memphis Invitational. The site has moved to the BOK Center in downtown Tulsa. This isn't the Golden Hurricane's home venue, so I've only given them half-credit on home-site advantage in these calculations. This one should be a lot of fun. UTEP is riding a 14-game winning streak and is the only team in this field to have wrapped up an at-large bid, but the Miners haven't separated themselves from the rest of the league. The top five seeds all have legitimate title aspirations.
Mountain West: March 10-13 (all games at UNLV)
Seed Qtrs Semis Final Champ
2 BYU 100 96.5 60.5 48.1
3 UNLV 100 89.9 38.3 26.5
1 New Mexico 100 95.3 53.4 13.1
4 San Diego St. 100 86.2 44.0 11.9
6 Utah 100 10.1 0.9 0.2
5 Colorado St. 100 13.8 2.2 0.1
7 TCU 100 3.5 0.3 0.03
8 Wyoming 66.4 3.7 0.3 0.008
9 Air Force 33.6 1.0 0.05 0.0006
Before anyone gets too crazy and praises the MWC as the best conference in the West, just look at the bottom three teams here. No power conference has anything resembling a bottom that weak. TCU, Wyoming, and Air Force went a combined 3-33 against the top six teams in the league. San Diego State has the most to play for since its NCAA tournament existence depends on picking up a quality win or two here. New Mexico enters the tourney with a 10-0 record in games decided by five points or less. No team this millennium has finished a season with that many close wins without a loss.
WAC: March 11-13 (all games at Nevada)
Seed Semis Final Champ
1 Utah St. 90.3 78.9 60.7
2 Nevada 80.5 65.2 25.9
4 Louisiana Tech 71.0 13.9 5.7
3 New Mexico St. 60.1 16.5 3.0
7 Idaho 19.5 10.0 1.6
8 Boise St. 9.7 4.3 1.3
6 San Jose St. 39.9 8.3 1.1
5 Fresno St. 29.0 2.9 0.7
Since losing at Louisiana Tech on January 4, no team in the nation has dominated its conference like Utah State has dominated the WAC. The Aggies haven't lost since, and of those 14 conference wins, only two have been by fewer than ten points. One of those was an overtime win over Nevada in Reno, and that's a match-up and venue that could repeat itself here in the championship game. There's about a 50/50 chance of that happening according to these percentages. If USU somehow rolls through three games here, they may not be as woefully under-seeded in the Big Dance as I feared a month ago.
Ken Pomeroy is an author of Basketball Prospectus.
You can contact Ken by clicking here or click here to see Ken's other articles.
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