Championship Week Viewing Guide
Starting tomorrow, March 7th, at least one Big Dance ticket will be punched, 15 in total, over the next 5 days days—Saturday through Wednesday. We have a two-day “lull” featuring quarters and semis (and on Thursday, a round earlier in some leagues), before another 16 tickets are punched on Saturday and Sunday the 14th and 15th. March 15th of course being Selection Sunday. I figured I’d put together a brief viewing guide, mostly just to cover dates and times, with a very brief write-up for each. Here we are in chronological order of championships:
March 7
OVC - 9pm, ESPN2 - The other Valley kicks us off, awarding the first bid of the season on Saturday. The top four seeds are still alive heading into tonight’s semifinals: Tennessee State and Morehead St. finished the season tied atop the regular season standings, spitting their season series, with TSU winning a wild 105-100 overtime shootout at home, and Morehead St. defending their home turf in an equally high-scoring 94-86 affair. I’m no gambling pro, but I don’t think they can set the over high enough to get me off it in the championship game, should those 2 meet. The 3 and 4 seeds, SEMO and UT Martin will seek to play spoilers. TSU and Morehead St. got byes into the semifinals, so they’re well-rested, while SEMO and UT Martin had to play last night in the quarterfinals.
March 8
MVC - 12pm, CBS Sports - Arch Madness is one of, if not the best non-Big East conference tournament. A lot of evenly matched teams, great fanbases, and a strong environment, plus plenty of chaos over the years. Drake has won 3 straight, but that was far from a foregone conclusion, as they only one the regular season title once in that span. Of course, those coaches—Darren DeVries for the first two and Ben McCollum for the third—have left for Indiana (by way of WVU) and Iowa, respectively, and Drake couldn’t keep the mojo going this year, so it is very likely we see a new champion. Belmont is the regular season champion and favorite, sporting the best KenPom rank of the group, at 56th. Surprisingly, UNI has the 2nd best KenPom rank at 83rd, despite coming in 6th in the regular season. Illinois St. finished 3rd, with a KenPom rank of 95th, just behind Bradley, with a KenPom of 124. Other teams in that range at KenPom: 4th place UIC (110), 5th place Murray St. (116) and 8th place SIU (117), who has already been eliminated by Drake in the 8/9 opening round game. Regardless, this tournament is Belmont’s to lose. However, should they falter, there’s 5 teams remaining that would all have a fairly equal shot at winning the bid.
Big South - 12pm, ESPN2 - Start your day off with a doubleheader on the Deuce, starting with the Big South. High Point won the league by 2 full games over Winthrop, and really no one else here stands a chance. My money is on High Point—a newly established powerhouse in this conference, thanks to future Creighton head coach Alan Huss’ work there the last 2 years and a heavy investment in the program—to repeat.
ASUN - 2pm, ESPN2 - Central Arkansas and Austin Peay finished atop the standings at 15-3, with Central Arkansas getting the edge for the top seed by virtue of beating Austin Peay in their lone regular season meeting, just under 2 weeks ago, February 25th. Austin Peay backed that up with a bad loss to Bellarmine in the season finale. Meanwhile Central Arkansas finished the season on a 13-1 run, including 10 straight before losing to FGCU on February 21st. Queens and Lipscomb are the 3 and 4 seeds, and are certainly capable of winning the bid. The top 3 teams in KnePom are very closely bunched, Central Arkansas at 156, Austin Peay at 163, and Lipscomb at 178. Queens is not far beind at 191. After that the drop-off is steep to FGCU at 263. If you’re looking for a darkhorse, 8-seed Bellarmine managed to beat all of the top-3 seeds and lost o 4th-seeded Lipscomb by just 3 points at home on February 18th.
Summit - 9pm, CBS Sports - The Summit is a fun league. They have 6 offenses in the top-225 at KenPom, but only 2 defenses inside the top-225. Not coincidentally, those top- 2 defenses sit atop the league in North Dakota St. and St. Thomas, who rank 118th and 104th at KenPom overall. There’s a steep drop-off to the 3rd-ranked KenPom team, 4th place Denver at 221. Expect one of these top-2 to win the bid. The home team won both meetings between NDSU and the Tommies, so it should be an exciting championship game should they meet.
March 9
Sun Belt - 7pm, ESPN/ESPN2 - The Fun Belt lived up to its name this season, with just 4 games separating first place Troy and 10th place Georgia Southern. Tiebreakers decided the all-important seeding in this ladder style bracket. The top 2 seeds, Troy and Marshall, respectively, get buys into Sunday’s semifinals, while the 3 and 4 seeds, Coastal Carolina and App. St. get buys into Saturday’s quarterfinals. Arkansas St., arguably the co-favorite to win this tournament, at least per KenPom, was already upset by 10-seeded Georgia Southern in a game that Arkansas St. only had to play because it came in dead last after the 6-way tiebreaker for the 2nd through 7th seeds. This should continue to be a wild one, with most of the remaining teams fairly evenly matched. The quarterfinals and semifinals should be can’t miss TV.
SoCon - 7pm, ESPN/ESPN2 - The SoCon is usually good for putting out some high-quality mid-majors. This year’s version was not quite up to their usual standards; however, there are still some decent teams capable of winning this tournament and springing an upset in the Big Dance. Play kicks-off tonight, with the bottom 4 seeds playing in the First Round. The teams best-positioned to win would be regular-season champ ETSU (142 KenPom), any of the 3 teams tied for 2nd—Mercer (181), Samford 210, Wofford (250) or the 5th and 6th placed teams Furman (202) and Western Carolina (234). In the Jerome, I took Western Carolina as a dark horse candidate value bet. Since losing 3 straight to start February, the Catamounts have won 6th straight, playing like the 98th best team in the country in that stretch per Torvik. That stretch included wins over the bottom 4 teams, but they finished the season with back-to-back home wins over Mercer and Furman, the latter of whom they also beat on the road earlier in the year. The Catamounts also swept the season series with ETSU, further bolstering their case as a dark horse to bet.
March 10
CAA - 7pm, CBS Sports - The top of this conference is incredibly strong, with third place Hofstra holding the highest KenPom ranking (93), but falling 3 games short of first place UNC-Wilmington (102) and 2 games shy of 2nd place Charleston (149). Fifth place (but 6-seed on tiebreaker) William & Mary also sports a strong 136 in KenPom despite finishing 5 games back of first. Fourth place Monmouth should also be competitive, but they have yet to show they can beat the top-3 teams, going 0-4 versus those opponents, losing twice to Hofstra and once each to Charleston and UNCW, albeit the latter 2 both on the road. I’d be surprised if the winner doesn’t come from one of those top-5 teams, as this league has skewed fairly top-heavy this season.
Horizon - 7pm, ESPN - This is a bizarre bracket, if we’re being honest. There was a play-in game between the 10th and 11th seeds at campus sites, followed by a second round at campus sites featuring all remaining 10 teams . The bracket then got re-seeded, with 5 seed Green Bay facing 7 seed Northern Kentucky in the lone “Second Round” game in Indianapolis, with the winner facing top seed Wright St. in the semifinals on Monday, while the 2 and 3 seeds—Robert Morris and Detroit Mercy—face off in the other semifinal. However we got here, 4 of the top 5 KenPom teams remain. If you wanted to ride the hot hand, Robert Morris is 8-0 since February 1, including 2 wins over Wright St. and a win over Detroit Mercy, who they’ll face in the semifinals.
NEC - 7pm, ESPN2 - Chaos reigned supreme in the quarterfinals, with 7-seed Wagner taking down 2-seed Central Connecticut on the road in this campus-site tournament, while 5-seed Stonehill sprung the road upset on 4-seed Le Moyne, and the top-seeded Sharks of LIU snuck by 8-seed Chicago state by just 4-points. Thanks to re-seeding, LIU will host intra-city rival Wagner tomorrow, while Mercyhurst hosts Stonehill. LIU has had a great season, winning the league by 3, and posting the best KenPom figure by 71 spots, so it would be a huge upset if they did not win this tournament. Mercyhurst is best-positioned to spring that upset, being the only team remaining to have beaten the Sharks, and also being the 2nd best KenPom team in the conference (286 to LIU’s 215).
WCC - 9pm, ESPN - The WCC has not sent 3 teams to the NCAA Tournament since 2022, when San Francisco joined perennial tournament teams Gonzaga and St. Mary’s (CA). They seem poised to do that once again, with Santa Clara in position to claim a third bid. The one thing Santa Clara cannot afford to do is lose its opening game in the quarterfinals of this ladder style tournament. They’ll face the winner of 6-seed pacific versus either 7-seed Seattle or 11-seed San Diego. If a bid-thief is to emerge in this multi-bid league Seattle, Pacific, San Francisco or Washington State are all capable, but the only team outside the top-3 to beat either Gonzaga or St. Mary’s (CA) was Portland, who upset Gonzaga 87-80 in Portland. St. Mary’s comes in hot, having beaten Santa Clara and Gonzaga to close out the season, both at home, to cap off an 8-game winning streak. They have a bye into the semifinals alongside Gonzaga, with whom they shared the regular season title, marking 4-straight regular season titles for the Gaels—2 outright—a shocking stat considering Gonzaga’s historic dominance of this conference the last 30 years. I think I like the Gaels here, especially if Braden Huff cannot return. Since Huff went down, the 3 teams at the top have been almost evenly matched per Torvik, with St. Mary’s having an adjusted efficiency margin of 23.3, Gonzaga 22.7, and Santa Clara 22.1.
MAAC - 9pm, ESPN2 - I love Atlantic City, so one of these years, when work is quiet, I’m going to get myself down to the MAAC Tournament. Cool ass venue in Boardwalk Hall. A conference with a sensible geographic and cultural footprint. A lot of evenly-matched programs most years. And of course some fun history, as we all remember St. Peter’s historic Elite 8 run in 2022. What people forget? St. Peter’s wasn’t even the favorite in the MAAC tournament…that would’ve been Iona, coached then by Rick Pitino. The Gaels were 89th in Ken Pom that year, and won the regular season by 3 full games over St. Peter’s, but lost in the first round to Rider. Chaos. What’s not to like? Merrimack is the big favorite this year, but like 2022 Iona, the Warriors also won the league by 3 games over St. Peter’s. The symmetry is certainly there. Of course Shaheen Holloway, the architect of the Peacocks’ Elite 8 run cashed in during the off-season, accepting the job at his alma mater, Seton Hall. Current Peacocks head coach Bashir Mason already has one tournament under his belt in 2024, can he get the Peacocks back to the Big Dance? St. Peter’s split the season series with the Warriors, with each team defending their home court. Besides those two, you have Siena, Marist and Quinnipiac all bunched together in KenPom and the regular season standings, each capable of spring the upset in AC. although none managed to beat Merrimack in the Regular Season and of that trio, only Siena beat St. Peter’s.
Check back in a few days for a preview of the remaining conferences!
March 11
Southland - 5pm, ESPN2 -
Patriot - 7pm, CBS Sports -
Big Sky - 11:30pm, ESPN2 -
March 14
America East - 11am, ESPN2 -
MEAC - 1pm, ESPN2 -
Big12 - 6pm, ESPN -
MWC - 6pm, CBS -
Big East - 6:30pm, Fox -
Big West - 7pm, ESPN2 -
SWAC - 7:30pm, ESPNU -
MAC - 8pm, ESPN2 -
ACC - 8:30pm, ESPN -
CUSA - 8:30pm, CBS Sports -
WAC - 9pm, ESPN2 -
March 15 - Selection Sunday
Ivy - 12pm, ESPN2 -
A10 - 1pm, CBS -
SEC - 1pm, ESPN -
AAC - 3:15pm, ESPN -
B1G - 3:30pm, CBS -