Conference Tournaments Starting March 3rd

The first three Conference Tournaments get underway tonight as things kick-off in the Horizon League, Big South, and Ohio Valley. Again, I'm printing out brackets for all Conference Tournaments and making my picks. For those of you scoring at home (or even if you're alone) that's 30 conference tournaments to keep track of, 30 brackets to fill out, 30 automatic bids to the Big Dance. (The Ivy League has no Conference Tournament. Cornell is in line to make the field of 65, thanks to a regular season championship.) The Cinderella stories don't start in the NCAA Tournament, they start in these little, under-publicized Conference Tournaments. The first of which, begin tonight. My predicted champions are in bold.

• Horizon League - Butler - Simply look back to my first official March Madness bet and you'll know who I'm taking here. Butler is not as dominant as they were last season, but they're still the clear-cut favorite to win this league. They have a league best RPI of 19. The next closest team is UW Green Bay at 69. I am a little worried because although Cleveland State got swept by Butler during the regular season, they lost both games by a mere two points. However...I'm still quite confident in this pick. I love the structure of this Conference Tournament. The #1 and #2 seeds get byes until the semi-finals...meaning those teams need only win two games to clinch a bid to the NCAA Tournament. This rewards regular season play and regular season dominance. Nicely done Horizon League. Notable Seeds: #1 Butler, #2 UW Green Bay, #3 Cleveland State, #4 Wright State, #5 UW Milwaukee, #9 Valparaiso

• Big South - Radford - Of note in this conference: 7-foot-8 center Kenny George put UNC Asheville on the map last season, but will probably not play college basketball again as he had part of his right foot amputated last fall due to a staph infection. Winthrop is probably the most recognizable school in this conference having made the NCAA Tournament each of the past two years and upsetting Notre Dame two years ago. Liberty is powered by the world-famous (thanks to this blog) Seth Curry, who led the nation in freshman scoring. The Flames and Mr. Curry would have a chance to win this conference tourney if they could avoid VMI, problem is...that second round match-up is all but guaranteed. VMI and Radford are the best teams and both can score a ton of points. Radford plays slightly better defense and will host the games throughout. Notable Seeds: #1 Radford, #2 VMI, #3 Liberty, #4 UNC Asheville, #5 Winthrop

• Ohio Valley - Murray State - Call this one a hunch...or a very uneducated guess. Murry State has won 10 of their past 12. They're hot. I didn't feel like choosing all of the #1 seeds on the first day of Conference Tournament predictions. I also didn't want to chose #2 Austin Peay, who won this conference tournament last season. Next in line was the Murray State Racers sitting there at the #3 seed. They also crushed #1 seed UT Martin 74-59 just over a week ago. Seems like a decent pick to me. And just to add some Dave Barry humor...none of these teams actually reside in the state of Ohio. Notable seeds: #1 UT Martin, #2 Austin Peay, #3 Murray State, #4 Morehead State, #7 Eastern Illinois

3 down...27 to go.

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