Over Half the Conference Tournaments Tipped Off and Ohio Valley Championship Preview

We're now at the point where over half of the conference tournaments will be tipped off by this afternoon and we have a full day of losses ahead of us.  Everyone in the pool now has at least 1 loss, the worst players have 4 losses, but no one is out of this yet.  We have our first championship game tonight and a win can send the last place players to first and first place players to last.

The standings are updated through all the games from last night and below is a preview of the games today, starting with the Ohio Valley Conference championship game.  Link to the Standings

Ohio Valley Conference Championship Game

Tonight we will have our first conference championship game, also the first official ticket punched to the NCAA Tournament.  (1) Murray State will play (2) Belmont.

• 53% of us in the pool, or 18, are on Belmont and according to Team Rankings Belmont had a 45% chance to win prior to the tournament tipping off;  we overreached a little bit, but still went with the favorite
• Murray State was not that far behind, 14 of us in the pool selected Murray State
• This match-up is favorites, so no matter the outcome no one will receive bonus points tonight; Corey was the only person to selected a different team, Austin Peay, but they were blown out last night by Belmont
• Murray State is favored by 2 points, so expect a very close game

The America East conference tips off today, all teams will be playing as this conference does not give any teams a first round bye.  Vermont is by far and away the favorite both in our pool picks and according to Team Rankings.  88% of our pool picks are on Vermont to win the tournament and Team Rankings gives them a 77% chance to win the tournament.

In the Big 10 we are down to the Semi-finals with 4 teams left, we have 3 out of the 4 teams in our pool, with Michigan being bonus points as a 5 seed.  As a pool we're fairly evenly spread between (3) Purdue and (1) Michigan State, with Purdue getting the edge in terms of who we picked.  Michigan State is the only non bonus point team left in the Big 10.

The Colonial Conference first round tips off today with the 7-10 seeds, only impact to our pool is that Amanda has James Madison, the 10 seed.

The Horizon League Quarterfinals are today, (1) Northern Kentucky and (2) Wright State are in action, a loss by one or both of those teams will have huge impacts to the pool.  14 of us are on Northern Kentucky and 8 of us are on Wright State.

In the MAAC, yesterday we lost both the 1 and 2 seeds, so the winner of this conference tournament will either be someone with bonus points or no one will win.  In our pool we're split between (3) Niagara and (4) Iona, any other MAAC team that wins means none of us got this one right, and there are a ton of teams left in the MAAC.

(3) Niagara
(4) Iona
(5) Manhattan
(6) Fairfield
(7) Quinnipiac
(9) St. Peters

Missouri Valley begins the Semi-finals this afternoon with Loyola Chicago, Illinois State, and Southern Illinois all in play for our pool.  Bradley is the only team that is in the Semi-finals that was not picked in our pool.

The Northeast Conference is also in the Semi-finals this afternoon, out of the 4 teams left the only one that has any impact to our pool is (1) Wagner.  Everyone else lost their teams earlier, plus 59% of the pool picks are on Wagner.

The Southern Conference moves in to the Quarterfinals today and that puts all of our teams at risk int he pool, still too many teams left to cover especially since we have not lost any yet.  Our picks are all over the place in this conference.

The Summit League Quarterfinals start today, all teams are in action over the next 2 days, but we overwhelmingly, 80% of us, picked South Dakota State.  I assume we're all betting on Mike Daum (See link below).

https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2018/1/12/16884660/mike-daum-south-dakota-state-nba-draft-2018-sleeper-mid-major-basketball

Finally, for some late night hoops we have the West Coast Conference Quarterfinals, with all WCC teams in play.  Not shockingly, 82% of us are on (1) Gonzaga, but we do have a few people that picked Saint Mary's or BYU.  The Saint Mary's game starts close to midnight central time!

The conferences below are in progress, but inactive today:

• Atlantic Sun
• Big South
• Patriot League

Good luck to everyone today , we're going to finally have a few winners on the standings, along with a ton of losses!  We're so early on in the pool, so as I said before, no one is out of it yet.  I'll be sure to call out the losers that are pretty much out of it.