The A-10, MAC, and MEAC tournaments get underway tomorrow. Read on below for the probabilistic preview of each. The most improbable tournament event to date has been North Florida’s appearance in the Atlantic Sun title game, which had a 8.2 percent chance of occurring. Some team will beat that this week. Maybe even a team in one of the tournaments below.
The numbers in each table represent the chance in percent of a team advancing to the round in question.
Atlantic 10
March 8, 11-13. First round at higher seed. Remainder at Atlantic City.
The top four seeds are the teams to watch here – there is only a four percent chance that one of the teams participating in the first round wins the title. Xavier has been rolling, with a four-point loss at Charlotte being the only blemish on its record over the past two months. But given the strength of the two-through-four seeds, this tournament is far from a gimme for the Musketeers.
Rd1 Semis Final Champ
1 Xavier 100 84.4 55.6 31.9
2 Temple 100 84.6 52.4 28.8
3 Richmond 100 76.8 38.0 18.6
4 Duquesne 100 81.2 36.3 16.8
6 Rhode Island 65.1 15.2 3.8 0.9
9 Dayton 51.7 10.2 3.5 0.9
5 G. Washington 77.9 16.2 3.1 0.6
7 St. Bonaventure 71.8 11.8 3.1 0.6
11 St. Louis 34.9 8.1 2.0 0.5
8 Massachusetts 48.3 5.4 1.2 0.2
10 La Salle 28.2 3.5 0.7 0.1
12 St. Joseph's 22.1 2.7 0.3 0.04
Mid-American
March 8, 10-12. First round at higher seed. Remainder at Cleveland.
Throw out the seeds in this one. The conference that sent its nine-seed to the NCAA tournament last season to disembowel Georgetown in the first round produces the most unusual breakdown I’ve seen in five seasons of doing this. Much like in the Sun Belt, there’s plenty of parity at the top of the MAC. Unlike the Sun Belt, the MAC’s favorite is an eight-seed, closely followed by its six-seed. And there’s this: Eighth-seeded Buffalo has about a one-in-five chance of cutting down the nets at the Q, while ninth-seeded Central Michigan has a one-in-2000 chance of doing so. Enjoy!
Welcome to the MEAC, the only conference creative enough to play different rounds of its tournament on the same day. Coppin State goes from league doormat last season to a legitimate title contender in 2011. And for the first time since 2007, Todd Bozeman’s Morgan State Bears are not the top choice to win the tournament. That honor belongs to Hampton who has a neutral site victory over Colorado State to its credit.
Rd1 Semis Final Champ
2 Hampton 100 84.4 50.3 32.5
3 Coppin St. 100 69.4 35.3 21.3
4 Morgan St. 100 58.8 37.2 17.5
1 Bethune Cookman 100 61.3 27.0 10.2
5 North Carolina A&T 100 41.2 22.6 8.7
6 Norfolk St. 78.6 27.9 10.4 4.8
8 Delaware St. 62.9 27.2 10.2 3.2
9 South Carolina St. 37.1 11.5 3.0 0.7
7 Florida A&M 58.4 10.2 2.5 0.7
10 UMES 41.6 5.4 1.0 0.2
11 Howard 21.4 2.8 0.4 0.08
