The Big 5 March Madness Preview
The conference tournaments start this weekend for NCAA basketball and will continue into next week. For some teams, this is the only chance they have to get an invite to the big dance that is the March Madness tournament. Some teams have done enough over the regular season to put out a resume guaranteeing an appearance with seeding being the only variable up for debate. A few teams need deep conference tournament runs in order to stack more wins to earn an invitation. Then there are the majority of teams that would have to win the automatic bid given to conference tournament champion in order to keep playing. Welcome to Philadelphia, where we have teams in every situation.
Let’s take a look at the Villanova Wildcats who should get into March with no questions asked. If the Cats win their last game of the season they will own at least a share of the Big East regular season title. They own a 22-8 record overall with quality wins against Florida State, St. Johns, and Marquette who were all ranked at time of play. The only two bad losses they have are recent games against Georgetown and Xavier can be cancelled out with a close loss to #1 ranked Kansas and a 1 point loss to #10 Marquette on the Golden Eagles court. Even if they were to win the Big East tournament it would not be enough to vault them into a 1 seed when selection sunday rolls around. I think we see Nova in a 5 or 6 seed which is very dangerous given the experience and talent they have in returning seniors.
The Temple Owls are right on the edge when it comes to the big dance. The Owls have an 11-5 record within conference and some tough losses to overlook especially an 18 point thrashing on the road against Tulsa. They did beat a #17 ranked Houston in Philly and lost by 7 points on the road a few weeks later to the same team. If Temple can get wins in its last two games, one on the road at UConn and another at home against a madness bound UCF, they can strengthen their resume and with a good showing in the American Conference tournament. Since the Owls are in the top 4 of the American they get an automatic bye for the conference tournament. A meeting with Houston would await them after the second round but at the least 2 more regular season wins and a conference tournament win should get them a play-in game for the 12 seed. Any seeding higher than that would mean the Owls did better than expected.
As for Penn, St. Joes, and La Salle, they fall into the conference tournament champions situation. Penn is currently ranked 8th in the Ivy League and La Salle holds the same position in the Atlantic 10 conference with St. Joes holding down the 9th position. These teams don’t have enough wins to make it as a bubble team so aside from an automatic bid, Philly will have at most two teams in March Madness. The great thing about March Madness is once you get an invite, anything can happen.
I’m just here for watching all these teams in their respective conference tourneys instead of working.