Championship Week

With the last of the regular season conference games concluding this past week, we are now fully transitioned into 'Championship Week'.  It's a terrific week of college basketball where 32 Conference Tournaments whose winners will clinch automatic bids into the NCAA Tournament.   In my mind, this week is second only to the NCAA Tournament's first weekend as the best stretch of sports the entire year.  Every night, starting this past Saturday, provides at least one Conference Championship game where an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament is at stake.

What makes these tournaments so compelling  is that they are played between teams that know each other extremely well.  In many cases these teams are facing off for the 3rd time in the last 2-3 months, and that kind of familiarity often leads to tightly contested games and unpredictable results, and in about 90% of the games,  the end of the season for the losing team hanging in the balance.  You also get an opportunity, especially when watching games in the small and mid-major conference tournaments, to watch terrific players you likely never have heard of, and if you have, may never before have had much of a chance to watch them play an entire game, instead of just highlights.  Finally, the drama of watching a long shot team who may not have had a very good regular season come together and make an inspired 3-4  game string of wins to punch an unexpected ticket to the tournament makes for great sports watching.

On Saturday, those that happened to tune into the Ohio Valley Conference Championship game saw an epic match-up between the two best teams in that conference, Belmont and Murray State, clash for the 2nd time this year.   Murray State rode their star Ja Morant, and his 36 points, to an upset of the Bears, who had beaten them at Murray State earlier in the year.  Murray State is now in the tournament, something that was likely out of the question had they lost.  Belmont, following a terrific season, sits on the bubble sweating to see if the committee will put them in.   On Sunday, Gardner-Webb, a 4th seed in the Big South conference tournament ran the tournament table concuding with a win in the Championship game to secure the first NCAA Bid in history for the school.  Watching the pure joy of those players and their fans as they secured the victory was stirring.  College Basketball fans get 30 more bites at that apple this week before the NCAA Selection Show on Sunday evening.

Tournament Winners So Far:

• Ohio Valley Conference - Murray State
• Big South - Gardner-Webb
• Missouri Valley - Bradley
• Atlantic Sun - Liberty
• Southern - Wofford
• Metro Atlantic (MAAC) - Iona

Championships Tonight - Tuesday, March 12  (Seeds included)

• Colonial Conference - Hofstra (1) vs. Northeastern (2) - 6:00 PM on CBS Sports Network
• Horizon League - Wright State (1) vs. Northern Kentucky (2) - 6:00 PM on ESPN
• Northeast Conference - Saint Francis (1) vs. Farleigh Dickinson (2) - 6:00 PM on ESPN2
• Summit League - North Dakota State (4) vs Omaha (2) - 8:00 PM on ESPN2
• West Coast - Gonzaga (1) vs. Saint Mary's (2) - 8:00 PM on ESPN

Potential Bid Thieves

Quick definition here for those that may be unfamiliar with the term.  A bid thief is a team that has no chance to be selected to the tournament field as an at-large team, which instead clinches an auto-bid by winning the conference tournament.  To make them a thief they must play in a conference with at least one team that is sure to get an at-large bid.  They are referred to as thieves, because in denying a certain at-large team an auto-bid, the at-large field essentially shrinks and teams on the edge of the bubble now have one less at-large bid available.  Thus the unlikely conference champion is said to have stolen a bid from a bubble team.

Murray State, who would never have gotten in as an at-large. earned an auto bid Sunday.  Belmont. may or may not get selected as an At-Large.  If they do (and right now I have them in), Murray State will have become this year's first bid thief.  Belmont will be a close call on Selection Sunday, in the end, Murray State may well have stolen the bid from Belmont.

Several tournaments present opportunities for bid thieves to emerge.  Of the 5 games being played tonight. one holds the potential.

West Coast Conference - Gonzaga(1) vs. Saint Mary's(2) - Gonzaga is obviously in, and probably looking at a #1 seed regardless of whether they win tonight or not.  St. Mary's spent a lot of time on the bubble, and some still have them on it thanks in part to a strong NET.  I don't see the wins there to justify their inclusion.  If they win, the WCC will get a second team in with Saint Mary's ... Fans of Indiana, TCU, Ohio State, Clemson, Texas and others who may fear their team is currently holding the last spot on the bubble will be rooting hard for Gonzaga ... I'll be pulling for thievery!