Conference Tourney Upsets

Bubble teams (and their fans) all over the country will be pulling for favorites to win the conference tournaments this week, especially when the favorite would otherwise likely get an at-large bid. We've already seen VCU lose in the CAA tournament. They are now definitely on the bubble with about a 40% chance of an at-large bid. They probably didn't burst anybody's bubble but their own.

The tournament that may very well burst a bubble is the MAC tourney. Kent State has a very strong case for an at-large bid even with a loss in the MAC tournament. I'd say they have about a 75% chance of an a bid if they don't get the automatic bid. No other MAC team has much of a case. However, Kent State only has a 25% chance of winning the tournament. In fact, Akron is slightly more likely to win based on Sagarin's PREDICTOR:


Team (Seed) Prob(Auto Bid)
Kent St. (1) 25.8%
Western Michigan (2) 18.0%
Akron (3) 26.7%
Ohio (4) 11.7%
Miami OH (5) 15.3%
Central Michigan (6) 1.3%
Eastern Michigan (7) 0.6%
Toledo (8) 0.3%
Bowling Green (9) 0.2%
Ball St. (10) 0.1%
Northern Illinois (11) 0.0%
Buffalo (12) 0.0%

So, there is basically a 75% chance that the MAC tournament will burst somebody's bubble (other than Kent State's). In no other conference tournament is it more likely than not that a team with no at-large bid chance will steal the automatic bid from a team that's a near lock for an at-large.