Teams get bids, not conferences.
But still, people like to argue about them. So here is my prediction on the order of the top conferences this year. It's worth looking at, because with realignment, the power is in different places this year. And that will impact how many quality win chances are available in conference play for each conference.
Tier 1: Royalty
1) Big 10
2) ACC
These will be the top two conferences for years to come. For the long-term, the ACC will assume the top spot and the B1G the supporting role. But for this year, I expect the B1G to be on top of the conference RPI (abbreviated CRPI from now on).
The difference? Both have top tier teams (Duke/UNC/Syracuse v Michigan/Michigan St/Ohio St). Both have some issues at the bottom. Both have a mid-tier (Virginia/Pitt/Notre Dame/Maryland versus Indiana/Wisconsin/Iowa/Illinois). However, there are more bad teams in the ACC (8 to 5 based on my count). This adds up to more uneven matchups in the ACC, and therefore less quality win chances. More simply put, the B1G is the more healthy environment. It's more likely for a mediocre team from the B1G to get to the dance through good conference results than the ACC. So the B1G to the top this year.
Either conference will be mad with less than 6 bids each. 6 is the baseline, 7 is good, 8 is excellent.
Tier 2: Power Conferences
3) Pac-12
4) SEC
5) Big East
6) Big 12
I'm going to go with the Pac-12 at #3. They're slowly building up depth and should return to a comfortable 5-6 bids this year. I trust their depth a lot more than the SEC's or the Big 12. In fact, you can make an argument that Kansas and OK State are the only 2 tournament teams in that conference this year. That's why I've put the Big 12 at #6.
As for the decision at #4, I went Big East. They have 3 protected seed candidates versus the SEC's 2 (Marq/G'town/Crei against Kentucky/Florida), which is even when you account for 10 teams vs. 14. However, the bottom of the SEC is worse than the bottom of the Big East. It's close, though. I expect these 4 conferences to be close to each other in CRPI. These are your bread-and-butter power conferences. 3 to 4 at-large bids per conference is likely, maybe an extra one for the Pac-12.
Tier 3: Purgatory, part 1
7) AAC
In the future, they're in trouble. This year, with Louisville, they'll be just fine. Really, they'll probably be in the same tier as tier 2 above, but I wanted to highlight their situation in particular. For this year, they have a bonafide title contender (Louisville) and a couple teams (UConn, Memphis) expecting big things. However, it gets empty quick after that. Cincy will be fine, but if they falter, I'm not sure who else steps up. I trust, for example, Kansas St, Butler, Alabama, and the like more than I do UCF, Houston, or SMU to make a leap forward.
I want to see the dynamics of conference play play out. The teams below the top 3 probably aren't beating Louisville, and beating UConn or Memphis won't be likely either. Will 4th-7th place teams beating each other up result in quality wins or bad losses being spread throughout the conference? How will the committee view wins over Cincy, UCF, SMU, etc.? The key is these teams building up resumes in the non-con so that wins over them mean something beyond "bad losses" in conference play.
Tier 4: Purgatory, part 2
8) Mountain West
9) A-10
They're clearly not good enough to be in the top 7. However, they're not quite weak enough yet to be classified in the same group as the WCC and MVC. They each have three teams who expect to be in the tournament (VCU, St Louis, LaSalle, New Mexico, Boise, UNLV), more than anyone below them can claim. Plus there are more teams who expect to at least be on the bubble. Whether they can maintain that fact in the future is a question for next year. The MWC in particular has a big year coming - after the big RPI showing last year, they need to translate it into March results soon.
If you want a prediction, I think 7 combined bids could come out of these 2 conferences.
Tier 5: Don't call us mid-major
10) MVC
11) WCC
Again, two conferences who clearly don't deserve to be associated with anyone below them. Notice that some media types make a cutoff here, designating the 9 conferences above as major and everyone else as not. That's a mistake and an insult to these 2 conferences. It should be considered an 11-conference breakaway, not a 9. As for these two in particular, I trust the MVC's depth more than the WCC's. MVC's 5-10 would blow away the WCC's 5-10, while I think 1-4 would play even.
Both would be mad with 1 bid and happy with 3. 2 is the nice middle.
Tier 6: Purgatory, part 3
12) CUSA
Tough to figure out with all the changes in membership. With 16 teams, I do expect a couple of them to be good and flirt with the bubble (La Tech, S. Miss, UTEP, etc.). But with so much dead weight in the league, there simply aren't enough quality win chances to support any of them, unless one gets hot and beats the others. I don't want to lump them with the conferences below because on the whole, they'll be better, but it doesn't look good for them.
Tier 7: Call us mid-major
13) MAC
14) MAAC
15) OVC
16) Horizon
Now we're firmly into the land where at-large bids go to die. But these conferences will expect their best team to contend for a playable 12 or 13 seed in March. And to get a bit of pub. They even may occasionally flirt with an at-large bid, and get there every once in awhile (Iona). They'll likely have teams on the fringe of the bubble talk but not quite make it (Akron). They each have just enough depth to separate from the rest of the pack. They'll sport 3 or 4 RPI top 100 teams.
Tier 8: Why aren't you better?
17) Sun Belt
18) Colonial
Sun Belt has FBS money. CAA has history. Neither are particuarly good this year. Both will be disappointed to be non-factors nationally. Sorry, guys
Tier 9: Mid-lower majors
19) Ivy
20) Summit
21) Patriot
22) Big Sky
23) SoCon
24) Atlantic Sun
25) Big West
26) Northeast
The meaty underbelly of D-1. They will hope for 13 and 14 seeds, and some will get there. Expect the order of these guys to be fluid.
The Ivy has flirted with tier 8 and above in past years; I think they fall a bit back. Patriot has potential to upgrade from this group, but probably not this year.
The A-Sun is usually in the section below, but they break free this year with 3 solid teams (FGCU, Mercer, USC-Upstate).
The Summit in the future could potentially slip down to tier 10, but with Denver and NDSU, stay up for now.
The SoCon will be at risk as well, but not until Davidson leaves.
Tier 10: True lower-majors
27) America East
28) Big South
29) MEAC
30) Southland
Conferences with virtually no hope of a 13 seed, and probably a 14 seed as well. Avoiding Dayton is a main goal down here.
The MEAC beating out 3 conferences is a bit of a surprise, but the top of the conference isn't that bad, and can do damage with a favorable matchup in March. I'll give them the nod over a Southland team forced to dip into DII for reinforcements.
Tier 11: Barely D-1
31) WAC
32) SWAC
This is bad basketball. Usually the SWAC is here alone; this year the WAC joins them.
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