This is part 1 of a 33-part series in this blog, designed to give you all the information you need to know about every conference's tournament, and the postseason prospects of every single team in the conference.
Final standings:
Wichita St 17-1
Northern Iowa 16-2
Indiana St 11-7
Illinois St 11-7
Evansville 9-9
Loyola(Chi) 8-10
Drake 6-12
Missouri St 5-13
Southern Illinois 4-14
Bradley 3-15
Conference tournament format: All 10 are heading to a neutral court in St Louis. Traditional setup. Played from Thursday March 5 to Sunday March 8.
Bracket:
1) Wichita St vs. 8/9) Missouri St/Southern Illinois
4) Illinois St vs. 5) Evansville
2) Northern Iowa vs. 7/10) Drake/Bradly
3) Indiana St vs. 6) Loyola(Chi)
The stakes:
Not a lot, frankly. Well, some for UNI and Wichita, who are playing for seeding. Right now, they could go anywhere from 4 to 7 based on your resume preferences. Absorbing a loss before the title game would probably be worth two seeding lines. If they meet in the finals, assume the winner will get a higher seed, and pencil them into the 4-7 range.
Everyone else is beyond reach of the NIT. Your 3 seed, Indiana St, is under .500 against D-1 teams, at 14-15. They need to reach the finals just to be NIT-eligible, and even then, they are way too far off the pace. So is Illinois St, with the caveat that an upset win over Wichita might blip the NIT's radar. The problem is such a win would only be their second top 100 win.
So pencil Illinois St, Evansville in for a CBI/CIT, if they want to play. Indiana St would likely have the same option, although the CIT requires a .500 record. Loyola is over .500 for the season, and should probably receive an invite as well. The bottom 4 have been truly well and awful this year.
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