Big South conference tournament preview

This is part 2 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:

Charleston Southern 13-5

High Point 13-5

Coastal Carolina 12-6

Radford 12-6

Winthrop 12-6

UNC Asheville 10-8

Gardner-Webb 10-8

Presbyterian 6-12

Longwood 5-13

Campbell 4-14

Liberty 2-16

Conference tournament format:  All 11 are headed to Coastal Carolina, who is hosting the tournament.  The first round is Wednesday March 4, then we play the quarterfinals on from Friday March 6 to Sunday March 8.

Bracket:

1) Charleston Southern vs. 8/9) Presbyterian/Longwood

4) Radford vs. 5) Winthrop

2) High Point vs. 7/10) Gardner-Webb/Campbell

3) Coastal Carolina vs. 6/11) UNC Asheville/Liberty

The stakes:

This was maybe the greatest conference race in the country.  At one point, we had a 7-way tie at 8-4, before UNCA and G-W fell off the pace.  Charleston Southern gets the NIT bid if it comes to that.  High Point actually has the one RPI in the conference that is sub-100, though.  And their non-con RPI and SoS are around 40 and 140, which is actually a decent effort, and they beat William & Mary.  Still, I'd be surprised if there's enough room in the NIT for them.  At least, they're the one team who's a lock to be invited to the CBI/CIT.

Coastal Carolina, Radford, High Point...all have 20 win seasons.  And Winthrop and Gardner-Webb are both well above .500.  This could be interesting, especially if CSU wins the conference tourney.  I count 6 teams who have very legit shots to get CBI/CIT invites, but will the tournaments want to load up on these teams?  There might not be enough room for all of them.  UNC-Asheville is 11-15 against D1 competition (and 14-15 overall), so there's a chance they're the ones in the top 7 who get left behind.  Also, UNCA and Winthrop have sub-200 RPIs, while everyone else is in the 150s and above.  If I had to predict, High Point, Coastal, Radford, and G-W are locks to get postseason bids if they want them, and Winthrop is on the bubble.  I'm not sure anything that happens in the tournament will change that, barring a Winthrop run.

As for NCAA seed, it's going to be really tough for anyone but High Point to avoid the 15 and 16 lines.  RPIs are high, the number of losses by each team is high (because the conference was so balanced), and the Big South is not ranked very well by the conference RPI.  I think the top 5 will avoid the play-in games, but it's probably going to depend how many upsets happen in other conference tourneys to see just how high they go.