Horizon League conference tournament preview

This is part 3 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:
Valparaiso 13-3
Green Bay 12-4
Oakland 11-5
Cleveland St 11-5
Detroit 7-9
Illinois-Chicago 4-12
Wright St 3-13
Youngstown St 2-14

Conference tournament format:  This one's a funky one.  The top 2 seeds get a double bye to the semifinals.  So seeds 5-8 play the first round, the winners play with the 3/4 seeds in the second round, then those winners go to the semifinals with the top seed.  It's convoluted, but actually works this year as we had a clear top 4 and top 2.

Just because things weren't complex enough:  Round 1 is Tuesday March 3, and is played at the site of the higher seed.  Then, on Friday March 6, round 2 is played and hosted by Valpo even though they don't play.  Semifinals are the next day (Saturday March 7) and hosted by Valpo.  They then take two days off and play the final on Tuesday March 10 at the higher seed.

Eff you, Horizon League.

Bracket:
Top half:  1) Valparaiso vs. winner of 4) Cleveland St vs. winner of 5/8) Detroit/Youngstown St
Bottom half:  2) Green Bay vs. winner of 3) Oakland vs. winner of 6/7) Illinois-Chicago/Wright St

The stakes:
Valpo has the NIT bid in this conference; Green Bay is a viable at-large candidate.  Their current RPI is 62, and that's in a danger zone.  You can get left out of the NIT with that RPI.  The resume shows a road win at Miami, plus wins over conference frontrunners FGCUand Georgia St.  And all the losses are to competent teams (either legitimate teams, or teams at least in signficant contention for mid-major conference titles).  Their NIT hopes will go down to the wire.

Oakland is under .500 vs. D1 competition, but 16-15 overall.  Them and Cleveland St have profiles that usually are a lock to be invited to the CBI or CIT (they're way too far off the NIT bubble).  And the bottom 4 are well below .500.

NCAA seed?  It's tough to pin down Valpo.  Their non-con SoS of 262 won't help, and they have just a win over Murray St to help the seeding.  My guess is 13 for them or Green Bay, 14 for the others.