This is part 6 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:
West:
Murray St 16-0
Tennessee-Martin 10-6
Eastern Illinois 9-7
SIU-Edwardsville 8-8
SE Missouri St 7-9
Austin Peay 3-13
East:
Belmont 11-5
Eastern Kentucky 11-5
Morehead St 10-6
Jacksonville St 5-11
Tennessee Tech 4-12
Tennessee St 2-14
Conference tournament format:
Only the top 8 teams will play. The seasons of Jax State, APU, TTU, and TSU are over. The other 8 are seeded 1-8 regardless of division. The top 2 seeds (Murray St, EKU) have double byes to the semis, 3 and 4 seeds Belmont and UT Martin have single byes.
They do play over 4 straight days, from Wednesday March 4 to Saturday March 7.
Bracket:
1) Murray St vs. winner of 4) Tennessee-Martin vs. winner of 5/8) Morehead St/SE Missouri St
2) Eastern Kentucky vs. winner of 3) Belmont vs. winner of 6/7) Eastern Illinois/SIU Edwardsville
The stakes:
Murray St really isn't on the bubble. Non-con SoS in the 200s, 1 top 100 win. Let's not get cute. That said, they're in line for the 12 line because of running the table in a OVC that is actually in a down year. I wouldn't be surprised if they got a 13 or 14 seed based on merit, but I do think the committee won't pay attention enough to actually do it.
Here's the problem with Murray - you can get away with no great wins, but only if you hold serve in cupcake games. Losing to Houston and Portland kill that narrative.
Everyone else behind them will be jockeying for CBI/CIT bids. Tennessee-Martin, Belmont, and Eastern Kentucky all have profiles definitely good enough to get an invite. Morehead St actually needs 2 wins to be at .500 to get a CIT look, and Eastern Illinois is on the postseason bubble, and actually has a fair shot to get shut out if the other 4 teams above get invites. Pretty unexciting analysis here, I know.
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