Southland conference tournament preview

This is part 24 of a 33-part series in this blog, designed to give you all the information you need to know about each conference's tournament, and the postseason prospects of every single team in the conference.

Final standings:
Stephen F Austin 17-1
Sam Houston St 15-3
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 13-5
Northwestern St 13-5
Incarnate Word 10-8
Lamar 9-9
McNeese St 8-10
Houston Baptist 7-11
Nicholls St 7-11
New Orleans 6-12
SE Louisiana 6-12
Abilene Christian 4-14
Central Arkansas 2-16

Conference tournament format:  Neutral site in Katy, Texas.  Now, this conference likes to prune.  Only the top 8 are invited!  Well, first things first.  Lamar, Houston Baptist, and Central Arkansas are ineligible (APR'd).  Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word are still D1 transitioning.  So with 5 ineligible teams in a 13 team conference...holy crap only 8 are eligible to begin with!

They staggered this bracket to save Stephen F Austin.  5-8 seeds play on Wednesday March 11.  Those winners play March 12 against the 3/4 seeds.  Those winners play March 13 against the top two seeds, and your championship is Saturday March 14.  This unbelievably works because SFA is a clear #1, SHSU is a clear #2, and NW State and TAMU-CC are clearly 3 and 4 in some order.  Good for you, Southland.

Bracket:
1) Stephen F Austin vs. winner of 4) Northwestern St vs. 5/8) McNeese St/SE Louisiana
2) Sam Houston St vs. winner of 3) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. 6/7) Nicholls St/New Orleans

The stakes:
Stephen F Austin is just a bit too far removed from at-large contention.  They have a non-con SoS hovering around 150, which is actually big improvement for them.  Lost to UNI and Xavier and Baylor...but they played those games!  Beat Memphis on the road, and LBSU, and the only loss of even remotely questionable is TAMU-CC on the road.  Folks, I don't think this is a dead at-large profile - it's clearly better than Murray St's.  However, without an actual win over a tournament team, it might not work.  Even if they got just one, or even if could've scheduled down slightly to an Oklahoma St or Purdue and beaten them...just if.  Aargh.  In any event, a 12 seed looms.

Sam Houston St has a reasonable RPI to at least get them to the 14 line, I think.  No real signature wins, though.  Everyone else would head for the 16 line.

The rules on transitioning D1 teams and the CBI/CIT are a bit murky to me.  If eligible to be taken, I think Incarnate Word is a player, being a few games above .500.  Northwestern St and TAMU-CC are more traditional CIT contenders and are probably in line for bids.