Thursday, March 10, 2016

WAC conference tournament preview

This is part 31 of a 32-part series that will take a look at every conference and conference tournament in the country.  We'll recap who's playing and what the stakes are for each team in the conference.

The standings:
New Mexico St 13-1 (22-9)
Grand Canyon 11-3 (25-6)
Cal St-Bakersfield 11-3 (21-8)
Seattle 7-7 (13-15)
Utah Valley 6-8 (12-17)
UMKC 4-10 (11-18)
UT-Rio Grande Valley 4-10 (8-21)
Chicago St 0-14 (4-27)

Tournament format:
Vegas from Thursday March 10 to Saturday March 12.  Grand Canyon is still transitioning and ineligible.

The matchups:
1) New Mexico St vs. 4/5) Utah Valley/UMKC
2/7) Cal St-Bakersfield/Chicago St vs. 3/6) Seattle/UT-Rio Grande Valley

The stakes:
The continued demise of the WAC continues to hurt New Mexico St.  They tried to schedule up, but couldn't do anything with it, and are therefore staring at the 15 line.  Everyone else would be headed to Dayton, so I guess it could be worse.

Grand Canyon is CIT-eligible, but not NIT-eligible.  We'll probably see them get an invite, as well as Cal St-Bakersfield.  CSUB has a legit CIT resume and deserves a postseason bid, so kudos to them.

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