Big Sky conference tournament preview

This is part 18 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Montana 16-2
Idaho 14-4
Eastern Washington 13-5
Weber St 13-5
Northern Colorado 11-7
Portland St 9-9
Idaho St 9-9
North Dakota 6-12
Montana St 6-12
Southern Utah 5-13
Sacramento St 4-14
Northern Arizona 2-16

Format:
March 6 and 8-10.  No funny business with the layout of the bracket, minus the day off between the 1st round and quarterfinals.  Neutral site host is Reno.

Matchups:
1) Montana vs. 8/9) North Dakota/Montana St
4) Weber St vs. 5/12) Northern Colorado/Northern Arizona
3) Eastern Washington vs. 6/11) Portland St/Sacramento St
2) Idaho vs. 7/10) Idaho St/Southern Utah

The stakes:
Conference RPI 19, so not too bad this year for them.  Seems to be better than usual.  This is marked by some RPIs being better than you think:  Montana 96, Idaho 113, UNC 111, EWU 132, PSU 152, Weber 160.  That's a pretty good Top 6 for this conference (all 6 are in line for postseason bids, if they want them). 

This should help the conference escape the 16 line for sure, and probably the 15 line for Montana and Idaho at least.  There's not too much going on in these resumes overall, but that's the same situation for many other conferences, who don't sport the computer numbers these guys built up.  Not much else to say here.