CUSA tournament preview

This is part 24 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Middle Tennessee 16-2
Old Dominion 15-3
Western Kentucky 14-4
Marshall 12-6
UTSA 11-7
UAB 10-8
North Texas 8-10
FIU 8-10
Southern Miss 7-11
Louisiana Tech 7-11
FAU 6-12
UTEP 6-12
Rice 4-14
Charlotte 2-16

Format:
March 7-10.  Frisco, TX is your neutral site host.  They left the bottom 2 teams at home, by the way.

Matchups:
1) Middle Tennessee vs. 8/9) FIU/Southern Miss
4) Marshall vs. 5/12) UTSA/UTEP
3) Western Kentucky vs. 6/11) UAB/FAU
2) Old Dominion vs. 7/10) North Texas/Louisiana Tech

The stakes:
Ok.  MTSU.  Let's deal with this.  2-3 vs. Group 1, 3-1 vs. Group 2.  Not bad for a CUSA team.  The actual wins:  @Murray St, @WKU, @ODU, WKU, @Vandy.  Not great.  Whiffed on 3 chances against legitimate business teams.  But winning everything except games vs. Marshall behind it does matter too.  Non-con SoS  of 7, played 2 SEC teams, played Murray and Belmont, went to Diamond Head, only 3 home games in the non-con.  The committee usually rewards that.  They were 12-1 in true road games.  The committee usually rewards that.  I'm feeling pretty good about these chances the more and more you see the nitty gritty.

WKU fell off from bubble pace; their win against Purdue will be useful for a NIT bid.  Old Dominion is an NIT bubble team; could go either way but their overall record is a mirage based on non-con SoS.

Marshall is probably out of time and space to get into the NIT; UAB and UTSA are your other probable CBI/CIT teams.