Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Southland conference tournament preview

This is part 27 of a 32-part series.

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

Format:
March 13-16.  Neutral site in Katy, TX.  Your quirk here:  only the top 8 qualify, and we have a ladder format as well.

Matchups:
1) Sam Houston St vs. 4) New Orleans vs. 5/8) Lamar/Houston Baptist
2) Abilene Christian vs. 3) SE Louisiana vs. 6/7) Texas A&M-CC/Central Arkansas

The stakes:
Pretty low.  Abilene Christian NET 155; SHSU at 174, no one else over 200.  Both top teams have 2 wins outside of Q4.  I don't see a path off the 16 line for any team.

Of course right now, I actually have SHSU barely missing Dayton.  A lot of that is the terribleness of the bottom end of D1.  Right now, I have NET rankings saving ACU or SHSU from Dayton...but that could easily be flipped or not used by the committee.

Right now Southland is CNET 29....I have reps from conferences 28, 30, 31, and 32 in Dayton.  So there's that.

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