Friday, February 26, 2016

Atlantic Sun conference tournament preview

This is part 1 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 final standings:
North Florida 10-4 (21-10)
NJIT 8-6 (17-13)
Jacksonville 8-6 (16-15)
FGCU 8-6 (17-13)
Kennesaw St 7-7 (11-19)
Lipscomb 7-7 (11-20)
Stetson 4-10 (10-21)
South Carolina Upstate 4-10 (10-21)

Tournament format:  three rounds, all home games at the higher seed.  Tuesday March 1, Thursday March 3, Sunday March 6 are the dates.

The matchups:
8) South Carolina Upstate at 1) North Florida
7) Stetson at 2) NJIT
6) Lipscomb at 3) Jacksonville
5) Kennesaw St at 4) FGCU

The stakes:
UNF's RPI is in the 150s, everyone else is lower.  The conference is 28th of 32 in CRPI.  With those numbers, the only chance the conference has of missing Dayton is if North Florida wins.  If they do, they might miss the 16 line altogether given upsets elsewhere are inevitable.  So, the stakes for the conference are straightforward.

The CIT will have a bit of a choice between three eligible teams.  NJIT has by far the best RPI of the 3, so perhaps a modest advantage for them.  Odds are someone will get into the CIT.  However, there's always a couple dozen eligible teams who don't get invited to the CBI/CIT every year, and these other teams fit the profile of the type of team wind up on that list of two dozen.

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