How Did My Mid-Major Teams Do in Conference Tournament Play?

Answer: 6-4 with three losses coming by a total of five points. Here are the details.

Each year I scan the Mid-Major college basketball horizon and pick teams I think could surprise during the First Round of the annual NCAA I basketball tournament. I went 33% last year and was 54% correct in 2019. (COVID wiped out March Madness 2020). Remember, I only pick lesser-known teams to beat major teams, which means I only pick longshots to win outright or beat the spread against major teams. Last year, for example, I picked Abilene Christion to beat Texas, which it did.

So, what teams emerged this year? I shared the first stab at an answer in January after looking at teams in 23 Mid-Major basketball conferences–conferences like the Atlantic Sun, Ohio Valley, Big West, and Western Athletic. I followed up that first screening with a second look, which I published in early March before the conference tournaments began.

I settled here: Davidson, Princeton, Kent State, Iona, Loyola, Murray State, South Dakota State, New Mexico State, Norfolk State, and Bryant. Only two picks changed from January to March: Kent replaced Ohio/Toledo as my Mid-American Conference pick, and Bryant leapfrogged Wagner as my Northeast Conference favorite. One last point…. Because Gonzaga is a major team playing in the Mid-Major West Coast Conference, I included two other WCC contenders on my list–San Francisco and St. Mary’s.

ATLANTIC 10: +3.5 Richmond (NET 82) upset Davidson (NET 38), 64-62, in the conference tournament final.

IVY LEAGUE: +3.5 Yale (NET 147) upset Princeton (NET 102), 66-64, in the conference tournament final.

MID-AMERICA CONFERENCE: +1 Akron (NET 127) upset Kent (NET 132), 75-55, in the conference tournament final.

MID-ATLANTIC ATHLETIC CONFERENCE: +11.5 Rider (NET 242) upset Iona (NET 89), 71-70, in the conference tournament quarterfinals. 

MID-EASTERN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE: Norfolk State (NET 156) beat Coppin State in the conference tournament final.

MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE: Loyola (NET 25) beat Drake in the conference tournament final.

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE: Bryant (NET 202) beat Wagner in the conference tournament final.

OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE: Murray (NET 23) beat Morehead in the conference tournament final.

SUMMIT LEAGUE: South Dakota State (NET 64) beat North Dakota State in the conference tournament final.

WESTERN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE: New Mexico State (NET 79) beat Abilene Christian in the conference tournament final.

(WEST COAST CONFERENCE: Gonzaga (NET 1) beat St. Mary’s (NET 19) in the conference tournament final.)

The bottom line is 60% winners. Nothing surprised me about the six wins. The four losses, on the other hand, came in three sizes–close games (Davidson and Princeton lost by four points, total), a close (one-point) loss, but still a huge surprise (Iona), and a foolish act (Kent State).

Davidson lost to a gritty, scrappy Richmond team that took the A-10 and beyond by surprise. Davidson’s star guards, Loyer and Lee (33 ppg scorers, total), had bad games, shooting 2-16 from the field. Even with the loss, the Wildcats received an At-Large tournament bid, seeded #10, in the West. Princeton, playing at home because it finished #1 in the IVY, did not (it’s in the NIT instead). The Tigers trailed Yale by nine points with a minute left, and a furious comeback fell just short–even after Princeton had a chance to tie or win the game. Yale’s Isaiah Kelly missed a pair of free throws, and the Tigers had the ball down by two points with 14 seconds left. Iona was the biggest surprise. The Gaels, inarguably the best team in the conference (and by a wide margin, too), stumbled big-time, losing in the quarterfinals. With an 89 NET, the loss cost Iona a bid to the Big Dance. Iona is headed to the NIT. The NCAA invite went to 19-11 St. Peter’s (NET 124), a team Iona beat twice during the regular season.

Kent State also shot itself in the foot, but in a different way. Multiple players jabbed at Akron in a video they posted on social media, and their antics got four players suspended, including a star player, who was benched for the first half of the Akron game. More importantly, the act fueled Akron’s resolve to beat its bitter rival (the schools are located only ten miles apart), which it did by 20 points. A spanking it was, and it cost KSU in another way–its season is done, passed over by Toledo (NIT) and Ohio (CBI) even though the Flashes finished one game out of the regular-season championship and was the MAC tournament runner-up.

So, with tournament play over and the NCAA brackets set, it’s time to make my annual picks of how my Mid-Majors might fare in this week’s Big Dance. The number of teams varies each year, and this year (Tuesday, March 15, to be specific), I’ll make nine picks:  Davidson, Loyola, Murray State, South Dakota State, New Mexico State, Norfolk State, Bryant, San Francisco, and St. Mary’s.