It took over a week from the first conference tournament tip, but we finally have a relevant upset.
Kent State got unceremoniously bounced from the MAC tournament by No. 9 seed Ohio, meaning that the MAC winner will certainly fall behind Cornell.
The final two tournaments to keep an eye on are Conference USA and the Pacific 10. Only No. 1 seed UTEP remains as an enemy in the C-USA tourney, and with Arizona State gone, the Big Red has three allies (UCLA, Washington and Stanford) and just one enemy (California).
Our projections have 15 teams guaranteed to be behind Cornell, which bumps the Big Red to at least No. 50 on the S-Curve (second-best 13 seed). From there, it would need to get two more surprise tournament results or win two head-to-head battles with Siena, St. Mary’s, Utah State or the last at-large teams in to get a 12 or win six head-to-head battles to sneak onto the 11 line.
With that let’s get to today’s Seed Watch:
Let’s start with the 15 conference tournaments (with current leaders in parentheses and winners in bold) that should remain irrelevant unless the Big Red falls during the league’s final weekend:
America East Conference (Vermont)
Atlantic Sun Conference (East Tennessee State)
Big South Conference (Winthrop)
Big Sky Conference (Montana)
Big West Conference (UC Santa Barbara)
Mid-American Conference (Akron)
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (Morgan State)
Northeast Conference (Robert Morris)
Ohio Valley Conference (Murray State)
Patriot League (Lehigh)
Southern Conference (Wofford)
Southland Conference (Sam Houston State)
Southwestern Athletic Conference (Arkansas Pine-Bluff)
Sun Belt Conference (North Texas)
The Summit League (Oakland)
The following conference tournament has a regular season leader who would likely be close to Cornell on the S-Curve, making it a potential enemy:
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Siena)
That leaves 14 conference tournaments where the Big Red has allies that could bump it up the S-Curve. Any upset winners of these conferences not otherwise in at-large consideration would grab a bid and a seed below Cornell and take one away from an at-large team that possibly would have been seeded above the Big Red. The enemies in each conference are listed in parentheses for all conferences except those with more than four teams who potentially would fail to help Cornell by capturing the title.
Atlantic 10 Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
Big 12 Conference
Big East Conference
Big Ten Conference
Colonial Athletic Association (Old Dominion)
Conference USA (UTEP)
Horizon League (Butler)
Missouri Valley Conference (Northern Iowa)
Mountain West Conference (New Mexico, BYU, UNLV, San Diego State)
Pacific 10 Conference (California, Washington, Arizona State)
Southeastern Conference
West Coast Conference (St. Mary’s)
Western Athletic Conference (Utah State, New Mexico State)
UPCOMING GAMES (E=Enemy, A=Ally)
March 12, 2010
UTEP (E) vs. Tulsa
California (E) vs. UCLA
Temple (E) vs. St. Bonaventure
St. Louis vs. Rhode Island (E)
Xavier (E) vs. Dayton
Richmond (E) vs. Massachusetts (A)
Ohio State (E) vs. Michigan
Purdue (E) vs. Northwestern
Michigan State (E) vs. Minnesota
Kentucky (E) vs. Alabama (A)
Vanderbilt (E) vs. Georgia
Nevada vs. New Mexico State (E)
Utah State (E) vs. Louisiana Tech
AUTO BID S-CURVE
61-65 (16s)
East Tennessee State
Robert Morris
Winthrop
Lehigh
Arkansas Pine-Bluff
57-60 (15s)
Morgan State
UC-Santa Barbara
North Texas
Vermont
53-56 (14s)
Montana
Wofford
Oakland
Sam Houston State
51-52 (13s)
Murray State
Akron
45-50 (12/13s)
Cornell
Siena
St. Mary’s
Utah State
At-Large (1)
At-Large (2)
