A Dead Chanticleer and Patriot League Top Seed Domination

The first quarterfinal game today in the Big South caused an upset which knocked out 6 of our Big South Champions from the pool.  VMI completely dominated 2 seed Coastal Carolina this afternoon, leaving a clear path for UNC Asheville to easily win this conference...or will VMI continue its high level of play.

Patriot League

• All 4 top seeds won today, meaning no one lost any champions in our pool
• Lafayette, Bucknell, Lehigh, and American University won without a challenge (Seriously, who picks American University?)

OVC

• Eastern Kentucky was dominated by SEMO, causing Ron to suffer his second loss

Current Standings


The WCC tournament tipped off tonight, but none of us care about Santa Clara or Portland, so we will move on to a preview of tomorrow's action.


Thursday, 3/1

Atlantic Sun

• All of us can sit this one out as we wait for Belmont to play on Friday, except for Andrew, he will be glued to ESPN3 sweating out USC Upstate

Big South

• VMI and UNC Asheville will both be in action tomorrow and let's hope for a VMI/UNC Asheville championship later in the week!

We will also see the following conference tip off tomorrow with a lot at stake for everyone in the pool:  America East, MVC, and Northeast. 

The next 72 hours will shake up the standings and we will start to see who the front runners are (probably Tina, again).  In addition to the continuation of tournaments and new one's tipping off, the following conferences will have champions declared on Saturday, 3/3:  Atlantic Sun, Big South, and The Murray State conference.

Uneventful Second Day Complete, But Leap Day Should be Good

The Horizon League was the only conference in action today and basically provided 4 terrible games.  No one in the pool lost any champions and we had 6 people with teams playing.

• Youngstown State blew out Green Bay
• Detroit blew out Loyola
• Milwaukee blew out the UIC Flames

The biggest storyline is Butler destroying Wright State, keeping the "2011 National Runner Up" still in the tournament.  Butler is trying hard to avoid the NIT, or as Amanda would say, "Not In Tournament."

Current Standings

If you like bottom tier, mid major basketball, tomorrow is your day!

The following leagues are beginning their tournament tomorrow and we now start to see more teams in our pool at stake, with some loses already due to teams not making the conference tournament.

• Atlantic Sun
• Ohio Valley
• Patriot League
• West Coast

Atlantic Sun

• Ron has already lost Stetson as they just missed the cut off for their tournament
• EVERYONE has Belmont with the exception of Andrew who went all in with USC Upstate, this has the potential to be the championship game!
• Belmont plays at 1:30 PM CT tomorrow

Patriot League

• Everyone has a team at stake as all teams play tomorrow, and everyone can come out without losing a team

Finally, tomorrow the Big South will move into the Quarterfinals with all teams playing.  Ron will have a huge advantage if VMI upsets Coastal Carolina, while those of us who have UNC Asheville will be hoping they can hold off High Point!

Day 1 Games Complete and Day 2 Preview

Day 1 - Big South Tournament

The Big South tournament tipped off today and didn't really bring any excitement or eliminations to our conference championship pool.  In fact, the two games tonight lacked so much excitement, I ended up playing (and losing) Mickey Mouse Go Fish to a 4 year old. 

Radford overcame a 8 point half time deficit and were within 2 points of knocking off VMI.  A Radford win would have cost Ron the Big South tournament champion with the first game.

One of Amanda's favorite mascots, the Gardner Webb Dog, ended up losing by 10 points in a dominant performance by High Point.


Day 2 - Horizon League Tournament

Round 1 of the Horizon League tournament tips off on 2/28 with 4 games, included the 2011 National Runner up, Butler!

If we see a few upsets tomorrow, we have the potential for 6 people to lose their Horizon League Champion.

• Wright State would need to knock off Butler
• Loyala (IL) would need to beat Detroit
• Milwaukee would need to lose to UIC
• No one cares about Green Bay vs. Youngstown Sate, unless you enjoy penguins wearing scarfs

1	(3) Detroit vs. (10) Loyola 7:00PM EST
2	(6) YSU vs. (7) Green Bay 7:00PM EST
3	(4) Milwaukee vs. (9) UIC 8:00PM EST
4	(5) Butler vs. (8) WSU 7:00PM EST

2012 NCAA Conference Basketball Pool Final Picks

Welcome to the 2012 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool!

The link below will show a spreadsheet of everyone's final picks and this blog will be updated daily with the standings and information.  If you see any errors in the spreadsheet, whether it was your error or mine, you have 24 hours to e-mail, comment, or text me any corrections.  We will see movement in the standings daily, not only as teams win their conference, but also as teams get knocked out.

I still have a few entries that have not picked the combined score of the Big 10 championship game for tiebreaker purposes, I have filled it in with a 0.  If you see a 0 for your entry please e-mail, comment, or text me with the score you want entered.

2012 NCAA Conference Tournament Standings



You can find a full conference tournament schedule using the link below:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/champweek2012/


The Big South conference tournament kicks off today, 2/27

First Round - Monday, Feb. 27 (at home sites) - all games available on Big South Network

Game 1: No. 7 VMI hosts No. 10 Radford, 7:00pm
Game 2: No. 8 High Point hosts No. 9 Gardner-Webb, 7:30pm

Quarterfinals - Tuesday, Feb. 29 (at Kimmel Arena, Asheville, N.C.) - all games available on Big South Network

Game 3: No. 2 Coastal Carolina vs. No. 7/No. 10 winner, 12:00pm ET
Game 4: No. 3 Campbell vs. No. 6 Winthrop, 2:00pm ET
Game 5: No. 1 UNC Asheville hosts No. 8/No. 9 winner, 6:00pm ET
Game 6: No. 4 Charleston Southern vs. No. 5 Liberty, 8:00pm ET


Thanks!
Rick

2nd Annual NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Challenge (2012)

Hi Everyone!

To make watching the NCAA Basketball 2012 Conference tournaments a little more interesting for the second year in a row, below are the details of a pool in which you pick the champion for each conference. This was a ton of fun last year so sign up and pass it along to anyone else that may want to play!

• The total cost is $20 with the following payout structure:
  • 1st Place receives a 60% payout of the pool
  • 2nd Place receives 30% payout of the pool
  • 3rd Place receives 10% payout of the pool
• Simple Scoring System - The person with the most correct picks wins the pool
• Simply fill out the spreadsheet with the team you think will win each conference tournament and e-mail it back to me no later than 2/27
  • A list of all the conferences, with the aligned teams in each conference, is located at http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/standings
  • It shouldn't take longer than 10-15 minutes to fill everything out and I included a drop down list for each conference to allow easy and accurate selections for that conference
  • TIP: If you are not college basketball savvy, not all teams in some conferences make the conference tournament so avoid picking a last place team when viewing the current conference standings
  • Ensure you fill out your name and E-mail address on the sheet prior to sending it back to me to avoid any confusion
• I will send out a master spreadsheet with everyone's picks prior to the first tournament championship (Including my picks)
  • As conference tournaments complete at different dates through 3/11, I will send updates with the current standing (Conference tournaments begin on Monday, 2/27 with the Big South conference)

• Money can be sent the following ways:
  • PayPal: rwdpeanut@gmail.com
  • Address: Send me an e-mail for address
  • In person when I see some of you

If you have any questions or want to forward this to anyone that may be interested, feel free to do so, just ensure they send the spreadsheet back by 2/27.

Conference Selections Spreadsheet

Thanks!

Rick Donegan

630-885-2873