Fan Stop Central

Conference tourney weekend #1 is in the books. Some teams fell short of their expectations and will have to wait out the longest week of their collegiate careers. Others rose to the occasion to solidify their trip to the Big Dance.

Who’s in from this weekend?

• MISSOURI VALLEY – arguably the best non-BCS basketball conference in the country (and rivaling some BCS’) saw Creighton fight off Missouri State and Southern Illinois to capture the MVC Tournament Championship and the automatic bid to the Dance
  
• BIG SOUTH – Winthrop, the prohibitive favorite to win the conference tourney, did just that and locked up its bid to the Dance
  
• SOUTHERN CONFERENCE – Davidson
  
• ATLANTIC SUN – Belmont
  
• OHIO VALLEY – Eastern Kentucky, which topped Austin Peay with a final-seconds floater to win the Ohio Valley, claims its bid
  

Today’s huge bubble throwdown comes from the CAA, where league champ VCU and road warrior Drexel get it on in the semifinals. With Old Dominion looking solid in the other semi against George Mason, the winner of the Rams-Dragons throwdown could very well be in position for the league’s second at-large. It’s possible the loser could make it, too, but that will be a very long wait until Selection Sunday.

Also, Xavier from the A-10 looks very good for an at-large, if needed. As it stands, it appears there are six at-larges left for those teams in the “work to do” pool, assuming teams like Memphis, Xavier and Nevada don’t lose in their conference tournaments. If I had to size up, at this point, the pool of teams in best position to grab those bids, it would be (in no order, yet):

Georgia Tech, Florida State, Missouri State, Illinois, Purdue, Kansas State, Old Dominion, Drexel, Gonzaga, VCU and West Virginia.

Assuming the CAA auto bid winner comes from ODU, Drexel or VCU, that knocks one more team from that group.

As it breaks down, and this tournament week continues things can (and probably will) make or break post-season hopes for many of the remaining “bubble” teams.

Good luck to all, and to all – shoulda, woulda, coulda.

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