Nothin' But Postseason

The regular season is now closed, and the major conferences have a few days off before their tournaments start. That left Monday to the little guys, who crowned three more champions, all who will receive automatic NCAA bids. Only one of those teams, however, won its conference's regular season championship, so clearly the NIT is filling up with mid-majors.

Bracket Brief for March 10, 2014

Seed	South (1) Memphis (Th/Sa)	East (4) NYC (Fr/Su)	Midwest (2) Indy (Fr/Su)	West (3) Anaheim (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Wofford/Co. Car. Geo. Wash. Arizona State	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Villanova Stony Brook Pittsburgh Harvard	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Wichita State Weber St./TX So. Baylor Memphis	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Utah Valley Texas Iowa
Site 5 12 4 13	San Diego (Fr/Su) North Carolina Stephen F. Austin Saint Louis Iona	Spokane (Th/Sa) Ohio State Louisiana Tech Iowa State North Dakota State	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Michigan State Tenn./St. Joe's Creighton Toledo	San Antonio (Fr/Su) VCU So. Miss/Neb. Cincinnati Georgia State
Site 3 14 6 11	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Virginia Delaware Oklahoma Xavier	Orlando (Th/Sa) Louisville NC Central Oregon Dayton	Spokane (Th/Sa) San Diego State Mercer Gonzaga St. John's	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Boston U New Mexico Stanford
Site 7 10 2 15	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Connecticut BYU Wisconsin Eastern Kentucky	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Kentucky Colorado Syracuse Robert Morris	St. Louis (Fr/Su) UCLA SMU Kansas UC Irvine	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Massachusetts Oklahoma State Michigan Wright State

Note: Through games of March 9, 2014. Teams in italics below represent projected automatic bids. Teams in bold below represent secured automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

Conference Tournaments: Hurting Mid-Major Conferences Since Forever

Today, we saw the stupidity behind conference tournaments. This season, the America East decided to host its conference tournament in Albany. #1 seed Vermont, who lost only one game in the conference all year, was stuck playing #4 Albany, who lost seven conference games. Not entirely surprisingly, behind its home crowd, Albany knocked off Vermont, eliminating who is clearly the America East's best team from tournament consideration.

Mid-Major Conference Tournaments Might Have Eliminated One Of The Best Mid Majors

The big upset of the day was Green Bay's loss in the Horizon League tourney to Milwaukee. Not only did Green Bay lose to someone other than Cleveland State, they lost at home. Green Bay's at-large chances are shaky, at best. Some things are going to need to break Green Bay's way for them to squeeze in, but my instant reaction was out.

The Friday Appraisal: Welcome Back, Harvard! And Locked, Mixable, Prayer, or Gone?

Another Friday down and another look at the Bracket Briefer's renamed feature: Locked, Mixable, Prayer, or Gone? Teams are moving out of the middle and either up into Locked status or down to Gone status. See where your team is as well as Friday's massive action within the conference tournaments. That, and we have our first tournament automatic bid!

Bracket Brief for March 7, 2014

Seed	West (1) Anaheim (Th/Sa)	East (4) NYC (Fr/Su)	Midwest (2) Indy (Fr/Su)	South (3) Memphis (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Utah Valley Geo. Wash. Oklahoma State	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Villanova Robert Morris Arizona State Baylor	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Wichita State Weber St./TX So. Oregon SMU	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Fla. GC/Coast. Car. Texas Pittsburgh
Site 5 12 4 13	Spokane (Th/Sa) UCLA BYU San Diego State Georgia State	San Diego (Fr/Su) New Mexico Stephen F. Austin North Carolina Louisiana Tech	Spokane (Th/Sa) Iowa State Prov./Stanford Michigan State North Dakota State	San Antonio (Fr/Su) VCU Fla. St./So. Miss Cincinnati Toledo
Site 3 14 6 11	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Syracuse Iona Gonzaga Xavier	Orlando (Th/Sa) Louisville NC Central Iowa Green Bay	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Creighton Belmont Saint Louis Kansas State	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Delaware Oklahoma Tennessee
Site 7 10 2 15	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Connecticut Harvard Michigan Vermont	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Massachusetts Colorado Kansas Davidson	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Ohio State Memphis Virginia Boston U	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Kentucky Saint Joseph's Wisconsin UC Irvine

Note: Through games of March 6, 2014 (High Point's loss on March 7 is included). Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

Thursday Night Didn't Have Bracket Movement But It Had Conference Tournament Drama

Thursday night was pretty quiet in terms of bracket movement. There were no real upsets, though several teams, like Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss, kept their bracket hopes alive. A couple of games involved safe tourney squads, and those games were won expectedly by the home teams. But there was great drama in the conference tournaments, with Mercer needing double overtime at home just to advance to the Atlantic Sun final. The MAAC has an #11 seed alive, and the Missouri Valley and WCC have #10 seeds still going.