SWAC finals are basically the First Four semifinals, as the winner of this dreadful conference always ends up there. It would have been interesting to see what they would have done with Mississippi Valley St. if they had gone undefeated in the conference and then won the tournament. That might have been enough to earn them a “regular” 16-seed, but we’ll never know because they lost their last game of the regular season at AR-Pine Bluff. Now, this is truly a feeder tournament to Dayton and the First Four. But, these teams should be used to it, as they seem to love to get pounded. I will never understand the non-conference schedules of all of these teams. They all stink, and all they do in the non-conference is play the best teams in the country. I think the 10 teams combined for 3 or 4 D-I non-conference wins this season. They’re bad, but not that bad, they just offer themselves up as cannon fodder to the SEC and Big XII. I guess it’s all about the gate split, so it makes sense, but still…
Tonight there is a day-night doubleheader with the top two teams in action in the quarters. Again, confusing. If you’re going to split up the quarters, don’t you think that the reason for that is to avoid the empty seats of the afternoon sessions? That makes sense to me. More people can come at night, so play two doubleheaders on consecutive nights and play it off as an “advantage” to the top two seeds in getting the day off. But, they have one of the games today at 1:30 and the other at 9:00. My head hurts…
As for the CTC, half the field has the top-seeded Delta Devils, while the other 10 people are split between the 2nd and 5th seeds, with each getting at least two supporters.
Championship Picks
10 for #1 Mississippi Valley St.
4 for #2 Texas-Southern (Lohse, Mac, RDoc, Waters)
2 for #3 Prairie View (KA, Teddy)
2 for #4 Alabama St. (Gersh, RSmith)
2 for #5 AR-Pine Bluff (Gross, J)
Biggest Upsets
QF – #8 Jackson St. (KA)
SF – #6 Alcorn St. (J)
Previous CTC Champions
2011 – Lynch
2010 – Teddy
2009 – Ina*
2008 – Waters
#2 Texas-Southern vs. #7 Alabama A&M
Texas-Southern was supposed to have the year that MVSU had – totally dominant. But, they were barely better than mediocre in the conference. They did rally though to finish in the 2-spot and avoid MVSU until the finals. Alabama A&M just isn’t good. 19 people took TxS in this one, with KA as the only one that took a longshot at this nice upset pick. Lohse, Mac, RDoc, and Waters all have TxS winning this tournament.
#1 Mississippi Valley St. vs. #8 Jackson St.
The Delta Devils won their first 17 conference games (to improve their overall record to 1-10) before losing at AR-Pine Bluff in the regular season finale. They enter the tournament as pretty big favorites to take the auto-bid and the trip to Dayton on Tuesday. Between the top two seeds, though, they did get the tougher draw, as Jackson St. does have the potential to rise up and nip them, whereas Alabama A&M (or Grambling, who just missed qualifying for this tournament) would probably have been a walkover for a team like MVSU. KA has this huge upset, half the field has the Delta Devils cutting down the nets on Saturday.
