How strange is this conference in its composition? Even though it is called the “Great West,” one of its teams is the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Jersey City, NJ (not even the western part of NEW JERSEY). Two more of the teams are Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, TX, and the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, ND. For anyone who isn’t a geography afficianado (or doesn’t care enough to google it), Edinburg is about 20 miles from the Mexican border, while Grand Forks is about 75 miles from the Canadian border. So, this conference has teams on the easternmost, southernmost, and northermost borders of the United States. In fact, the only “direction” not really covered in the Great West is, well, the west. Utah Valley is actually the only school that could even be considered western at all. Very strange. But, all of this is just sort of distraction from the fact that this is a pretty poor collection of basketball teams. This conference doesn’t provide us with an NCAA team because they haven’t been given an automatic bid (not sure if that’s on the table or not), and, honestly, even me – the ultimate defender or the “little guy” – cannot possibly make an argument that one of these teams should get to play for a national championship. This conference is basically a D-III basketball conference that plays D-I teams (sometimes) in their non-conference slate.
Oh, and to make this thing even more head scratching, only 5 of the 6 teams are in the conference tournament this year, which is hosted by Chicago St. The only team left out – you guessed it – Chicago St. So, the other 5 teams travel from all corners of the country to Chicago to play a tournament that doesn’t include Chicago St. Which leads to the next question – who the hell is buying tickets to this tournament. If the 5 teams are so far away, and Chicago St. isn’t in the tournament, who would possibly go?
Anyway, this 5-team format includes a pigtail game today.
Championship Picks
13 for #1 Utah Valley
6 for #2 North Dakota (Gersh, Lynch, Mac, Primm, RDoc, Teddy, Waters)
0 for #3 TX-Pan American
1 for #4 N.J.I.T. (KA)
Previous CTC Champions
2011 – J
2010 – Stri*
#4 N.J.I.T. vs. #5 Houston Baptist
These teams are terrible…
7 people have HB in the mild upset (Gross, Lil Lohse, Lohse, Mac, Primm, RDoc, Stri). KA and Waters have N.J.I.T. winning again next round. KA has them winning the whole thing.
