There are 31 conference tournaments over these two weeks, and they are all incredible, in their own ways.  And now with the dissolution of the CAA, one tournament stands above the other 30 – “Arch Madness.”  The place is always packed.  The rivalries are intense (only the Ivy League has had its current constitution of teams longer than The Valley).  The tournament is always incredibly competitive from start to finish.  It always has some sort of bubble aspect to it.  And, the title game – on CBS, by the way – is nearly always one of the best games played over this fortnight.  And, this year is should be no different.

Creighton was supposed to dominate the league, with their 1st-team All-American and national Top 15 ranking.  But, the Valley is no fun, especially on the road, as the Blue Jays were just 5-4 on the road in the Valley, but their 8-1 home record was enough to win the conference.  Wichita St. was the surprise leader of the Valley for most of the season before Doug McDermott’s 41 points on Saturday won the league for Creighton.  Still, the Shockers are an NCAA Tournament team and will be a tough out in any tournament they are in.  Northern Iowa got a really slow conference start, but, in the end, was almost as good as advertised.  Indiana St. looked like a sure-fire NCAA Tournament team, but got eaten up in the later part of the Valley schedule.  Illinois St. also looked like a sure-fire Tournament team, but they gotten eaten up in the earlier part of the Valley schedule.  With a hot Missouri St. team, an underrated Evansville team and three really tough teams at the bottom of the bracket, this league is set up for – once again – an amazing tournament.  Arch Madness!

SEMIFINALS (March 9th – 32 points)

#1 Creighton vs #5 Indiana St.
Doug McDermott and the Blue Jays took care of a tough Drake team on Friday, while Indiana St. survived a crazy finish with #4 Evansville.  Now, the Sycamores have to beat the league’s best team Saturday and win again Sunday to salvage a tourney bid that looked certain about a month ago.

Dave, Scoot, and Waters have a pretty solid upset pick here – Waters has them winning this tournament.  Doogan, Gersh, J, and Teddy have already lost it with Evansville.  Everyone else has Creighton here, with many have picking them to win the tournament.

#2 Wichita St. vs #6 Illinois St.
Watch out for the Redbirds.  They have a roster good enough to win this tournament, and they look like they are running on all cylinders after Tyler Brown and Jackie Carmichael dominated UNI in Friday’s quartefinal.  But, Wichita looked good Friday, as well, in knocking off Missouri St.  This should be one of the best games of the first week, bar none.

Alex, GrossSr, Lazarow, and Lohse have Illinois St. in another nice upset pick – Lohse has the Redbirds winning this tournament.  Caleb, Lynch, Primm, Stumpf, Teddy, and Waters have already lost the game with UNI.

QUARTERFINALS (March 8th – 16 points each)

#1 Creighton vs #9 Drake
It seems crazy to even think, but it is certainly a possibility that the best team in America (Gonzaga) and the best player in America (Creighton’s Doug McDermott) will be playing their tournament games in Week One of the CTC.  That is a joyous thing to think on this chilly Friday afternoon.  The Blue Jays are seen as a bit of a disappointment to some this year, as they were creeping towards the Top 10 in the country for a while, but to the learned eye, this was just “another” year in the Valley – where it is oh so tough to win on the road.  All I can say is that if Creighton gets a 7-seed next Sunday, I would not want to be the 2-seed in that region.  But, here, this week, Creighton is the #1-seed at Arch Madness and will kick off one of the best quadruple-headers of the entire tournament season against a Drake team that handled Bradley on Thursday night.

23 people have Creighton winning this game, and then there’s Doogan, who could clear a free 80 points on the rest of the field if Drake pulls off the upset here.  That wouldn’t be a terrible result for the other 6 people who have Creighton losing in the semis, either, or even for the 14 people that don’t have the Blue Jays winning this tournament.

Creighton 65 – Drake 53
Doug McDermott had 23 points and 7 boards and senior center Gregory Echinique had 11 points, 11 boards, and 6 blocks, as the Blue Jays won a close, hotly contested quarterfinal here against The Drake.  They will now await the winner of Evansville-Indiana St. quarterfinal this afternoon.

Doogan missed a huge upset pick here, as everyone else picks up a quick 16 points.

#4 Evansville vs #5 Indiana St.
This is an absolutely fantastic game for any day, let alone Day Four of the CTC.  The Sycamores of Indiana St. looked destined for at least an at-large berth this year, before the Valley ate them up – now, they are probably reliant on the auto-bid here.  On the other side, Evansville – a team mostly forgotten about in the Valley amidst the love affairs with Creighton, Wichita, UNI, and the two ISUs – is not to be trifled with, particularly if you can’t find a way to slow down one of the most prolific scorers in the nation – Colt Ryan.  Ryan averages over 20 points per game for a team that averages fewer than 70.  The dude can fill it up.

Fewer than half of the field (11 – Alexi, Alex, Caleb, Doogan, Gersh, GrossSr, J, Lohse, Lynch, RDoc, and Teddy) picked Evansville in this one.  But, there is a lot more at stake moving forward in the Arch Madness bracket.  Doogan, Gersh, J, and Teddy all have Evansville going to the finals, with Doogan and Gersh picking them to win it.  On the other side, Dave, Scoot, and Waters all have Indiana St. going to the finals, with Waters picking the Sycamores to cut down the nets.  This is a pretty gigantic game in the most important tournament of the first week.

Indiana St. 51 – Evansville 50
In a wild, wild finish where both teams squandered opportunity after opportunity, ISU finally converted the second of two free throws with :02 seconds left before nearly giving up a wide open layup off of a length-of-the-floor pass.  Not sure anyone actually won this game, but I guess Evansville officially lost it.

And, the 11 that picked the Aces also lost this game.  J and Teddy both lost a finalist, while Doogan and Gersh lost champions.  Dave and Scoot keep alive a finalist, while Waters keeps alive his champ.  Bry, Primm, and LohseJr now sit 1-2-3 in the overall standings.

#2 Wichita St. vs #7 Missouri St.
For pretty much the entire conference season, the Shockers of WSU looked like they would shock the Valley by taking the regular season title from Creighton.  But, a couple tough road losses and then a 41-point performance by Doug McDermott to beat Wichita on the last day of the season relegated the Shockers to #2.  Either way, it has been a surprisingly good season for Greg Marshall’s crew earning him the much-deserved Conf Coach of the Year honors, and, more importantly, almost assuring WSU’s place in the Big Dance yet again this year.  But, they want a Valley tournament banner this year, and that quest begins Friday night against a Missouri St. team that eliminated Southern Illinois on Thursday night.

Lynch and Teddy both had Southern Illinois upsetting the Shockers, so they can’t earn any points here, but they can hope for a Mo State upset to zero it out.  Cheryl, Dave GrossJr, J, and Scoot all have Wichita winning this tournament, so this is big for them.

Wichita St. 69 – Missouri St. 59
In a close game most of the way, the Shockers eventually pulled away from Missouri St., giving the Bears their 22nd and final loss.  Wichita – led by 18 & 12 from Carl Hall – moves into Saturday’s semis against the winner of the fantastic nightcap.

22 people hit on this one, as only Lynch and Teddy miss out on the 16 points here.  Cheryl, Dave, GrossJr, J, and Scoot all keep their MVC champ alive.

#3 Northern Iowa vs #6 Illinois St.
This might be the best quarterfinal matchup you will find outside of the Big Ten, Big East, and Mountain West, this year.  These two teams are really, really good.  UNI struggled out of the conference gates, but recovered to win 11 league games and earn a 3rd place finish.  Struggling out of the gate isn’t strong enough to describe the Redbirds of Illinois St.’s conference season.  Picked for second place in the preseason, the Redbirds put together a really impressive non-conference slate to seemingly justify the prognosticators.  But, they faced serious internal problems, ended up suspending their leading scorer, Tyler Brown, for a couple of games, and lost their first SEVEN games in league play.  But, they reinstated Brown and, together with one of the best players you will find anywhere, Jackie Carmichael, ISU went on a furious run to earn a bye in the tournament.  They are fully ready for this tournament and this quarterfinal really feels like a lot more than a mid-major quarterfinal.  This is can’t-miss hoops.

Only 11 people went with the favorites here, UNI (Caleb, Cheryl, Gersh, LohseJr, Lynch, Primm, Rikey, Scoot, Stumpf, Teddy, and Waters), but 6 of them (Caleb, Lynch, Primm, Stumpf, Teddy, and Waters) have UNI reaching the finals, and 3 more (Lynch, Stumpf, and Teddy) have the Panthers winning this tournament.  On the other side, Lohse picked Illinois St. to run through this tournament and win it – which would be a solid 248 points for him.  Alex, GrossSr, and Lazarow have the Redbirds reaching the finals.

Illinois St. 73 – Northern Iowa 65
The stars were out late night in Arch Madness for Illinois St.  Tyler Brown went for 29 points and 9 assists, while Jackie Carmichael dropped 15 points and 10 boards.  There is clearly enough talent on this team to win this tournament, and they could play with anyone next week too.  As for UNI, it was not the season they quite expected, but another solid year for a consistently good program.  Ben Jacobson is doing great things at his alma mater.

13 people hit this upset pick, including GrossSr and Lazarow, who kept alive a finalist, and Lohse who kept alive his dark horse champion.  Lynch, Stumpf, and Teddy all lost their champ here, with six more people losing a finalist.

OPENING ROUND (March 7th – 8 points each)

#8 Bradley vs #9 Drake
Bradley has recovered from a couple of really down years and looked like they might actually scratch together an upper-conference finish this year, but just couldn’t pull out enough wins on the road (and by “enough,” I mean more than one) to do that.  But, they do get to wear their home unis for a tournament game for the first time in a couple of years.  That, however, does not mean that they are favored in their opening round game.  Drake is a pretty solid team, all-around, and to show the strength and depth of the Valley, they are ranked #125 in the KenPom’s tempo-free rankings and NINTH place in this great 10-team league.  To put that in perspective, only two other conferences in the country have their 2nd-to-last team ranked in the Top-125 in KenPom’s rankings.  The winner of this one will get the pleasure of taking on Doug McDermott and Creighton in the quarters.

Only 11 people (Cheryl, Dave, GrossJr, GrossSr, Lazarow, LohseJr, PapaCim, Rikey, RDoc, Scoot, and Stumpf) took the favored Bradley Braves here.  Doogan has a whole lot at stake here for Drake, as he is the only one that doesn’t have Creighton winning in Friday’s quarterfinal, as he has Drake beating them, so he needs them to get there first.

Drake 81 – Bradley 66
Drake led pretty much the whole way, but the Braves cut the lead to 3 with just over 6 minutes left, but the Bulldogs pulled away down the stretch to end the Bradley season.  Drake will move on to face top-seeded Creighton in Friday’s quarterfinal.

Most people got this minor upset pick correct.  Doogan could be the big winner here, as he has Drake beating Creighton in the quarters.

#7 Missouri St. vs #10 Southern Illinois
After a really tough start to the season for the Bears of Missouri St., they have played a lot better as of late.  They do have a big, fat 21 in the loss column, but they are a pretty solid 21-loss team – if there is such a thing.  As for SIU – the program that really put this conference on the map – has fallen on some hard times and have been in this pigtail round for several years in a row now.  If they can take out Missouri St. here, they will get to play Wichita in the quarters.

Even fewer people (7 – Alexi, Caleb, Gersh, LohseJr, Mac, and Stumpf) have the favorite, Missouri St., in this one, none of whom have them beating Wichita on Friday.  The biggest SIU fans today are Lynch and Teddy who have them with with the minor upset on Thursday and then the major upset on Friday, beating Wichita St. and going to the semis.

Missouri St. 61 – Southern Illinois 53
The Mo State starting guards combined for 34 points, as the Bears controlled this one pretty much from the opening tip.  A last-place finish and a pigtail exit for the Salukis is how 2012-13 will be written.  Missouri St. now gets to take on second-seeded Wichita in the quarters on Friday.

Only seven people got this pick right.  Lynch and Teddy took big losses here, as they both had SIU beating Wichita in the quarters.

CTC UPDATE

Championship Picks

• #1  Creighton (10)
• #2  Wichita St. (5)
• #3  Northern Iowa (3)
• #4 Evansville (2)
• #5 Indiana St. (1)
• #6 Illinois St. (1)

Biggest Upsets

• R1 – #10 Southern Illinois (many)
• QF – #10 Southern Illinois (Lynch & Teddy)
• SF – #6 Illinois St. (Alex, GrossSr, Lazarow & Lohse)
• Champ – #6 Illinois St. (Lohse)

Previous CTC Champions

• 2008 – Ina
• 2009 – Stri
• 2010 – Stri
• 2011 – Alexi
• 2012 – RyanSmith (perfect)

2013 Scores

1). 120 (perfect) – Mac

2). 112 – Bry

3). 96 – Alexi, Dave, GrossJr, Lazarow, PapaCim

8). 88 – Alex, J, Lohse

11). 72 – Doogan, GrossSr, Primm, RDoc, Waters

16). 64 – LohseJr, Stumpf

18). 56 – Caleb, Cheryl, Gersh, Rikey, Scoot

23). 32 – Lynch, Teddy