How strange is this conference in its composition?\u00a0 Even though it is called the \u201cGreat West,\u201d\u00a0one of its teams is the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Jersey City, NJ (not even the western part of NEW JERSEY).\u00a0 Two more of the teams\u00a0are\u00a0Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, TX, and the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, ND.\u00a0 For anyone who isn\u2019t a geography afficianado (or doesn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 So, this conference has teams on the easternmost, southernmost, and northermost borders of the United States.\u00a0 In fact, the only \u201cdirection\u201d not really covered in the Great West is, well, the west.\u00a0 Utah Valley is actually the only school that could even be considered western at all.\u00a0 Very strange.\u00a0 But, all of this is just sort of distraction from the fact that this is\u00a0a pretty poor collection of basketball teams.\u00a0 This conference doesn\u2019t provide us with an NCAA team because they haven\u2019t been given an automatic bid (not sure if that\u2019s on the table or not), and, honestly, even me \u2013 the ultimate defender or the \u201clittle guy\u201d \u2013 cannot possibly make an argument that one of these teams should get to play for a national championship.\u00a0 This conference is basically a D-III basketball conference that plays D-I teams (sometimes) in their non-conference slate.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The only team left out – you guessed it – Chicago St.\u00a0 So, the other 5 teams travel from all corners of the country to Chicago to play a tournament that doesn’t include Chicago St.\u00a0 Which leads to the next question – who the hell is buying tickets to this tournament.\u00a0 If the 5 teams are so far away, and Chicago St. isn’t in the tournament, who would possibly go?<\/p>\n
Anyway, this 5-team format includes a pigtail game today.<\/p>\n
Championship Picks Previous CTC Champions #4<\/em> N.J.I.T. vs. #5 Houston Baptist 7 people have HB in the mild upset (Gross, Lil Lohse, Lohse, Mac, Primm, RDoc, Stri).\u00a0 KA and Waters have N.J.I.T. winning again next round.\u00a0 KA has them winning the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How strange is this conference in its composition?\u00a0 Even though it is called the \u201cGreat West,\u201d\u00a0one of its teams is the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Jersey City, NJ (not even the western part of NEW JERSEY).\u00a0 Two more … Continue reading
\n<\/em>13 for #1 Utah Valley
\n6 for #2 North Dakota (Gersh, Lynch, Mac, Primm, RDoc, Teddy, Waters)
\n0 for #3 TX-Pan American
\n1 for #4 N.J.I.T. (KA)<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>2011 – J
\n2010 – Stri*<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>These teams are terrible…<\/p>\n