This year could be a very good year for Louisiana teams participation in the NCAA Tournament. Check out how these teams are doing in their respective conferences. Centenary (14-9, 8-4) is one game behind league leading Valparaiso in the Mid-Continent Conference. Four games left, two at home, two on the road, all against teams still alive for the title. It could fall right for the Gents. SLU (16-6, 8-3) has a half-game lead on Stephen F. Austin, UT-San Antonio, Texas State, and Northwestern St. (10-11, 7-3) in the Southland Conference. The Lions and Demons meet Wed. night in a critical conference game. Winner will likely get sole possession of first place, while the loser is pretty much out of the conference race. Might be a very good game to watch, if you can't make it to LSU/Auburn. UL-Lafayette (14-6, 9-2) lost to New Orleans (13-11, 7-4) today, but is still two games ahead of the Privateers in the Sun Belt Conference's Western Division. The Ragin' Cajuns have four conference games left, all against teams with .500 or better records, plus a "Bracket Buster" game with Rice. It also looks like they will win the overall league title if they go .500 or better the rest of the way. All four schools in competition for the NCAA Tourney pretty much have to win their conference tournaments to go dancing (UL-Lafayette has an outside shot at an at-large bid, but they have to run the table in regular season and win at least two SBC Tourney games, and even then, it's a long shot) But it's exciting that as many as four Louisiana teams could end up in the NCAA Tournament.
None of these teams will go to the Big Dance unless they win their conference tournaments. Second and third place teams in conferences like the Mid American and Sunbelt are never selected for March Madness. Centenary could go 28-0 in the regular season and reach the Mid American championship game but if they lose the automatic bid would go to the winner even if they were 0-28 in the regular season. Centenary might be a better team than a 16-13 team from the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12 or Big 10/11 but they would be relegated to the NIT.
Oh I know that. And they know that too. Sometimes it's not fair when a team in a minor conference does very well in the regular season only to lose in the conference tournament. I remember listening on the radio awhile back to sportswriters debate the merits of having conference tournaments and good points were made for and against. This argument was had during the NCAA Tournament back in 98 when, in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament, a Fairfield team that went 8-18 during the regular season went on a weekend tear and won the conference tournament. Anti-conference tourney guys protested that the MAAC bid should have gone to 22-6 Iona, not 11-18 Fairfield, and that Iona was truly the best the MAAC had to offer, Fairfield just got hot that one weekend. It is true, the chances of a team getting upset in the conference tourney are high, especially when you have a conference with no clear dominant team, such as the Southland and Mid-Con, where so much is on the line (ie., only the conference tournament champion goes to the NCAA's). But conferences often need the money that tournaments bring, and often the conference tourney title game is the only televised game that conference will have all year. Only two leagues don't have conference tourneys, the Ivy League and the Pac-10. But you could effectively argue that you know your getting the absolute best teams those two conferences have to offer when you play their champion in the NCAA's. Something to think about.
