12 Conference Tournament Championships Saturday

Saturday brings us 12 conference tournament championship games, starting as early as 10:00 AM CST, and running well past midnight central time. I will highlight the top 3 championship games to watch for our pool, and after today is over we'll have a good idea on which people can win the pool this year. Over the last 48 hours I have been keeping the standings current, everything is now accurate through all of Friday's action. I normally try to post 3-5 standings updates throughout this Saturday, as people will slowly start to be eliminated from the Top 4 spots and we'll see significant separation with the pool contenders. While almost all the championship games today are important, below are the top 3 that could move the top half of our pool standings around early this afternoon. 🏀

America East

This will be the first conference tournament championship game played today, tipping off at 10:00 AM CST. The top 4 people in our pool are all on (1) Bryant who will be playing against (3) Maine. A few people in the top 15 are on bonus point pick Maine, which if they win, will ensure the top 4 don't move up and gives everyone else a chance to catch up. This is a great first game for that reason alone. Now on to the bad news for most of the pool, Bryant is a 7.5-point favorite, so I would not expect Maine to pull out a victory.

MEAC

In this conference, 29 of 30 people are still alive, sorry B.I. with that (4) Howard pick, and we have a nice split between (1) Norfolk State vs. (2) South Carolina State. This is our first mention of the MEAC in the 2025 blog, but we can see why as it's been all chalk and not really impacting the pool. Like the America East, the top 4 people all have Norfolk State, which means a South Carolina State win will allow the rest of the pack to catch up. I expect this to be a close game as Norfolk State is only a 1.5-point favorite, this should be a fun one.

Mountain West

The 3rd conference tournament championship game I chose is (2) Colorado State vs. (5) Boise State. The top 6 people in our pool are already eliminated and in our top 15 we have 4 people on bonus point pick Boise State. This game has the biggest potential to bunch up our standings, this is what I root for in the pool every year. Vegas has Boise State as a 1.5-point favorite, which is wild for a 5-seed to be a favorite, but they have been hot towards the end of the regular season and obviously in this conference tournament. A Boise State win, along with some other morning and early afternoon games breaking the right way, Cox, Pope's Blessing, Heffron and Sully could make a late run.

As time allows throughout the day today, I'll post a few blog entries highlighting the conference tournament championship games to keep an eye on from a pool perspective. It doesn't make sense to hit on games later this evening because they may not matter depending on how the afternoon goes. This weekend is typically one of the more fun weekends in college basketball with all the marquee matchups, Cinderella stories, bid stealers, buzzer beaters and season long storylines coming to an end for many teams. Enjoy the games! 😍