Tonight, the Big South tournament tips off with 2012 tournament play officially beginning at 7 pm ET at cozy Cameron Hall in Lexington, Virginia. That means it’s time for the annual tradition of log5-style conference tournament predictions to begin.

For the uninitiated, I’ll be using Bill James’ log5 equation (it makes theoretical sense!) on the pythagorean rating from my system to give appropriate estimates on the chances of conference tournament participants advancing to each round.

Why do this? Mainly to know who should win, so that when they don’t win you can express the appropriate level of surprise to your friends and co-workers. (Last year’s most improbable occurrence as UConn winning the Big East tourney at 2.0%.) But we also use it because it works really well. Better than seeding anyway. Take a look at this chart based on last season’s results:

This chart shows the team given the best chance by log5 to claim a conference tournament won the title in 15 cases, while just eight top seeds ended up winning. How much does “knowing how to win” matter in a single-elimination format? Nobody can know for sure, but keep in mind we are using methods here that have no direct input for wins and losses and last season it outperformed a method (seeding) that is based entirely on wins and losses.

To me, it’s another piece of evidence that best predictor of future success is not whether a team has quality wins or bad losses in the past, it’s how it’s played in the past. A team can play poorly in wins and great in losses and that’s what captured in this analysis. Follow along the next two weeks and we’ll summarize how the system did this season on Selection Sunday. Maybe the seeds will outperform log5 this season.

Without further ado, let’s get to our first contestants. The following five tournaments start on either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Listed are the chances of each team advancing to a particular round.

Big South

“The most exclusive event of the season”
Feb. 27, 29, March 1, 3
First round/finals at higher seed, quarters/semis at UNC Asheville

                   Qtrs  Semis  Final  Champ
 1 UNC Asheville    100   82.0   61.9   48.6
 2 Coastal Carolina 100   77.0   49.2   20.5
 4 Charleston S.    100   72.9   25.7   13.1
 3 Campbell         100   70.4   31.4   10.1
 6 Winthrop         100   29.6   11.2    2.3
 8 High Point      73.0   14.3    6.3    2.2
 5 Liberty          100   27.1    4.9    1.4
 7 VMI             77.3   19.6    7.4    1.2
 9 Gardner Webb    27.0    3.7    1.3    0.5
10 Radford         22.7    3.4    0.8    0.08

After the pair of first round games tonight, quarterfinal and semifinal action moves to Kimmel Arena, home of top-seeded UNC Asheville. Presumably it’s not named after Jimmy, but it only seats 3200, making this what I’m assuming is the smallest venue to host the bulk of a conference tournament in 2012. Eddie Biedenbach’s club has been dominant offensively, posting 1.14 points per possession in conference play. On top of that, they play an uptempo style. Not VMI-fast, but fast enough. Expect high scoring games when the Bulldogs are involved.

 

Horizon League

“Like the Human League, but with a double-bye”
Feb. 28, March 2,3,6
First round/finals at higher seed, quarters/semis at Valparaiso

                   Qtrs  Semis  Final  Champ
 2 Cleveland St.    100    100   70.0   44.2
 1 Valparaiso       100    100   62.3   32.0
 3 Detroit         89.9   53.4   18.2    8.7
 5 Butler          82.1   44.8   17.9    5.8
 4 Milwaukee       90.7   47.7   18.4    5.7
 6 Youngstown St.  66.0   29.7    7.9    2.4
 7 Green Bay       34.0   14.6    3.6    1.0 
 8 Wright St.      17.9    5.9    1.2    0.2
10 Loyola Chicago  10.1    2.3    0.2    0.02
 9 Illinois Chicago 9.3    1.6    0.2    0.01

Valpo was the extremely unlikely regular-season champ, but they’re not the favorite despite earning home games for the duration of the event. Somehow Cleveland State has the best chances, even while enduring a five-game losing streak late in the season. Beloved Butler finished in a three-way tie for third but ended up on the wrong end of the tiebreaker, giving them a much more losable game in the first round against Wright State, inhibiting their shot at getting back to the NCAA tournament.

 

Atlantic Sun

“We’ll make our best team play on the road”
Feb. 29-March 3
All games at Mercer

                 Semis  Final  Champ
1 Belmont         96.4   84.9   62.3
2 Mercer          86.1   65.4   26.4
3 USC Upstate     68.3   23.2    5.3
4 E. Tenn. St.    63.9   10.2    3.4
6 Fla. Gulf Coast 31.7    6.5    0.9
5 North Florida   36.1    3.7    0.8
7 Lipscomb        13.9    4.9    0.6
8 Jacksonville     3.6    1.2    0.2

As a fan, I favor the traditional bracket over the stepladder approach, so I applaud the A-Sun. But for whatever reason, the conference has chosen to play its tournament at a pre-determined campus site. I’m sure they have their reasons, but the result is that for the second consecutive season, the conference’s dominant team may have to win a road game to snag the automatic bid. It’s an unfair parting gift for the Bruins who move to the OVC next season.

 

Ohio Valley Conference

“Hoping somebody beats Murray!”
Feb. 29-March 3
All games at Nashville, TN

                   Qtrs  Semis  Final  Champ
1 Murray St.        100    100   85.7   68.9
2 Tennessee St.     100    100   62.7   18.3
4 Tenn. Tech        100   64.7   10.8    4.9
3 Morehead St.      100   49.4   18.3    3.7
7 Jacksonville St. 55.3   29.2   11.6    2.6
6 Austin Peay      44.7   21.3    7.4    1.4
5 SE Missouri St.  59.2   22.9    2.6    0.9
8 E. Kentucky      40.8   12.4    2.4    0.7

With the games in Nashville, Tennessee State gets half of normal home-court advantage in these calculations. I don’t think the OVC would mind getting a surprise winner here, especially since there’s the possibly that the champ would go to Dayton and have a winnable tourney game. Despite the double-bye, the bracket isn’t particularly kind to the Racers, but they’re still the overwhelming favorite.

 

West Coast Conference

“Crushing dreams of lower seeds since 2003”
Feb. 29-March 3, March 5
All games at Las Vegas, NV

                Rd2   Qtrs  Semis  Final  Champ
1 St. Mary's    100    100    100   78.3   36.2
2 Gonzaga       100    100    100   57.1   35.0
3 BYU           100    100   91.6   42.3   24.4
4 Loyola Mmt.   100    100   57.8   13.2    2.7
5 San Francisco 100   78.4   37.8    8.2    1.6
6 San Diego     100   63.7    6.3    0.5    0.08
9 Santa Clara  53.6   12.2    2.6    0.2    0.01
7 Pepperdine    100   36.3    2.1    0.1    0.01
8 Portland     46.4    9.4    1.8    0.1    0.01

I’m sure I say it every year at this time, but I don’t like the WCC’s stepladder format. When your conference is going to have at-large worthy teams, there’s no sense in protecting them in your conference tourney. Go to the standard bracket and invite some chaos. Plus, the event now drags out for six days. As it is, wake me up when the semis begin and St. Mary’s and Gonzaga see their first action.