Let’s conclude the look at November’s eight-team tournaments with the two that start on Thursday, providing alternative programming for football.
The 76 Classic gives you three chances to judge whether Saint Louis is a legitimate at-large threat. However, unless you like a slow-tempo, defensive-minded team, you will want to keep your viewing options open while the Billikens play. Rick Majerus’s teams refuse to allow fast breaks and defend the three-point line at all costs, and this year’s version is no different. Amazingly, SLU’s first three opponents have made just 34% of their twos, and if that continues, I have the Billikens going 30-0 heading into the A-10 tournament.
Semis Final Champ Saint Louis 92.6 56.1 35.7 New Mexico 79.7 53.1 25.8 Villanova 88.4 41.5 23.8 Washington St. 51.2 20.8 6.8 Oklahoma 48.8 19.3 6.2 Santa Clara 20.3 6.9 1.4 UC Riverside 11.6 1.5 0.2 Boston College 7.4 1.0 0.1
The Old Spice Classic is another tourney that features a Big Ten team as the favorite. Minnesota actually has faced a decent early schedule against (104) Bucknell, (124) South Dakota State, and (94) Fairfield and they won all three by double-digits, though all were at home. Reasonable chances exist for sleeper runs by Indiana State and the aforementioned Stags.
Semis Final Champ Minnesota 83.1 65.2 46.9 Dayton 71.3 43.3 19.5 Indiana St. 67.9 21.4 10.0 Fairfield 55.0 26.3 9.9 Arizona St. 45.0 19.4 6.5 Wake Forest 28.7 11.0 2.9 DePaul 16.9 7.4 2.6 Texas Tech 32.1 6.0 1.8