I’m using my ratings and Bill James’ log5 formula to estimate the chances of each participating team advancing to a particular round of its conference tournament.

Big Sky Conference
Location: Weber State
Dates: March 13-15
Chance of bid thief: zero
Current kPOY: Davion Berry, Weber State

Projections:

               Semis  Final  Champ
1 Weber St.      100   76.9   52.4
4 Montana       61.3   31.3   13.7
2 North Dakota  52.7   24.9    8.7
6 N. Colorado   54.6   20.1    8.4
3 N. Arizona    45.4   21.6    8.0
5 Portland St.  38.7   15.7    5.5
7 Sacramento St 47.3    9.6    3.3

The Big Sky features some big-time parity. Weber State won the conference with a 14-6 record, and even six losses was good enough to win the league by two games. The teams in America’s most exclusive tournament field (from the league that plays the nation’s longest conference schedule) are ranked between 175 and 265, so it’s almost anyone’s tournament. The conference champ gets rewarded with both home-court advantage and a first-round bye and that gives Weber a nice boost here. But there are going to be six competitive matchups in this event and it wouldn’t be a huge shock if the home team got upset.