March 5, 7, 9, 10 at Coastal Carolina
All-kenpom: Jeremy Atkinson, UNC Asheville (kPOY); Anthony Raffa, Coastal Carolina; Saah Nimley, Charleston Southern; John Brown, High Point; Donta Harper, Gardner-Webb.
The expansion of the Big South resulted in the conference splitting into divisions, which as is typical, has led to some stupid results regarding tournament seeding. VMI, despite an 8-8 record playing in the much easier North Division, gets a first-round bye. Even with that status, the Keydets will be an underdog in their first game. Five of the six highest-rated teams in the conference exist in the South, and the top four options for a title come from that side of the conference table.
All games are played in the shiny new HTC Center, which gives Coastal a bit of a boost in these calculations. Barclay Radebaugh and his runnin’, three-point shootin’ Charleston Southern Buccaneers are the low-probability favorite here.
Numbers listed are the probabilities of a team advancing to each round. Unfamiliar with log5? Here’s more than you want to know.
Qtrs Semis Final Champ 1S Char Southern 100 77.2 50.5 31.6 2S Gardner Webb 100 82.5 46.0 23.4 4S Coastal Carolina 81.2 46.9 25.8 14.1 3S UNC Asheville 91.1 57.6 29.6 13.3 1N High Point 100 47.5 22.6 10.6 2N VMI 100 40.4 11.0 3.5 3N Campbell 69.1 14.3 3.6 0.7 4N Radford 41.3 7.9 2.7 0.5 5N Liberty 18.8 5.6 1.6 0.5 5S Winthrop 58.7 14.9 6.1 1.8 6S Presbyterian 30.9 3.2 0.5 0.06 6N Longwood 8.9 2.0 0.2 0.02