March 12-16. All games at Garland, Texas.

All-kenpom: Malcolm Miller, Southern (kPOY); Fred Sturdivant, Texas Southern; Omar Strong, Texas Southern; Derick Beltran, Southern; Ray Penn, Texas Southern.

There is only one outcome to the SWAC tournament that would make the nation happy, and that is Grambling winning three games to get their ticket punched for the NCAA tournament. There’s about a 1-in-180,000 chance of that. I’m not going to predict it will happen even though I feel like Grambling has been kind of a sleeping giant this season, especially since at least two SWAC members weren’t even aware that Grambling would be participating. Texas Southern and Southern dominated the league making this the rare season that the conference had two teams that could be somewhat competitive during buy-game season. Sadly, Texas Southern is not eligible for the postseason, which means Southern is a huge favorite here. Also note that the first round features games between the following seeds: 2 vs. 5, 3 vs. 4, and 6 vs. 7. That’s an unusual approach.

Numbers listed are the probabilities of a team advancing to each round. Unfamiliar with log5? Here’s more than you want to know.

              Semis Final Champ
1 Southern      100  92.1  81.1
2 Jackson St.  67.3  42.8   8.3
3 Alcorn St.   59.7  27.4   4.0
6 Alabama A&M  95.7   7.9   3.2
5 Alabama St.  32.7  15.1   1.7
4 Prairie View 40.3  14.8   1.6
7 Grambling     4.3   0.02  0.0006