March 12, 14-16. All games at Las Vegas, Nev.

All-kenpom: Chris Udofia, Denver (kPOY); Royce O’Neal, Denver; Daniel Mullings, New Mexico State; Chase Hallam, Denver; Kyle Barone, Idaho.

It’s been a disappointing season for Joe Scott in one sense. The five-time coach of the slowest team in basketball has now gone two consecutive seasons without capturing that honor. This season it appears Jim Molinari’s Western Illinois squad is going to beat out Denver for the slowpoke crown. In other respects, it’s been a very good season for Joe Scott. His team has shredded most of its WAC opponents, and the Pioneers’ most recent win was a 78-54 humiliation of conference-leader Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs along with New Mexico State are legitimate threats here, but DU has to be considered the favorite. A special shout-out goes to Utah State, who also has a much-better-than-Liberty shot here. They lost two of their three best players to season-ending injuries on January 17. Their ranking then was 131. Their ranking now is 109. So quit your complaining next time your team is hit with an injury. The Aggies sucked it up and have performed quite respectably since that catastrophic day.

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
 2 Denver          100  93.3  73.5  56.3
 1 La. Tech        100  90.0  57.6  20.7
 3 New Mexico St.  100  75.4  21.7  11.4
 5 Utah St.        100  62.4  27.9   7.8
 4 UT Arlington    100  37.6  12.7   2.5
 6 Idaho           100  24.6   3.2   0.9
10 Seattle        63.0   4.9   1.3   0.2
 9 UTSA           65.2   7.7   1.5   0.1
 7 Texas St.      37.0   1.8   0.3   0.05
 8 San Jose St.   34.8   2.3   0.3   0.01