This is the final installment of the Monte Carlo style conference previews. The following six conferences are the most up for grabs. I am writing this while listening to a live stream of the South Carolina State\/Hawaii game which tipped at approximately 1:45 AM ET, which is to say I was barely conscious and that is reflected in the quality of this post. Games played on Thursday night are not included in the calculations, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. Sometime in February, I\u2019ll do a review of the predictions and perhaps we\u2019ll all share a hearty laugh. <\/p>\n
6. NEC (Predicted champ: Robert Morris, 46%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Oh, admit it, you thought you\u2019d see Wagner as the favorite here. (Or just admit you haven\u2019t given two thoughts about the NEC race.) Wagner is actually rated better than RMU but currently trails the Colonials by a game in the conference race. In addition, the teams only meet once in conference play which works against the Seahawks chance of overtaking Robert Morris.<\/p>\n
Robert Morris 4576\nWagner 4392\nLong Island 728\nC. Connecticut 177\nQuinnipiac 86\nSacred Heart 35\nSt. Francis NY 4\nSt. Francis PA 1\n<\/pre>\n5. West Coast (BYU, 39%)<\/b><\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t include the Gaels\u2019 impressive statement last night in pummeling BYU. Saint Mary\u2019s was expected to win, but the nature of the victory surely levels the odds of the top three teams, who combined have a 99.98% chance of winning the uber top-heavy WCC.<\/p>\n
BYU 3931\nGonzaga 3275\nSt. Mary's 2792\nSan Francisco 2\nLoyola Marymount 0\n<\/pre>\n4. Big Sky (Weber State, 37%)<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019m surprised to see that UNC has a legit chance to take the Big Sky considering they\u2019re one of the youngest teams in the country, and they lost to an NAIA school by 13. They have a slew of competitive losses to quality opponents, though. <\/p>\n
Weber St. 3671\nMontana 3059\nE. Washington 2010\nN. Colorado 1119\nPortland St. 136\nSacramento St. 4\nN. Arizona 0\n<\/pre>\n3. America East (Vermont, 35%)<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019m rooting for Maine, just because I can. But also because they\u2019ve never been to the NCAA tournament. That is true of Northwestern, of course, but you know about them, and they play on TV. Maine is never on national TV and basically nobody outside of Maine cares about them. They have one of the best freshmen in the country in Justin Edwards, and he\u2019s so good he\u2019ll probably transfer soon and eventually play in a Final Four like one-time Maine freshman Rick Carlisle did in the early \u201880s. But maybe Edwards can help the Black Bears end seven decades of frustration this year. <\/p>\n
Vermont 3484\nStony Brook 2138\nMaine 1663\nAlbany 1565\nBoston U. 776\nNew Hampshire 374\n<\/pre>\n2. Big 12 (Kansas, 33%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Much like with the NEC, I don\u2019t think too many people expected Kansas to be the favorite here, what with the loss to Davidson. But the Big 12 is clearly the conference race most up for grabs. Not only do you have the trio of conference power brokers, but Kansas State and Texas have reasonable possibilities here as well.<\/p>\n
Kansas 3312\nMissouri 3263\nBaylor 2086\nTexas 723\nKansas St. 567\nOklahoma 31\nOklahoma St. 11\nTexas A&M 4\nIowa St. 3\n<\/pre>\n1. WAC (New Mexico St., 32%)<\/b><\/p>\n
New Mexico State\u2019s humiliation at the hands of New Mexico on Wednesday continued a rough non-conference performance for the WAC. The benefit here is that the conference race is wide open. <\/p>\n
New Mexico St. 3195\nUtah St. 2881\nNevada 2195\nIdaho 1466\nFresno St. 226\nHawaii 33\nLouisiana Tech 4\nSan Jose St. 0\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the final installment of the Monte Carlo style conference previews. The following six conferences are the most up for grabs. I am writing this while listening to a live stream of the South Carolina State\/Hawaii game which tipped at approximately 1:45 AM ET, which is to say I was barely conscious and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}