NCAA Basketball: Ranking all 32 conference tournaments for 2018-19

Decent Conferences, Little Intrigue

These conferences play relatively good basketball, so the games will all be decently entertaining. However, due to a lack of overwhelming storylines or exciting matchups, they are probably not worth watching over some of the other conference tournaments.

30) Ivy League (March 16-17)

I am going to come right out and say it. I hate the fact that the Ivy League Tournament is only a three game affair. I understand the desire for a conference to want the auto-bid to go to one of the best teams, but in this case, I may actually prefer the Ivy revert to the old method of giving it to the Regular Season Champion.

This year, the Ivy League has three teams within one game of each other at the top of the standings, but that only guarantees two good games: The 2-seed vs. 3-seed matchup in the semis, and the Tournament Final. With this game being played in New Haven, on the 1-seeded Yale’s home floor, I am just going to go ahead and assume they will win. It’s as close to a guaranteed a Jerome pick as you will have in March.

29) Southland Conference (March 13-17)

This tournament may have landed higher on this list, but the dismissal of two of Abiline Christian’s better players has left Sam Houston State as a heavy favorite. Not only the Bearkats locked up the one seed, they only lost one game, to Lamar in Beaumont. That said, the Bearkats are 5-1 in their last six games, with three wins coming in overtime and a fourth by a single point.

While Sam Houston may look vulnerable, they also only have to win two games to take home the auto-bid.  Who knows, maybe Stephen F Austin can save us all with an surprising run to its fifth NCAA Tournament appearance in six years. Outside of that, Sam Houston St should be the team we all root for to win, as boring as that would be.

28) Western Athletic Conference (March 13-16)

Admittedly, while I enjoy watching New Mexico State play, there is very little excitement for me when it comes to the WAC Tournament. The Grand Canyon hype has grown stale, Utah Valley is distant second-best, and Cal Baptist can’t play, so there will be no Lancer love. New Mexico State just received a vote in the AP Poll, but that isn’t enough to add much intrigue to this event.

The lack of intrigue is made worse by the fact that there aren’t any true rivalries in the conference. Sure, all teams want to win the tournament and go dancing, but the lack of real animosity makes for a very boring affair, even when the top of the conference is more competitive.