NCAA Basketball: Predicting 2019-20 conference tournament winners
By Bryan Mauro
Outside of March Madness, Championship Week is some of the best basketball of the entire season. Who are the projected NCAA Basketball autobids?
The time has arrived for NCAA Basketball fans everywhere. The month of March where everyone will finally see who the 68 tournament teams will be. Then find out who is going to win the National Championship this year. The basketball in the month of March means more and the teams crank it up a notch. Every team wants to be playing it’s best basketball.
This month is known for the NCAA basketball tournament, but if a fan wanted to argue that conference championship time is the best time of year and the NCAA tournament is second, that is an argument that many would listen to. Conference tournament week is an important week for those teams on the bubble as they all have one final shot to improve their resume. It is also extremely important for those teams to not have a bid stolen by a team who otherwise would not have made the tournament.
A bid stealer is any team who wins their conference tournament, thereby securing their spot in the NCAA tournament. Every conference hands out an automatic qualifier in the NCAA tournament. Those 32 teams are going to be able to relax on Selection Sunday and wait for their matchups to announced. One other factor that adds to the intrigue of championship weeks is the potential for some of these schools to finally make their first NCAA tournament appearance.
In the one-bid leagues if the team who wins the regular season doesn’t win the conference tournament that team is then relegated to the NIT. With those 32 bids being up for grabs and the conference tournaments starting in just a few days, who can be expected to grab the auto-bid from each conference, as well as a team to watch out for.