NCAA Basketball: Predicting all 32 autobids for 2022 NCAA Tournament

Northeast

Winner: Wagner Seahawks

The NEC is destined to be one of the lower seeds in the tournament just like they are every year. However, if Wagner wins, they do have a chance to potentially climb to a 14 seed at the highest. This year in the Northeast it is a two-team race to the finish. There are no other teams other than Wagner or Bryant who I can see winning the league’s auto bid. The Seahawks have dominated the league from the beginning and were on a long winning streak in the conference up until about two weeks ago when they finally lost a game in Overtime.

Alex Morales is looking to become the conference player of the year two years in a row. The Seahawks rarely shoot from outside, and when they do, they don’t make many of them. However, Wagner is one of the most efficient teams in the country inside the arc and they are one of the nations best rebounding teams and get a lot of steals. That is always going to be a recipe for success. Wagner is hard to beat, and Morales carries them to a title.

Sleeper: Saint Francis Brooklyn Terriers

The conference tournament was crazy in the NEC last year. Heading into championship week last year I mentioned that no one was going to beat Bryant in the tournament, and someone did beat Bryant and it was Mount St. Mary’s. The Terriers are one of those teams that no one would expect to win this tournament and would be making their first NCAA tournament appearance in school history.

However, it is going to be an uphill climb to even make the feat a reality because I don’t know if St Francis Brooklyn has enough talent to beat one of the teams better than them. Anything can happen come championship week. The Terriers do have three good shooters who can potentially get white hot and win St Francis Brooklyn some games.

Ohio Valley

Winner: Murray State Racers

Murray State is picked to win the Ohio Valley again?  Stop me if you have heard that before. The Racers have dominated that conference for a long time, and this is their last hurrah as a member of the OVC as they, along with conference rival Belmont, take off for the MVC next season.

Heading into the conference tournament the Racers held one of the nation’s longest winning streaks and a sweep over rival Belmont. The Racers are already likely going to get an at-large into the tournament, but a win here is going to give them a good seed line and a better opponent. The Racers are one of the fastest teams in the country and one of the most efficient on offense as they shoot just under 50% from the floor, average 80 points per game and about 40 rebounds per game as well.

Murray State also has the two frontrunners for Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year in big man KJ Williams and guard Tevin Brown. Murray State is very good and is going to be a tough team to beat come NCAA tournament time. They can absolutely pull off an upset or two in March.

Sleeper: Tennessee State Tigers

Much like in the Northeast conference, I am only picking a team because I said I would at the start of the article. There is not much hope of anyone other than the top three teams winning the league. Murray State may not be overly motivated considering they likely make the tournament, but the Ohio Valley is typically a one-bid league so likely won’t leave anything to chance. The Tigers do have the ability to put points on the board fast as they are one of the better shooting teams from deep in the Ohio Valley.

They have two players who shoot over 35% from deep and they have a team with a ton of experience. Carlos Marshall is going to need to play well above his average all week for the Tigers to make a deep run, they just don’t likely have the firepower to knock off one of the top 2 in this tournament.