Bracketology 2024: Eastern Kentucky, Colgate, and James Madison among favorites at the start of Champ Week

Atlantic Sun March 4-5, 7, 10

In the last 10 NCAA tournaments, the four conferences highlighted in this piece have eight wins. The Atlantic Sun which gets underway on Monday has accounted for five of them, three of them thanks to Florida Gulf Coast, most notably the two in 2013 that saw the birth of Dunk City and catapulted head coach Andy Enfield to the job at USC. Mercer followed that up in 2014 by knocking off Duke in the first round.

In 2019, Liberty knocked off Mississippi State as a No. 12 seed, giving the Atlantic Sun its fifth NCAA Tournament win in seven years. Liberty’s back-to-back appearances in 2019 and 2021 also gave the league its best seeding in the last 10 years with a No. 12 seed followed by a No. 13 seed in 2021.

In terms of the outlook for the A-Sun and the seeding its representative might get this year. Besides the caveat that goes with every league that it also depends on what happens in other leagues, the A-Sun auto bid is likely to land in the 13-16 range. Even though Eastern Kentucky leads the league and is likely to be the top seed heading into the tournament, third-place Lipscomb is the team with the best NET ranking in the conference.

The biggest reasons for that are their win over Florida State and Eastern Kentucky’s quad 4 win total which is all but two of them. I think because a No. 15 seed is the best-case scenario, no matter who wins the tournament.