2012 Conference Tournament Predictions: Atlantic 10, Southland & MEAC

March 6, 2012 - by David Hess

Throughout the 2012 college basketball conference tournament season, we’ll be using the same projection engine that drives our college basketball season projections to predict the outcome of every conference tournament.

This post covers expected round-by-round advancement odds for the 2012 Atlantic 10 Bracket, the 2012 Southland Bracket, and the 2012 MEAC Bracket. For similar breakdowns of other conference tournaments, please see our 2012 college basketball conference tournament projections overview blog post.

2012 Atlantic 10 Tournament Round-By-Round Advancement Odds

Seed	Team	Quarter	Semi	Champ	Win
2	Saint Louis	100.00%	74.27%	53.59%	34.99%
1	Temple	100.00%	72.04%	49.11%	26.44%
3	Xavier	100.00%	58.94%	21.13%	9.63%
4	St Bonavent	100.00%	53.26%	20.29%	7.37%
5	St Josephs	72.88%	38.71%	15.96%	6.23%
6	Dayton	76.68%	36.13%	12.07%	5.15%
7	La Salle	67.46%	20.26%	10.69%	4.90%
8	U Mass	58.81%	18.20%	9.00%	3.19%
9	Duquesne	41.19%	9.76%	3.97%	1.10%
10	Richmond	32.54%	5.47%	1.94%	0.57%
12	Charlotte	27.12%	8.03%	1.68%	0.32%
11	Geo Wshgtn	23.32%	4.93%	0.58%	0.11%

It’s kind of funny how things shake out sometimes. Despite Xavier being ranked in the top 15 in the preseason AP and Coaches polls, we picked Temple to win the Atlantic 10 way back in November. However, now that the Owls have actually accomplished that task, and captured the #1 seed in the Atlantic 10, we’re not backing them to win the tournament. Instead, our ratings show that #2 seed Saint Louis is 1.5 to 2 points better on a neutral court, which is enough to make up for their slightly tougher draw.

However, the Billikens are by no means overwhelming favorites. They have only a 35% projected chance to win the automatic bid, and there are six other teams with at least a 5% shot. As it was during the regular season, the Atlantic 10 tournament appears to be wide open.

Throughout this conference tournament season, we have seen a distinct lack of value in any conference futures bets, as if our ratings and those of the sportsbooks were matched very closely. Finally, in this conference, we see one team where our projected tournament win odds are above their Vegas implied break-even rate. Unfortunately, that team is the biggest long shot of the bunch, Charlotte at +35000. That line means they’d need to win more than once every 351 tries in order to have a positive expected value. Our projections see them winning once every 313 times. Technically, that’s value, but most people won’t want to make a bet that they’re going to lose 99.7% of the time (and we don’t blame them).

2012 Southland Tournament Round-By-Round Advancement Odds

Seed	Team	Semi	Champ	Win
1	TX-Arlington	92.85%	66.15%	41.79%
3	Lamar	74.99%	51.77%	27.60%
2	Ste F Austin	69.47%	29.56%	11.66%
5	TX-San Ant	60.70%	21.73%	10.01%
4	McNeese St	39.30%	10.56%	3.78%
6	NW State	25.01%	10.94%	3.14%
7	Sam Hous St	30.53%	7.74%	1.77%
8	Nicholls St	7.15%	1.56%	0.25%

UT-Arlington finished at 15-1, three games clear of second place Stephen F Austin. They are pretty clearly the best team in the conference, but the Southland conference tournament structure contains no byes, which leads to a greater than 50% chance that the Southland will send someone other than its best team dancing.

In the end, it doesn’t matter too much. Texas-Arlington is projected as a #15 seed, and would have little chance at pulling off a win. Perhaps it’s better for the Southland to send an inferior team, who might end up slotted in the #16 vs #16 play-in game. A win there would bring in a little extra dough for the conference.

2012 MEAC Tournament Round-By-Round Advancement Odds

Seed	Team	Quarter	Semi	Champ	Win
2	Norfolk St	100.00%	82.43%	53.38%	31.04%
1	Savannah St	100.00%	74.60%	51.21%	29.80%
3	Delaware St	100.00%	68.81%	31.73%	15.31%
5	NC Central	78.68%	47.56%	20.35%	9.13%
4	Beth-Cook	90.50%	44.77%	16.08%	6.10%
6	Coppin State	74.36%	27.15%	9.07%	3.20%
9	Morgan St	59.27%	16.81%	7.94%	2.90%
8	Hampton	40.73%	8.59%	3.26%	0.92%
7	NC A&T	54.14%	10.23%	3.22%	0.83%
10	Howard	45.86%	7.34%	2.04%	0.46%
12	Maryland ES	21.32%	6.65%	1.11%	0.20%
11	Florida A&M	25.64%	4.04%	0.55%	0.08%
13	S Car State	9.50%	1.02%	0.05%	0.00%

Though Norfolk State finished a game behind Savannah State in the final standings, they won the only matchup between the two. If the league played a full round robin, perhaps the Spartans would have swept the series and ended up with the #1 seed. Even now, they are very slight favorites to capture the automatic bid.