2012 Conference Tournament Predictions: MAAC & Southern

March 2, 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 MAAC Bracket and the 2012 Southern Bracket. For similar breakdowns of other conference tournaments, please see our 2012 college basketball conference tournament projections overview blog post.

2012 MAAC Tournament Round-By-Round Advancement Odds

Seed	Team	Quarter	Semi	Champ	Win
1	Iona	100.00%	94.95%	72.72%	55.15%
2	Loyola-MD	100.00%	79.73%	45.32%	15.49%
3	Manhattan	100.00%	72.28%	39.57%	13.29%
4	Fairfield	100.00%	73.95%	22.77%	12.57%
6	Siena	100.00%	27.72%	9.10%	1.42%
5	Rider	100.00%	26.05%	3.23%	1.00%
7	Niagara	81.75%	19.58%	5.97%	0.77%
8	Marist	74.60%	4.80%	1.26%	0.32%
9	St Peters	25.40%	0.25%	0.02%	0.00%
10	Canisius	18.25%	0.69%	0.05%	0.00%

Favorite Iona is just below the current at large cut line in the latest Bracket Project update. They may be on the bubble now, but any loss in the MAAC tournament will be considered a bad one, meaning they almost certainly need to emerge victorious in order to go dancing. Luckily, they’ve got a bye to the quarterfinals and a near-bye to the semifinals — they’ll face either Marist or St. Peter’s in their first game, whom they went a combined 4-0 against with a 21-point average margin of victory.

The MAAC is one of the most competitive conference tournaments in the second tier, with three teams having championship probabilities in the 12% to 16% range. Beyond that the outlook is bleak, with the six lowest seeds having a combined 3.5% chance to win the tournament.

2012 Southern Conference Tournament Round-By-Round Advancement Odds

Seed	Team	Quarter	Semi	Champ	Win
S1	Davidson	100.00%	89.77%	80.33%	63.29%
S4	Col Charlestn	74.25%	58.67%	36.13%	13.16%
S2	Wofford	100.00%	74.17%	41.23%	12.90%
S3	GA Southern	64.02%	39.12%	7.63%	3.22%
N2	Elon	100.00%	43.93%	5.10%	1.62%
S5	Furman	57.54%	7.05%	3.73%	1.42%
N3	W Carolina	72.30%	22.12%	8.21%	1.36%
N1	NC-Grnsboro	100.00%	26.87%	8.45%	1.13%
N5	App State	25.75%	14.46%	5.32%	0.89%
N6	Chattanooga	35.98%	16.95%	1.76%	0.52%
N4	Samford	42.46%	3.18%	1.44%	0.45%
S6	Citadel	27.70%	3.71%	0.67%	0.04%

This is reminiscent of the old Big 12 North/South divide — Texas used to be at a disadvantage to Kansas because the South’s superiority meant more chances for the Longhorns to trip up. The Southern Conferences takes it to the next level, though, with the top four most likely champs all coming from the South.

Davidson is the clear class of the conference, and own a signature win over — hey, what a coincidence — Kansas. Out of all the conference tournament predicted winners we’ve posted so far, the Wildcats have the best chance of winning. There’s still a greater than 1 in 3 chance that another team represents the SoCon in the NCAA tournament, which would be a shame.