Conference Tournament Update

I had a comment in one of my articles that said the SCIAC has moved from 4 teams to 5 teams in their conference tournament. Sure enough, they have! So, it’s probably a good time to document the conference tournament formats. Please note that all tournaments are single-elimination.

ASC

Thanks to Commissioner David Flores, we were told that all five eligible teams in the ASC will make their tournament. The 4 and 5 seeds will play each other in a play-in match (for lack of a better name). Then the 4/5 seed will play seed 1 and the 2 and 3 seeds will play. Winners go to the championship. As they have always done, the regular season champion will host these matches.

C2C

The C2C is taking 6 seeds this year with the top 2 seeds getting a bye. Since this conference doesn’t play conference matches (the only conference to do this), the seeding is determined by NPI. In the past, they used the Massey Rankings. Seed 6 will play seed 3 while seed 5 will play seed 4. The 3/6 winner will play the 2^nd seed while the 4/5 winner will play the 1^st seed. The winners then meet in the championship. Christopher Newport will be the host for this year’s championship as they rotate duties each year.

NWC

I have not seen any changes from the NWC this season. The regular season champion will host and they will take 4 teams. Seeds 1 and 4 will play while seeds 2 and 3 will play. Winners meet in the championship.

SCAC

The SCAC is running two divisions this year with 11 teams total. They will take the top 3 from each division (Blue and Gold) and then 2 additional wildcards from either division. I reached out to the SCAC but didn’t get word back in time for this article. My assumption is that the two wildcards will be determined by conference winning percentage. Remember that the divisions are unbalanced as are the schedules. With 8 teams making the tournament, that would mean Wild Card 2 would play the #1 seed with the best winning percentage. Wild Card 1 would play the other #1 seed. I then assume Blue Seed 2 would play Gold Seed 3 while Blue Seed 3 would play Gold Seed 2. That gives us four teams left in the bracket. My final assumption is that the Blue Seed 1 (or Wild Card team) would then play the winner of the Gold Seed 2/Blue Seed 3 match. The reverse would be true for the Gold Seed 1 (or Wild Card team). That leaves two for the championship match. Whew. This year, the SCAC Tournament is hosted by Austin College as they rotate each year.

SCIAC

The SCIAC has changed things up by, yes, taking 5 teams instead of 4 this season. They will work just like the ASC with the 4 and 5 seeds playing first. The winner of that match would play the first seed. Seeds 2 and 3 would play in their semi-final match. The championship would be between the two winners. The host for each match is the team with the highest seed. There is no single location where all of the matches are played in the SCIAC.

I will update if anything is wrong above.