Conference title check-ins: Final days of regular season

As I go through the Power Four and Group of Seven, just remember that incredible upsets do happen — ain’t no rule says an SMU can’t beat NC State — but for the sake of both simplicity and realism, I’m going to set aside the more remote possibilities here. And for the record, splitting a regular season conference title is silly; all conferences do tiebreakers to determine tournament seeding, so it’s not like we don’t know who the real winners here are.

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AAC

After six teams entered the final two weeks of the 2023-24 season with a shot at the regular season conference title, UTSA road-running away (I’m sorry) with a one-loss conference record is quite boring. The only game left between two teams with winning records is Tulane @ Tulsa, whose outcome almost certainly will not change the conference seeding no matter who wins.

ACC

Assuming that aforementioned tied-for-last place SMU doesn’t find a way to beat provisional No. 1-seed NC State, there is nothing Notre Dame can do to get the ACC’s top spot. The main point of intrigue here is Florida State @ Duke, where the winner gets a double-bye. Should the Noles win, they get the No. 3 seed in Greensboro, meaning they’ll likely face the Blue Devils again for the chance to get curbstomped by Notre Dame in the semis. Duke winning would move it to the Wolfpack’s side of the bracket, where I’m sure they’d much rather be.

A-10

After securing its first conference title since 1990 last year, Richmond won a second-straight A-10 championship this season. The only notable result in yesterday’s regular season finales was Rhode Island losing at home to the conference’s third-worst team, costing the Rams a double bye in the conference tournament.

Big 12

TCU goes to Waco tomorrow night to play Baylor with the winner taking the outright regular season title. The winner faces in the semis whoever comes out of the Kansas State/West Virginia part of the bracket, while the loser gets the Oklahoma State/Utah part of the bracket and a much tougher opponent in the quarters in (probably) Iowa State.

The matchup between the Wildcats and Cyclones tomorrow only determines which of K-State and West Virginia gets a double bye and which has to play (likely) BYU/UCF.

Big East

This is easily the worst Big East season since Paige Bueckers was a freshman. UConn and Creighton are a combined 30-0 against the rest of the conference, a grouping which very likely includes zero March Madness teams. Even if Villanova can beat the Bluejays today, the tournament seeding won’t change.

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Big Ten

If you’re reading this article, then you probably either watched last night’s Battle For LA or you checked the score immediately upon waking and saw that USC took the outright conference title. Ohio State and Maryland play head-to-head, but even a win wouldn’t move the Terps ahead in the standings because of the teams’ fourth-level tiebreaker. The winner of Michigan @ Illinois takes the No. 5 seed, with the loser dropping to a tougher matchup (for Illinois, it’s Iowa, and for Michigan it would be Indiana).

Ivy League

Columbia has already locked up the No. 1 seed in the Ivy League tournament, the Lions’ first true conference championship (again, meaning no ties where they lost the tiebreakers and weren’t the top seed) in school history; it will be their first outright conference title if they can manage to not lose to 3-10 Cornell on Saturday. Other than that minor difference, nothing about the conference tournament setup can change.

Mountain West

UNLV has locked up a fourth-straight conference title. The upper half of the bracket is also effectively locked in.

MVC

The Missouri Valley is this year’s Chaos Conference. Five teams are all within one game of first place, but there’s only one more matchup between two of them: Missouri State and Illinois State on Thursday. Assuming no major upsets in the other games this week, either the Bears either take that game and win the conference title on tiebreakers, or they lose and Murray State gets its first conference title since 2008, when it was still in the OVC.

The MVC conference tournament in a week and a half is going to be very interesting.

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SEC

What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss? Unless Georgia Amoore can drop 50 against South Carolina today, the answer for one of the Gamecocks or Longhorns is going to be “a conference championship.” Both teams are 14-1 in conference, with the one defeat being a road loss to the other, heading into their final SEC game. If they both win (South Carolina hosting Kentucky, Texas hosting Florida), the SEC’s tiebreakers tiebreakers mean a coin toss is required to determine the No. 1 seed in Greenville. (The ACC and Big 12 would also require a coin toss in this scenario, while the Big Ten would go to full season strength of schedule and finally NET ranking as tiebreakers instead.) Dawn Staley rightfully is not pleased.

Besides South Carolina-Kentucky, the other game of note is Alabama @ Oklahoma; winner is seeded fifth and gets Kentucky in the quarters, loser sixth and gets LSU.

WCC

We have NET rankings as far back as 2018 thanks to warrennolan.com, but you don’t need to look at the hard data to see that this is the WCC’s worst season by far in over a decade. Gonzaga takes its third-straight regular season conference championship, its 19th in the past 21 years.